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Sports USA Radio
- By Dominic
Off-Season Mode
It’s winter time and it’s the perfect time to build your game skills. It’s not the time slack off and relax, however tempting it may be. You know that you’re still a football player who has a bright future ahead of you that can easily be crushed by your lack of commitment. You STILL need to keep fit and in-shape for the game every time.
If you choose to spend your off-season by just splashing at the pool all the day long as you eat burgers and play Madden, you’ll certainly regret everything you did when the new season starts. It’ll take some time to be able to regain your form following months of slacking off. Sure. Your experience will be a pain the a**.
What’s the Solution?
There is absolutely no room for complacency on your part as a football player during the off-season. You really need to commit yourself to an offseason football training to make you remain relevant and competitive in the game. This training program will enable you to improve on your game by sharpening your skills come the new season.
A productive off-season football training is the most important thing for you as an athlete.
Let’s get started.
Here are some useful tips for a successful training:
Start with a Plan
Plan your off-season training well for it to be fruitful. A good plan maximizes your football skills and strengths. It’s possible to do some exercises while still having a good time during your off-season training. These can include playing pick-up basketball or hiking with your friends. You should remember that you’re still a football player and you should remain focused on your training.
Set Goals
Apart from just staying fit, you should also set goals on what you plan to achieve at the end of the off-season. Here are two things to do before embarking on your off-season training:
Get the Evaluation from your Coaches (Head Coach, Position Coach)
Coaches are supposed to evaluate the performance of the players they coach. Your position coach is likely to tell you exactly the areas you need to improve on at the end of a season and before the new season starts. Your coach can also share with you training and exercise activities you can employ in your training.
Evaluate Your Own Performance
The fact that you know yourself better than anybody else makes your self-evaluation very important. You know the areas you’re not good enough and you know very well that you can work on to improve on them. Again, the off-season gives you an opportunity to improve as an individual player as you’re able to train alone and focus on improving your skills as a football player. The training sessions you have when the season starts are meant to improve the team as a whole.
Setting Specific Goals
You should keep specific goals which will make a good football player. Specific goals makes it easier for you to evaluate your off-season training performance as well as to pick the right training exercises. An example of a specific goal is aiming to increase the maximum weight of your bench press by like 20 pounds instead of just aiming to get stronger. Another specific goal could be aiming to decrease your 40-yard dash by a second.
You should keep specific goals which will make a good football player. Specific goals makes it easier for you to evaluate your off-season training performance as well as to pick the right training exercises. An example of a specific goal is aiming to increase the maximum weight of your bench press by like 20 pounds instead of just aiming to get stronger. Another specific goal could be aiming to decrease your 40-yard dash by a second.
Without these specific goals, it will not impossible to know whether you have managed to improve on your strength and speed. Your offseason football training may not be fruitful at all and you will not have improved as an individual player.
Create a Routine
Create a training routine once you are very sure of what you want to achieve at the end of the off-season training. A regular routine makes you keep on improving on your performances to enable you to ultimately achieve your goal.
A routine doesn’t imply that you’ll be doing exactly the same exercises all the day. A good routine should incorporate a variety of exercises to prevent your training from becoming boring while at the same time corresponding to your set of goals. This creates a well-rounded training that targets your muscles in different ways.
There are many different exercises that you can choose from. While most of them are good for you as a football player, others are not that helpful. You should only focus on your specific set goals that guides you in choosing the perfect exercises as well as designing your routine for your off-season training.
It is important for you to have a wide variety of exercises for your training despite having set specific goals. For instance, it’s not practical to have a training session that entirely has weightlifting or running exercises. Try to mix it up. You should also include strength, agility and endurance exercises to balance your training plan and avoid making the session monotonous.
An example of such a good routine may include having like three sets of 10-15 reps of dumbbell bicep curls, four sets of 6-10 reps of standing military press, 15 minutes of rope jumping, five sets of 10 reps of maximum speed burpees , 100 sit-ups and many more. This will be an example of a well-rounded training session.
Hard Work Pays
Yes. It does. And you know it’s true. The effort you put in your offseason football training will determine your form and sharpness come the start of the new season. Your own initiative and motivation during training entirely comes from you as there’s no coach directing you on what to do. These sessions are not compulsory like the ones you have during the season and there are not fines for not showing up either. The discipline you show during this offseason will make you a better football player and a better athlete.
Be sure to Sign-Up for our Football Training Course Today!
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