Summer is a great time to really dial-in training with your athletes.
You’re typically competing with fewer athletic commitments, kids are free of the regular stress and workload of school, and you can take advantage of the better weather to train outside!
When working with a group of dedicated athletes, Summer can be one of their greatest opportunities to focus on training and reap the best possible results across a wide range of performance enhancements.
To help you prepare for your own Summer Training, we’ve created a sample summer training calendar, and offer advice on how to approach your Summer training cycle.
See below!
Download the Summer Training Calendar
Watch the tutorial to see how to facilitate this calendar in PLT4M:
FAQ’s:
When does Summer training typically begin?
This is really dictated by your school and spring sport calendar, and each one is a little different. However, most spring teams wrap up around Memorial day, with some post-season tournaments reaching into the early part of June.
Consider June a time to recalibrate.
Some athletes are coming off a spring sport with minimal strength training, while others have consistently trained through the season or been in full off-season mode already. You will likely be working with both younger, novice athletes, as well as experienced and well-trained athletes.
I highly recommend you take this month to get everyone back on to the same page.
Don’t just jump everyone into intense training. Slowly ramp up all your athletes in a progressional manner, making sure they exhibit competence in their core movements, have relevant and appropriate maxes established, and have built up their basic work capacity.
For us, this means completing at least the last 3 weeks of Athlete On-Ramp program, or a similar custom approach.
Then, you’ll want to gauge when the majority of the athletes might be taking vacations, specifically around the July 4th Holiday, as this will determine when is best to officially begin the summer cycle.
This year, we’ll begin our own official Off-Season training the week of July 5th and have in run the 6-8 weeks until Fall Sports begin. I prefer to run my group through the same workout sessions together, for logistical purposes, so if an athlete misses that first week, they’ll pick up on week 2 with the rest of the athletes when they join us.
This is only possible because I have spent the time in June making sure everyone has a proper foundation.
Which programs do you utilize in your Summer training?
Athlete On-Ramp - for novice athletes, or rising 9th graders, who would use an introduction to proper lifting form and technique, and for experienced athletes who need to ramp back up to full training after a spring season (JUNE)
3 Day Off-Season
Speed Training
Conditioning
Optional: Stretching Routines
How do you schedule your training sessions?
I prioritize the Off-Season lifts on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays throughout the summer. Avoiding Fridays means less sessions missed due to long weekend trips and other summer events.
On Mondays and Thursdays, we head out to the field or track to perform a speed session before the lift.
On Tuesdays, we utilize a conditioning session after the lift.
On Fridays, I schedule another conditioning session, but I give the athletes the option of completing that session on their own, even at home. With PLT4M, they can still access their workouts anywhere, and I can see who completed the workouts through the activity log.
Wednesdays are always rest days.
Does the order of execution in sessions matter?
When it comes to the order of operations in workouts, you want to complete higher intensity activities at the beginning, and perform higher volume activities towards the end. For example, on Monday’s and Thursdays, it’s important that my athletes complete the speed training session before their lifting workout.
What if an athlete misses a workout?
Since athletes have access to the workouts at all times, they can feel free to make up the workout on their own time if they are able. However, when they attend one of our scheduled training sessions, athletes are expected to complete the workout scheduled on the calendar for that day so as to maximize efficiency in the weight room for a large group training together.
Have any questions about your Summer training? Email performance@plt4m.com!