Prep for Competition Phase

With almost every college sport anymore there are pretty much 2 seasons. The actual season (Regular season, playoffs, tournaments), and an off season competition (Spring practice, Fall Baseball, Spring soccer season). These, although shorter than the normal season in terms of duration, the intensity and frequency of practice can seem very similar. Your athletes must physically and mentally be prepared for both of these "seasons." With the football and soccer teams in the beginning phases of the Spring season here are some considerations in your preparation that you should consider:

3 Keys to Preparation for Competition

1. As a competitive phase approaches it is the time to realize the training abilities developed in a sport specific setting physically and mentally. With the football athletes, we did this physically by progressing them from self regulated fall starts to vocal/visual cues into competitive speed and agility. These drills use the same localized muscles and potential body positions an athlete will face on the field. The competition component forces them to focus on the competition aspect and not other biomechanical things relying on previously learned movement qualities e.g. P.A.L. Mechanics. There are a variety of TAG, Chase, CHAOS drills that in some way or another can serve to fill this component.

2. You also want to avoid any acute trauma via equipment. This is obvious for football...PADS. The best piece of equipment to try and acclimate athletes to weighted equipment is a vest. By utilizing a weight vest in training/ESD/and movement prep, you can gradually get the athlete accustomed to a point that you can avoid too much soreness from that first week of pads. This can make a huge difference in fatigue related injuries. Often the second practice can be seen to have several athletes complain about soreness in the shoulders/traps due to helmet, shoulder pads which can be significantly reduced if properly prepared.

3. With any sport, there is unavoidable trauma that comes along with it so why would you add to that with certain exercises. Take volleyball who is in their spring season right now. They are doing so many repetitive jumps, bounds, and landings that the volume of stretch-shortening in there training needs to be reduced to keep the power output at optimal levels. Also with the football guys who face an abundance of trauma to body parts like the wrist and shoulders. Exercises that require extreme wrist extension or provocative shoulder positions should be reduced or avoided. An example would be replacing hang cleans with high pulls, weighted jumps, or any other triple extension exercise for the time being.

It is amazing how such small aspects of training can help you translate your physical skills that much more while making sure you consider the trauma of sport itself can assure that the developed abilities will be maintained without compromising safety. There are many other things which you may want to consider when approaching these sort of phases in your annual cycle but these three things as seen with preparation, observation, and acclimation can help your athletes perform to the highest potential.