Football season may be done, but it’s never too early to begin thinking about the 2017 season. In fact, a big part of any season’s success is determined by how hard kids work during the off-season. A large component of any offseason work involves conditioning and keeping your child physically active.

It’s vital to keep kids active during the offseason and there’s a good reason why. 

“Because it helps decrease the overall injuries,” according to John Gallucci, Jr., President and CEO of JAG Physical Therapy, one of the leading experts on sports injuries.

“Statistically, kids that are more active in multiple sports or are more active in engaging in fitness activities outside of their sport have an opportunity of decreased injuries overall, especially those nagging soft tissue injuries and overuse injuries.”

For a lot of football players, especially young athletes, it’s important to play multiple sports. Getting kids interested in another sport or activity plays a vital role in off-season conditioning. The benefits include, endurance, strength, mobility and flexibility. Further, by engaging in a physical activity that is outside of football, it allows a youth player to take time away from repetitive football motions and let their body recover.

However, halting all physical activities is never a good idea because children should remain active.

“You still want the child to stay fit,” said Gallucci who serves as Medical Coordinator for Major League Soccer and has also many other professional athletes including from the NFL as well as collegiate players. “But the repetitiveness of the activity in football of competitiveness of a specific position definitely you don’t want to keep doing it repetitiously.”

Ultimately, playing football should be limited to the football season. Further, playing multiple sports helps a child to maintain physical fitness while having fun. The side benefit, playing multiple sports has by shown to decrease the chance of injury, as opposed to focusing on a single sport. When it comes to offseason conditioning in particular, Gallucci has four recommendations:

Maintain your endurance. A young athlete should take part in some sort of aerobic activity for 20-30 minutes every day.

“That can be anything from running to swimming to biking to playing a pickup game of basketball, anything that’s going to get your heartrate up to maintain your endurance,” said Gallucci.

Maintain your strength. This aspect of conditioning depends upon a child’s age and workout level.

“Do you do body weighted activities or do actually get into resistance stuff like bands and/or strength equipment?

Flex those muscles. It’s been documented that the more flexible a muscle is, the less chance there is for injury.

“I recommend all youth athletes getting involved in yoga activities and activities that have some sort of elongated stretch component,” said Gallucci.

Strengthening the core. It’s a good idea to make sure that a child’s core strengthening component is not limited to just the usual sit-ups. This is not just about football but applies for any sport.

“The core is mostly the muscles of your trunk and making sure that in a rotational component, in a bending component, and in a side-bending component that there is good strengthening.”

The recommended activity can be satisfied in about 10-12 minutes a day or every other day.

You can make the argument that great players and championship teams are made during the offseason. Have a championship offseason and help your child to stay in shape and encourage them to participate in other sports that might interest them.  

Peter Schwartz is an anchor and reporter for the CBS Sports Radio Network. He also writes a CBS New York sports blog at http://newyork.cbslocal.com/tag/peter-schwartz/. You can follow him on Twitter @pschwartzcbsfan. Peter’s son Bradley plays for the Levittown Red Devils of the Nassau Suffolk Football League on Long Island in New York. His son Jared cheers on Bradley and then Bradley returns the favor when Jared is playing soccer.