Off season training….My thoughts..volleyball training

Off Season Training..

What every coach ‘demands’ and what the parents of athletes feel they need to do.

Why?

Well, this is when they are suppose to ‘bulk up’, get faster, get stronger and ‘look good’.

OK..first, there are some ‘positions’ in sports where it is believed it is a need to ‘bulk up’. Like a lineman in football for example.

Let me move onto the volleyball, baseball, softball, soccer, basketball, lacrosse and the like players.

Believe it or not, their are coaches who tell these athletes to ‘go bulk up’ in the off season.

‘Buk up’ or ‘get bigger’ for volleyball, baseball, softball, soccer, basketball’? Really?

Here is my favorite response: ‘WHY?’

Seriously, WHY?

‘Question Traditional Wisdom’

How do I handle it?

Well, in an effort to keep emails down from the peeps who have all the letters behind their names who are reading this and because they are the experts because they have the ‘textbooks’ to prove it I will move on to how I recommend and how I handle ‘off season training’.

First, ready?

When a parent or coach comes to me to train their athletes in the off season we do the EXACT SAME workouts as in season.

Huh?

Let me repeat that: When a parent or coach comes to me to train their athletes in the off season we do the EXACT SAME workouts as in season.

That is 100% the truth and the results are all the same: increased vertical, amazing power, improved balance, improved quickness and reaction and ‘leanrer’ athletes.

When you continuously train an athlete in an unstable environment and with tons of ‘ band’ work where tons of kinetic energy is used and transferred to static energy immediately the only thing you can expect is what I mention in the results above.

Hard core weight training in the ‘office season’ is not the only way to go. Proprioceptive, balance challenging training will have your athletes seeing fabulous results quick.

Now, what if you don’t give a poo about what I said and want to add the weights to your off season?

This is how I recommend going about it:

Use dumbbells (db’s) for exercises. Absolutely NO STRAIGHT BAR WORK – Meaning barbell for chest presses, shoulder presses curls etc. This is a HUGE strain on the athletes Joints.
Perform chest presses &shoulder presses exercises (with db’s) on a stability/swiss ball to challenge the core at the same time
After a press exercise like a chest press, ‘immediately’ hit the floor and perform medicine ball push ups or push ups on the stability ball. This will create tons of power for your athlete. also, after a leg press of squats ‘immediatley’ go to a plyo jump. For example go right to a squat jump with hands behind head and perform as many as you can until you feel you are about 3 from failure. You will be amazed. Rest at least 1 minute before heading back to the exercise.
DO NOT perform ‘deep squats’. What is the purpose to try and ‘touch your butt to the ground!’ or ‘go passed 90!’ as many coaches and sadly enough, trainers will say? Keep injuries as a minimum and perform squats by NOT going below 90 degrees. Their butts should never go below their knees. This not only saves their back and knees, but keeps the resistance on the muscles the entire time which is the best way to achieve faster results.
DO NOT perform exercises behind the neck. If you have a trainer that has your athletes doing ‘lat pulldowns’ or shoulder presses behind their neck..FIRE HIS ARSE and if you are a trainer who thinks this is OK..GET OUT OF THE BUSINESS! I am so serious about this…I still see trainers doing this and I cannot believe it.
Reps..OK…I highly recommend high reps, lower weight. Anywhere from 15-30 reps per set. You want to see the look of your athletes change quickly? Do high reps PLUS the power exercise after each exercise and in just a few weeks you will see a change. Low reps with heavy weight is for ‘bulk’. Do you really want your athletes (other than some football players for example) to have ‘bulk’? Does that really make them a better athlete or just stronger? ‘Question Traditional Wisdom’

Oh trust me…I know this is controversial..:)

In fact someone reading this right now is VERY UPSET at me..Right? I can see your head turning red with anger

I totally understand…

We do things for YEARS without thinking, ‘Why?’ we do them. We just do them because that is ‘what you need to do’.

Think outside the box..

Question why you, your coaches and trainers do certain things and you will see a different answer.

All I can say is that the training we do works, it works very quick and as one of the coaches at states last weekend told me: ‘The kids LOVE IT”

If your athletes LOVE what they are doing PLUS are seeing fabulous results, why not do it?

Please, understand this is my suggestion and I am simply showing you another way to train that is very effective.

That’s all..

‘Question Traditional Wisdom’ even if it is yours

In good health,

Barry

PS – THREE TEAMS..THAT’S RIGHT THREE TEAMS at the Pennsylvania Boys Volleyball State Championships this past weekend used the EXACT SAME workouts as in MAX Training. SPECIAL UNTIL TOMORROW NIGHT!