Are you ready for the biggest game changer in sports?
A key so powerful, yet very few athletes actually do it. It’s quick, flexible, and possibly the most important part of long term athletic success. It will improve your speed, strength, and injury resilience better than pretty much anything else you can do.
The key is in-season training. 30 minutes per day, 1 – 2 times per week. That’s it. We have the proof.
Matt started training with us when he was only 8 years old. He trained a lot and made incredible strides: he wasn’t naturally the biggest, most athletic kid, but he really wanted to get better, even at a young age.
Fast forward a few years and we didn’t get to train Matt as often. He played A LOT of baseball and basketball. As a middle school athlete, he really just wanted to play. His athletic trajectory dipped a little and he started to develop some minor overuse injuries that would interrupt his travel ball schedule.
As Matt was getting ready to go to High School, his parents sat down with me and came up with a plan: he would join our classes in the summer, and start doing 30 minute private sessions. He’d keep up with those quick private sessions during the basketball season and into baseball. In-season training was going to be an important part of his development. And boy, has he developed.
From Matt’s father Mike: “We decided to do this for two reasons. One was to lower his injury risk. I have seen him deal with injuries in the past that were partly caused by playing on too many teams at once and not continuing to work on his body. The second reason was to maintain his overall speed and strength. His strength and speed definitely decreased by the end of the season in the past before we did this.”
Matt’s basketball season has been great: after a few games he was brought up to the JV team and plays regularly there as a freshman. His season included a 34 point barrage in an upset win over Teaneck. From a strength perspective, he looks like a man among boys on the Freshman team. And, knock on wood, he’s been perfectly healthy this season.
What’s Matt’s in-season training look like? What were his athletic results?
Matt trains twice per week, on whatever days he doesn’t have a game, before practice. We’re flexible on the schedule week-to-week. We don’t push him too hard and we keep him fresh. Speed and power days look like this: warmup, make some minor technique tweaks, and then jump and sprint as hard as possible, just a handful of times, with plenty of rest between sets. We measure his results every time he does something at max effort.
Strength is similar: we do deadlifts and chin ups and try to make some steady progress on those. In between sets, we work on Matt’s mobility and more recently, have started working on his shoulder and elbow to prepare for baseball season. We never push him to the point of exhaustion and always keep track of his progress.
Matt’s In-Season Training improvements since the fall:
Timed 10 yard sprint: 1.81 —> 1.66
Max MPH: 16.8 —> 17.1
Vertical jump: 22” —> 23.5”
Deadlift: 105 —> 155 (He could do more, but he is in season and we don’t want to push him to max effort. Also, this was interesting, because at the start of training, he had a noticeable knee cave on one side when he lifted weights. It isn’t perfect now, but it’s much better.)
Chin-ups: 3 x 1 —> 3 x 5,4,3
If you can’t tell, Matt is a beast athletically now as a Freshman. Typically, athletes get WORSE during the season: they never work on strength or maximum speed, just endurance. This makes them LESS athletic at the end of the season as they were going in. It also opens them up to being more susceptible to injuries. Matt not only didn’t get worse, but he got significantly stronger and faster. We continue to work on his bounce and vertical jump: Matt told me he wants to dunk by his Junior year (at under 6’ tall.) If his training continues, he might just get there.
From Mike: “I have noticed more explosiveness on the basketball court as well as being able to absorb and handle contact better. His overall stamina has been better, too.”
In-season training also opens Matt up for my favorite training concept: compounding. If he’s training year round, he’ll continue to improve and won’t have the typical in-season fall off. We want to build on his ability, not have to constantly rebuild it. Compounding results are really the key to long term athletic development.
Matt is uniquely focused and loves to work hard. But these results are replicable across other athletes who can carve out 30 minutes to train at a high level. If your athlete wants to be the best, we guarantee we can achieve similar results in a similar time frame. To discuss training options, simply contact us and we can create a plan for your athlete!
