Using the summer to prepare for fall sports: A St. Thomas More coach’s perspective
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — If you are a high school athlete, summer is a great opportunity to prepare for fall sports. Most coaches emphasize the importance of mastering the fundamentals. If you’re going to play baseball or softball, you need to work on hitting, catching and throwing. If you’re a basketball player, dribbling and shooting are a must.
Strength is a fundamental quality essential to an athlete’s success that is foundational to improving most if not all fundamentals of specific sports, and the summer is a great time to get stronger. Something as general and simple as performing push-ups, if done regularly, will reap positive strength results and contribute to sport-specific results. Why? Because strength is foundational to hitting a ball hard and far, jumping high, changing directions and running fast. Can you think of any sports where those types of abilities are essential to success? I’d say just about all of them!
A solid general strength training program for a high school athlete will consider exercises that cover the whole body. Core movements that focus on pressing (like the bench press) and pulling (pulldowns) for the upper body and squatting (like barbell back squats) and hinging (deadlifts) at the hips for the lower body will help build a good base of strength for the athlete. These are fundamental movements to build strength and ought to be learned as a foundation of a strength training program.
Implementing the FIT Principle is a good way to set up a strength program for the summer. FIT stands for Frequency, Intensity and Time. How often (frequent) are you going to do things during summer break? I recommend about three to four days per week.
Once your frequency is established then how hard (intensity) are you going to do things? For high school athletes building strength, I recommend three sets of ten reps for the summer using a heavy enough weight that you struggle on the last couple reps of each set. If you can do all three sets of ten reps with a certain weight, then you should increase the weight (intensity) in the next workout. Keeping a journal of the weights that are used for each training session is essential to celebrating the progress that will occur over your summer.
Finally, how long (time) will each workout take? Expect 30 to 45 minutes of time for you to finish a strength training session.
You may already have a weight lifting program that will be provided for you at your school this summer. But if a high school athlete is going to be strength training on their own for the break, then I hope these fundamentals can be a resource to help you achieve you goals and be better prepared for your upcoming fall sport.
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