Offseason can be one of the most important times for your performance training business…

Most if not all programs and or clubs sports teams in the country try to implement some sort of offseason training program - whether good bad or indifferent.

The culture has changed dramatically since the early 90's when (BFS) Bigger Faster Stronger swept the country as a baseline to train athletes.

Fast-forward to our current landscape, and it is essential to have a system in place for your athletes to train in. 

It’s important to remember that not every program is right for everyone. I’d encourage you to find the systems that work for you and your athletes.

Over the past 20+ years I’ve been training, it’s taken some time to learn, re-learn, and apply what I’ve found into a successful offseason program for my athletes. 

Here are some keys to not just survive but to thrive that are necessary for any of our current offseason training programs:

 #1 - Discover What Buckets Need Filled

No athlete has the same need. I start by determining the objective gaps that my athlete, team or program struggles with.

Do they need strength, speed, COD, health, or all of the above? 

Of those, what is your biggest bucket to fill? 

Once you determine the gap that needs to be filled… the game really begins. 

One area I’ve found increasing value in over the years is Isometrics. 

If an athlete needs strength the natural instinct is to focus on lifting and lifting heavy weights. This will work but it is very general to paint that as the go-to. 

At the same time, you will eventually hit a roadblock and stagnate. 

For me, my goal is to use isometrics followed by dynamic movement. More specifically I trend to Iso's that mimic the very movement I want to see on the field, which is typically speed-related or a sprint position. 

I then slant my focus towards long-duration Iso’s. 

I see so many coaches add Isos to their routine but only as a primer or as a return to play rather than the backbone of their training block. By long duration, I mean 1, 3, and 5 minutes in length. 

1 minute is good. 3 minutes is really good. I’ve found that the magic happens right towards the 5-minute mark. 

Yes, it sounds crazy and it is until you try it and see what happens.  

My top 3 reasons to emphasize Iso's.

 #2 - Categorize and prioritize.

Now that I know the buckets that need to be filled based on my biggest needs, I then go through my rolodex of the rate of return. 

If I need to be fast and repeat speed then I need to think fast and train fast. I know the trend now in the industry is Velocity-based training but the funny thing is we have been training this way since 2001.

Unbeknownst to me, as I was simply viewing things through the lens of ABSORBING force rather than trying to produce force. 

The industry clamors for how fast a bar can move but I’d argue that you get a faster rate of return on stopping or catching a bar and/or object. This is proven through VBT units as well as devices that measure the speed or a bar as well as force plates. 

In reality, I have found that many of the VBT devices either can't measure the speed of stopping an object or can't measure the speed of the eccentric portion of a movement so I realized on the auditory KPI of what a bar sounded like to tell me how fast they were stopping the bar and or redirecting it. 

Only in 2021 did I begin to use force plates and it only confirmed what I had been using for years to calculate the forces I wanted to see from an athlete. 

Here is the crude formulation that was given to me some 20 years ago. For every 6 inches I drop an object and or weight I double it in force. For example, a 150lb athlete falling from a 6" box will produce a 300lb force. So if a 150lb athlete is believed to produce between 6-10 times his weight in force when sprinting and cutting I then can use this as my baseline to determine box heights or blocks of training to increase an athlete's capacity to handle sprinting. 

Now to clarify we are still sprinting but I firmly believe you can get faster in the weight room. I've been doing it for over 20 years. 

Now back to the topic. Looking at the athlete that weighs 150lbs and produces and or absorbs 150 x 6 which yields 900lbs of force while sprinting we then can use an 18" drop in elevation and catch in the lunge position (max joint angle) as it is seen in max velo sprinting. 

150 x 6 = 900 which we have found our sprint stimulus while inside. 

Usain Bolt used this tactic but would do it for yards and or meters when training.

Once you get this, we do 50 to 150 reps per side. Our KPI on the movement is making certain no ancillary movements and or compensation. 

Follow that with a 2-5 minute Iso hold in a lunge. 

 #3 - Test, Evaluate, and Make Changes from Data

If you don't test and have a baseline it becomes much more difficult to really know if you are making the appropriate changes or not.

Using GPS Force decks and other tech was something I had messed with over the years but until I jumped in fully with Universal Speed Rating, I didn't see the point. 

I was comfortable being the "stay off my lawn" guy and being stuck in my ways.

At the same time, I was intimidated by the notion of changing.

Once we DID make the change and forced the usage of tech it began to re-enforce the training methods we were implementing on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. 

It also allowed more predictability for knowing where the athletes should be and more importantly our staff to begin to see trends, both good and bad.  

 #4 - Train based on stimulus, NOT weights. 

In other words, too many think in terms of weight and the necessity to get strong that they focus solely on how much weight an athlete is moving. 

This ignores what forces are actually happening both on the field and in the weight room when it pertains to lifting or training.

Concluding Thoughts 

There are so many rabbit holes to fall into in the training of athletes that it can be overwhelming… Because of this, many coaches simply follow and copy the big dogs or the most successful coach and what they have done.

Trust me, I did it too. 

That said, be patient as this journey isn't going to happen overnight. 

Yes, you may capture lightning in a bottle and have some really gifted athletes that fool you into thinking you are that good as a coach, only to have the floor drop on you when you don't see the same degree of results from others. 

Trust what you’re seeing in your athletes. Discover where your athlete's weaknesses are. Prioritize accordingly. Test and evaluate the data. Then stick with it consistently. 

The results, and your confidence as a coach will all follow.

About the Author

Ryan Paul is a Northwest Speed Lab Director for Universal Speed Rating and the owner of New Athlete, a training facility with multiple locations in the Pacific Northwest. Ryan and the New Athlete team have spent the last 20+ years training thousands of athletes seeing undeniable results in athlete improvement, speed, power, and overall health and performance. Connect with Ryan and New Athlete below: 

@newathlete on Instagram

@thenewathlete on Twitter