Fighting In-Season Training Monotony

For many sport coaches and athletes the competitive season is a time to put your physical preparation and tactics to the test. For coaches in the performance world, this time of year is a transition from a high frequency training model into a shortened training week that focusses on retaining strength qualities and using recovery strategies in preparation for multiple games per week.

One of the biggest challenges I had as a first year NHL Strength Coach was to plan an in-season training program that retained our athlete’s speed, power, and strength levels during the 82 game NHL schedule.While I struggled with the perfect time to prescribe training in our game schedule, I also did not want to prescribe a general in-season maintenance program that was not stimulating. My view with all sports is that an in-season training program should be much more than a 3x8 or 3x10 maintenance program.Maintenance training sounds like a simple, mindless activity that does not need a lot of focus nor attention. A performance coach should be aware that maintenance can be synonymous with monotony, and it can affect the athlete’s mental state and focus. Even the grind of the daily schedule (travel, game prep, practice) can become routine and monotonous. Our job as performance coaches obviously does not end when the season begins, but we certainly should not shift training into neutral when games start. We need to safe-guard and plan against physical de-adaptation.

A Coach can prevent de-adaptation of specific training qualities and monotony through a program that varies the volume and intensity of the key strength capabilities needed for optimizing athletic performance. In the design of the workouts for our hockey players, we cycle through the following physical qualities in our in-season training program: speed, power, and strength. I no longer prescribe 3-4 week training blocks focusing on one quality or theme because the singular focus of one quality would cause the deterioration of another. Each of our workouts has an emphasis on a specific quality that is scheduled in the calendar based on how long it takes for that particular performance quality to begin de-adaptating should it go untrained (i.e. Max strength degrades significantly in 25-35 days). These de-adaptation guidelines are taken from Vladimir Issurin’s work on residual training effects.

To ensure our program is retaining performance qualities, I’ve started integrating monthly in-season testing into our team workouts. We test the physical qualities of strength and power once per month. We do not perform any off-ice speed testing in-season because the majority of our highest velocity sprinting is done on the ice. The tests we use to assess strength are a 3-5rm bench press and trap bar dead lift. For power measures we test Counter Movement Jump and 4-Jump vertical Jump on the Just Jump mat. Using our pre-season tests as the reference point/baseline for the in-season performance monitoring of our players, I generally do not want to see a 10% decrease in any of the performance tests.

If we do see a 10% drop in a particular test, we assess the player’s on-ice practice workloads, minutes played in each game, daily subjective recovery questionnaire scores, and loading during off-ice workloads. Any irregularities found will help determine the intervention strategy prescribed to improve recovery (i.e. allowing them to express a higher level of performance) or to increase the focus on redeveloping strength and power capabilities that are deteriorating.

This strategy does not require dedicating a whole day to testing or make testing the sole theme. I blend the qualities that we want to track (speed, lower body power and strength) into our training day, and as the players go through the workout we record scores.

Sample: In-season training day template...

The in-season schedule can become monotonous and painfully routine. As the performance coach, do not let your training fall into that same trap. Look to plan a specific structure to your training that focuses on the key physical qualities that optimize your athlete’s performance. Using the Issurin Residual Training Effects chart can help a coach understand how long each physical performance quality is retained. Once you have your training model in place, use embedded in-season testing to monitor your athletes’ retention of strength qualities to provide feedback on the effectiveness of your program, and the athletes’ commitment to it. Avoiding an arbitrary program design will ensure your athlete’s physical capabilities function at a high level and provide an engaging program that keeps them mentally engaged.

Interested in learning more? Check out Optimizing Adaptation & Performance, a new video series from Mike Potenza, Kevin Neeld, and James LaValle that outlines the most effective strategies to maximize health, training progress and sport performance.