I have seen it many times before at pre season training. You are there doing your warm-up and next to you is Johnny who has spent the last two months having a great old time eating, drinking and being a lazy prick! While you have been working your butt off just so that you can get through preseason without coughing up a lung. Too often athletes both professional, and more so amateur, rely too heavily on the preseason training to get them into shape. My opinion on this is that your are already behind.
Here are 5 reasons why you should be in peak condition before you even start preseason.
1. Rehabilitative care. At the end of your season your first priority should be to fix any injuries or ‘little niggles’ that you haven’t been able to due to the demands of the season. Amateur sportspeople in particular will ‘play through’ the pain instead of addressing issues and conducting appropriate rehab. when the injuries are sorted then you can ramp up the training.
2. Recovery. Off season you have a greater recovery period. This means that you can train harder, particularly in your strength and conditioning elements. Contact sports, in particular, hinder recovery. Obviously your workload is less so you can start splitting training programmes so that you can add more volume. For example, instead of two full body strength days you can now split this into two lower body and two upper body strength days.
3. Skills. Being in good physical condition when you roll up to your pre season training means that the coaching staff can focus more on developing skills and match fitness conditioning. Training can be targeted on team skills instead of getting the individual fit. Poor fitness often reduces mental focus and concentration resulting in the breakdown of drills focusing on skills.
4. Injury prevention. Apart from physical trauma, the two most likely periods that you are to get injured are at the start of the season and near the end of the season. The start because the body is not conditioned for the activity, and the end because of repetitive strains.
5. Ego. My favourite. Call me a saddest (it could be the reason I love my job), I find nothing more satisfying than flying through a training session while others suffer or are bent over puking the rings out! It is great for the ego.
So there you have it. Rehabilitate, recover after hard sessions, develop skills faster, prevent injuries, and cruise through the preseason training while others suffer.