Inseason Training: 3 Drills to Develop Better Strength, Speed, and Better Injury Resistance

One of the greatest challenges during the “inseason” training period is finding time during the week (or what is also called the ‘microcycle’) to implement supplemental physical training. At the professional sports level, when athletes practice daily and play multiple games per week, the hardest part of building a speed, strength, and power plan for teams isn’t “what” to do with a player, but “when” we can fit it into the training week. Depending on the sport, it can be just as hard at the collegiate level, with daily practices and games rhythm making a consistent training stimulus a challenge… and that’s before you factor in the student-athlete’s class schedule and school load. At the youth level, you can often find all the challenges of the pro level (multiple games within the microcycle), coupled with all the challenges of the collegiate level (games + classes), and then the additional challenge of the fixed school day blocking off hours throughout the day! As every player has felt at some point – and probably every parent as well – the weekly schedule can, very quickly, get very busy.

With all you have going on during a season, integrating in additional speed, strength, and power training into the microcycle, can be tricky… but the research and the best practices from the best teams and clubs in the world all agree: this type of training is essential for helping you stay healthy and improve year after year. For the times when your weekly schedule is very busy, rather than skip your physical training, do your future self a favor by grabbing a partner and knocking out these three exercises after a practice to get faster, get stronger, and get more injury resistant!

Partner-Resisted Acceleration Skips: It’s critical for players to improve their ability to accelerate quickly and dynamically on the field. And two big parts of doing that are practicing great sprint mechanics and increasing how much force you can apply to the ground; when players get better at those two factors, on-field speed potential can dramatically improve. The Partner-Resisted Acceleration Skips work on both rehearsing good running mechanics while increasing lower body strength and power. Try these in your training 1-2 times per week for 1-3 sets of 10 yards.

Get-Up Tag: And much as it is important to rehearse your proper running mechanics, there’s simply nothing that replaces full speed sprinting to help you run faster on the field. And when you add in a little competition, simple sprinting moves from a simple exercise into a fun challenge. Get-Up Tag can be done with almost limitless starting positions and is a great speed training tool to be put in your training after you’re warmed up and have completed the Partner-Resisted Acceleration Skips. Give Get-Up Tag a try in your training 1-2 times for per week, sprinting of a 10-20yd course for 1-3sets.

The Partner Glute Ham Raise: Also called a Nordic Hamstring, the Partner Glute Ham Raise is a world-class exercise for not only improving your lower body strength and power, but also for increasing the injury resistance capabilities of your hamstrings (the muscles on the back of your thighs). Research from all around the world, at every level of the game – from youth players in Italy to Premier League soccer players in England – has shown this exercise to be effective at improving speed and increasing hamstring injury resiliency during the inseason period. Give these a try in your training after Get-Up Tag, for 1-3 sets of 3-6 repetitions.

And there you have it! Three exercises that, no matter how busy your weekly training and game schedule is, you can knock out with a partner, after practice, to improve your speed, strength, and injury resistance. Physical Training, as one of the four foundational pillars of player development (along with Technical Training, Tactical Training, and Psychological or Mental Skills Training), is an essential part of your development as a player: to be the best you can be, it’s critical to maximize your soccer-specific physical abilities. The next time your microcycle gets crunched for time, try these activities out and let us know how you feel!

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us through our Contact page here and, for more general and sport-specific training information, visit our Instagram at: atsc_solutions. We also have a vault of proven, effective programs that we implemented at the Division I and professional sports levels for purchase on our Products page here. And if you’re looking to take your game to your highest levels, click here and let’s work together either in-person if you’re in the Cape Fear area or here if you’re interested in our individually-specific online training!