The Slow Leak

Here is the scenario. A team or for that matter an
individual makes a huge investment in their off season and their preseason
training. Training camp commences which usually consists of multiple sessions a
day and the emphasis is now entirely on the sport itself. Training of the
physical
qualities is stopped, or drastically reduced. There is minimal work
done on strength training, power development or speed development outside of
the actual activities of the sport practice. The process of the slow leak
begins. All the physical qualities that were developed in the off and pre
season begin to erode. Some erode faster than others. In the female athlete
strength and power erode rapidly. The best analogy is that is like driving your
car with a slow leak in a tire. For quite sometime it is virtually
unnoticeable but a time goes on and the tire loses pressure the ride get bumpier
and bumpier until the tire is entirely flat.

This is precisely what we do to our athletes if we do not a
have comprehensive program to stabilize and even in some cases continue to
build the physical capacities we have developed outside the competition
season. Mind you that if the job has been done in the off-season then stabilizing
those qualities during the competitive season is not especially difficult, but
it must be done in a systematic manner. In season training is not a matter of
volume, it is more a matter of very intense directed work designed to hone and
sharpen specific physical qualities based on individual needs and sport demands.

All of this comes back to the law of reversibility – use it or
lose it. Relatively small modules of speed development, power and strength repeated
on a regular cyclical basis certainly can stabilize those qualities for the
duration of the competitive season. With younger developmental athletes whose competition
season is not extended you would be remiss to not continue to develop their
physical qualities. If you do not, you are missing a huge window of adaptation,
an opportunity to take advantage of the endocrine hormonal advantage their have
during their developing years. For females generally this is in the age range
of from 12 to 16 and for males from 14 to 18. Those are general guidelines that
must be adapted to each individual.

If it is long extended competitive season then you need to
look for strategic opportunities to have some more extensive periods of
emphasis on various qualities based on individual need. Look at what qualities
the games, matches, meets and actual practices address and reinforce those
without adding stress to stress. My rule of thumb is that, as the season
progresses I want to make sure to keep a good thread of strength training up to
and through the peak competition phase. The female athlete must NEVER stop
strength training, even up through and to the championship competition. The
male athlete can reduce and sometime curtail strength training entirely during the
taper with no ill effects.

The moral of the story is that to keep the tire from leaking
you must train during the competition season. In future posts I will provide
some strategies to achieve optimum training during the competitive season within the time constraints that usually exist.