“We gotta get these guys stronger—put some mass on these guys before the season starts,” says Coach David. “How can we do that this close to the season?”
In a perfect world, weight training begins in the off-season, just a few weeks after the season ends. Athletes are well conditioned, with significant muscle endurance and aerobic stamina from playing games each week and practicing throughout the season. Post season is when athletes benefit the most from heavy strength and mass building weight training for about 8 – 12 weeks but often lose some agility and speed. Putting athletes, especially young student athletes, through heavy weight training and rigorous explosive exercises is counterproductive during pre-season because there just isn’t enough time for the students to recover. Recovery is key. Without time to recover the student will be sluggish and unable to exhibit peak performance.
So what’s the plan? The plan is to spend the first 2 – 3 weeks conditioning the team for weight training during the second half of the 6 week camp. Although the kids won’t have time to spend 8 – 12 weeks building huge muscle mass, they will benefit from moderate weight training and still be able to gain significant strength without compromising their agility and speed. That means 20 minutes of isometric exercise such as wall holds and shoulder raises followed by an hour of light-weight athletic movements like air squats, push-ups, standing rows, plyometric hops, and resistance bands to name a few. The team will work upper body one day and lower body the next to give time for those muscle groups to rest 24 hours before working them again. The muscles need a break in order to recover and grow. Athletes grow when they rest.
The goal is to gain 1lb to 1 ½ lbs. per week of lean muscle mass over the course of the next ten weeks. During the 4 weeks after training camp ends the students will benefit from the hard work they put into these 6 weeks’ sessions and continue to grow as they get into regular practice sessions while working on speed and agility.
Opening day is November 12th and these kids will be in prime condition by then. But recovery is key. So if you are a student athlete you must get 9 to 10 hours of sleep per day. (And that doesn’t mean going to bed at 2am and sleeping till 12pm) By 10pm – lights out!
If recovery is key, then fuel is essential. These boys need to eat! The team is being asked to consume a minimum of one gram of protein and one gram of carbohydrates per pound of body weight. That’s 30 - 40 grams of each per meal, and five meals per day. Players might miss a training session because of work or whatever, but missing meals is unacceptable. If it takes a village, then let’s pass around the blue fish. Chicken and steak is expensive but 8 ounces of blue fish yields about 58 grams of protein. That and a cup of brown rice (45 grams of carbs) is a perfect snack after workouts. Breakfast? How about a cup of oatmeal, four eggs, toast, jam and a tall glass of milk? Call it the Baller’s Breakfast Special (approx. 50g protein and 60g carbs.) Basically, 8 ounces of any grilled meat yields 50 – 60 grams of protein and a cup of rice, beans, pasta, or whole potato yields about 45 - 50 grams of carbs.
If recovery is key and fuel is essential, then dedication is the fire! And these players are burning! Last week each individual team member did over 1000 shoulder exercises, over 1000 leg presses, over 2000 abdominal crunches, and raised the ball over their head 3000 times. And that’s in just 6 days. Some of the players will be off island next week but not off the program. They requested the schedule be emailed to them so they can continue working while on vacation.
The leadership and support this team has given so far is outstanding. Coach spoke to the team first day of camp saying, “I want to win a state championship, right here, in our house.” Player Liam Caswell responded, “I want to win two of them, Coach!”
Fear the Pod!