How to Lift During The Season to Stay Fast, Powerful, and Healthy

Most athletes make one of two huge mistakes when they are in-season:

1. They stop lifting altogether

2. They lift the same exact way they did in the offseason

In-season, the goal is to maintain and make small, incremental gains. Training hard makes the body tired, and tired bodies aren’t good for gameday. So, the goal of in-season training is to maintain strength and speed (i.e., not get weaker and slower), and even to make small improvements.

Most athletes make one of the two huge mistakes listed above, and as a result are weaker and slower at the end of the season than the start. That increases injury risk and reduces the level you can play at.

Athletes absolutely should train in-season, but it has to look different than training in the off-season.

To start, the lifts themselves should be the same. Don’t do brand new exercises you’ve never done before.

With that said, go heavy (like 85% of 1 rep max and higher—REALLY heavy), and go hard, but only do 3-6 reps TOTAL per workout. That could be 3 sets of 2, for instance. That way, your body still gets the signal to stay strong, but it doesn’t get pounded with a ton of reps, leaving it tired for practices and games.

Once per week, it’s OK to go hard and get after it a bit more. Ideally, this happens a day or two after a game, and at LEAST three days before the next game. For high school football players, Sunday or Monday is a good day to get a more “normal” lift in (but still fewer total reps than in the off-season), and Wednesday should be the maintenance lift described above.

If you don’t remember anything else, remember this: lifting too much is just as bad, if not worse, than not lifting at all during your season. Both scenarios make you more likely to get hurt, and probably make you weaker and slower at the end of the season than you were at the start.