This is also the time of year where the winter sport seasons are winding up.  The athletes that finished with a season, whether basketball, wrestling, or hockey have been on the go for the whole winter.  For those of you athletes that did not participate in a winter sport, they are ending the first part of the off season.  These athletes have been strength and speed training for 3 or 4 months now.  Either way, you have a group of athletes who may need a spark to keep pushing towards your collective goals.  The end of February has passed and we hit the date of six months from the first game of the 2019 season.  Now for us coaches this may seem like it is coming up fast, but to our players this may seem like a long ways off.  It is important to the program that coaches bring enthusiasm and create value to inspire our kids really hit it hard in the spring.

Every team has some players that can just come in the day the season is over and grind every single day until fall camp.  Each team also has way more of these players than many coaches even know.  It is our job as coaches to figure out how to keep all of our athletes engaged and excited.  Use your words wisely when describing your off-season training program to your players.  “Grind” is a popular buzzword these days.  Well, grind can have a negative meaning and can even scare off some of the players who you need to be involved.  This time of the year is crucial to turn the grind into something that is building excitement with fun energy.

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Vary Your Lifts.  As kids are lifting and getting stronger, their confidence already has a boost.  But monotonous workouts can zap some of the momentum.  Keep things fresh by introducing new workouts.  You can still get your core lifts, but changing up some of the auxiliary every 4 weeks makes it always seem new.  Your program can make little changes to the core lifts as well.  Using different grips on the bench and alternating between front and back squats will seem like a change up and work more of the athlete.

Competition.  Nothing builds excitement more than competition.  We all want our kids to compete!  What better way of instilling this trait in our players than having them compete every day.  End each workout with some sort of competition.  Break the players into teams, and compete with each other.  We had one recently that had teams compete in a 3 phase contest.  Phase one was tug-of-war.  Phase 2 was a broad jump, where each member on the team would jump, then the next member would jump from the previous landing spot and so on down the gym.  The last phase was a relay race set up to show both short burst and top end speed.  Keep changing the competitions to something new that can be fun and challenging.  A great byproduct is teaming younger and older kids together.  This builds comradery and develops leadership.

Don’t stop there.  We urge our players to compete at everything.  Even small things like how good their day is.  If we ask a player how they are doing and they respond….good.  Any member of our team would respond to that….”Well I am doing great”.  How good your day is solely dependent on you.  This little exercise keeps the positive vibes flowing through your team.   Find things to compete at. 

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Night of Champions.  Another way to both compete and keep a renewed outlook during the middle of the off season is to periodically have testing weeks.  Most do this already, but make this the most fun day of you training regimen.  Again, this can be something different.  Even though you get all the kids in a 6AM to do the workouts, think of “A Night of Champions” test day.  Set it up on an evening and make it similar to the NFL Combine.  Make an environment for the athletes to really let go.  If you are testing running events to, try setting it up under the lights.  The kids will be excited and the community will see you out working towards your goals.

Lifter of the Week.  Lifter of the week is another way of pushing these players to their maximum potential.  With social media having such a strong hold, what rising football player in your program wouldn’t want to be the “Lifter of the Week” with a picture on Twitter.  We pick one each week based on Effort and Attitude, and tweet out a picture which we have attached here.

Energy needs to remain high at all times.  Make sure that as coaches we don’t fall in the mundane habits of every day.  Bring a liveliness that the team can feed on.  This is always a great place for young coaches to shine.  Also as coaches we need to keep an eye on the athletes to ensure proper form and safety, but we can do this by doing some of the work out with them as well.  Kids will gain trust in someone working shoulder to shoulder with them as they are enhancing themselves.  Let’s all thrive to give our kids the football experience they deserve by invigorating the second phase of the off-season!  Good Luck!

Terry Donovan is a Master Trainer for USA Football’s Heads Up Football program. He is the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks and B backs coach for Kasson-Mantorville High School in Kasson, Minnesota. He has coached with the U.S. National Team Program. He is also a youth coach and Director of Youth Development in the Kasson-Mantorville Youth Football Association