Putting the Extra Effort into Training

Posted By: Craig Fitzgerald

One of my football coaches told our team, “Never confuse what you are supposed to do with doing extra.” If you are a serious athlete, you are supposed to do acceleration drills, lift weights, practice your sport, and eat and sleep like a champion. There are components of your training that you can do away from your required hours with your team which will improve your performance and skills.

• Flexibility: Almost every sport starts practice or strength and conditioning sessions with a solid dynamic flexibility routine. However, because of time constraints, many programs are not able to include a thorough post-practice static stretch. This is where you come in. At home, sit on the floor while watching your favorite TV sitcom and stretch-out for 30 minutes. You can use your body weight to lean forward for certain stretches and/or a belt or rope to pull on for certain stretches; to mix it up, do a yoga video. The extra flexibility work performed each night will assist in helping you both recover and run faster.

• Core: Many strength programs these days are having athletes do all of the core training on their feet. This has been a neat movement in the field, as standing core work transfers to the field of play really well. Nonetheless, there are also some great old core exercises that you can do on your own and receive great benefits. Take ten minutes each day or twenty minutes 3 days a week and perform 3 sets of 20-30 reps of the following drills: Sit-ups (bend knee or straight leg), Leg raises (lying or hanging), Elbow plank bridges (front or side), or Bicycles . These are just a few – use your imagination to work your core.

• Extra Sport-Specific Training: Don’t just rely on your coach’s off-season practices to improve your skills. Take a lesson from basketball players; basketball players will shoot for hours on their own. This is a great lesson for athletes of other sports. If you are a football receiver, you should catch 200 balls/day; if you are a D-lineman practice coming out of your stance and working on your pass moves; if you are a soccer half-back work on dribbling. You know what drills you need to do from your coaches so make sure to get extra reps on your own.