Early in the offseason, it is first important that we perform corrective and activation exercises to prepare our athletes to handle a load. That is also our chance to teach and re-teach foundational movements. From there, we go into a series of workouts to increase work capacity. This accumulation phase is important for developing a firm foundation from which to build the rest of our training upon. I have chronicled some sample workouts with functional training ideas to help build work capacity in the past. All of those are great and I use them a lot and love them, but I’m also a firm believer that every one of my athletes must squat, lunge, press and pull in a loaded manner. Below is an example of one of our workouts intended to build a foundation for later strength and power training. It combines some functional patterns early in the workouts with a version of German Volume Training in the “meat” of the workout, and finally we finish with some functional patterns to load the nervous system when they are fatigued in an effort to teach our athletes how to handle a high neuro load activity under fatigue (just as late in a game). Our athletes aren’t real crazy about the workout because it is demanding, long, and takes constant attention to detail, but as their training progresses, they begin to understand how important this foundation really is.
Miniband Sidesteps 2 x 20yds
Single Leg RKC Bridge 7 x 10″ each
FMS Corrective Exercises x 2 (individually prescribed as dictated by their post season injury screen)
Get Up 2 x 3
18″ Box Step Offs (absorb force on landing) x 15
Kettlebell Swings 3 x 15
Superset (start every set on 1 minute cycle):
Bench Press 7 x 10 x 61% 1RM
TRX Single Arm Row 7 x 10 each
Physioball Crunch 6 x 20
Superset (start every set on 1 minute cycle):
Front Squat 7 x 10 x 61% 1RM
RDL 7 x 10 x 61% 1RM
V-Ups (aka jack knives) 6 x 15
Ultimate Sandbag Rotational Lunge 2 x 6 each
Tall Kneeling Cable Resisted Rotation (emphasize Diaphragmatic breathing technique) 2 x 12 breaths each side
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