3 Ways to Maintain Your In-Season Strength

Now that your regular season has started, the emphasis of your training shifts to in-pool skills and drills, with a decrease in your strength training.  Yet, maintaining your strength work will help you perform at the highest level throughout the season. Let’s discuss three ways you can maintain your in-season strength now and keep it going throughout the season.

1. Keep Hitting the Gym
   

Maintain your strength throughout the season by continuing to execute your core and intermediate strength exercises in the gym. The goal is to tailor the volume to complement what you are doing in the pool. A proper warmup should take priority including soft tissue work on foam rollers, followed by bodyweight exercises like pullups, pushups and lunges. Decrease the volume of total exercises and always keep an emphasis on proper technique when lifting. You may feel more fatigued being in season with an increase in games and tournaments. The good news: decreasing volume in the weight room, while maintaining strength, will help you power through your season.

2. Stick to the Exercises You Know
   

Consistency is key. Maintain your in-season strength by continuing to do exercises you are familiar with and stick to a regular schedule. Your body has already learned these basic movement patterns, which helps minimize the risk of injury that can result from learning new exercises. Focus on using proper technique with each repetition. Keep your weights consistent, and your repetitions moderate.

3. Stretch and Recover

In season it is vital that you do everything you can to speed up the recovery process between exercise bouts. Improving your recovery allows to keep training and competing at the highest possible level during the season. You can maintain your baseline strength levels with 2-3 weight room sessions per week, similar to your regular pre-season strength-training schedule. In conjunction with all lifting sessions make sure to maintain your foam rolling, stretching, proper nutrition and hydration regimens to kickstart the recovery process as soon as possible after each practice and game, to help perform at your peak throughout the season.