Off season is the time for a great strength and conditioning program. But it isn’t something that we just want to quit once season starts. I think it’s a huge advantage to lift all off season and gain tons of muscle mass towards your sport, but you see in season sometimes people just quit and end up losing all they’d gained.

In season will not be as tough of a lifting program, it’ll be a matter of maintaining what you gained in the off season. You still need to keep lifting and keep conditioned, but the difference in off season is that you can push your players to the max and keep increasing weight and repetitions trying to make them better. I think once you get to season it’s time to just maintain what they got over the off season.

Conditioning is huge in all sports. You must keep your athletes conditioned for many reasons. In softball many people see it as an easy sport, but playing an average of 4 games a weekend can take a lot out of a player. Pitchers, for example, can end up going long innings and has their strength the whole time if they’re in great shape. Once a player starts to get tired they get lazy and fundimentals are thrown out the door. Winning often comes down to the team that is more fundimentally sound. The better condition your players are in, the better chance they have of pulling out of that long extra inning game victorious.

Post season is also a good time to let your player rest for a little bit. There is a time when players need a break from their sport, and I can definitely agree with that. You don’t want to burn them out too fast. They will know if they don’t workout at all and then start their program for post season they will probably have a very hard time getting back into shape, but that is their own personal choice. I think post season is a time for a little break, because you have off season still before you get into the season again.

In high school athletics, for most cases there is not a lot of time for lifting because most coaches want to use practice time for practicing. My recommendation would be to get together with all of the other coaches as well as the athletic director and principal to see if an advanced weight training and conditioning class can be offered at the school for all the athletes to all take together. This class will provide the weight training your athletes will need along with extra conditioning.