What is Maintenance Season, and Why is it so Important?
Maintenance or in-season weight training is all about keeping the strength or endurance you’ve built in the off-season. Whether you’re gearing up to step back onto the sports field or simply starting a competitive season, you’ll want to follow a structured in season program.
Your in-season weightlifting program should be simple yet effective - you’ve spent your out of season months building muscle, strength, and agility, and now it’s time to maintain all of it without developing an injury. Your training should be all about maximizing performance and recovery to keep the progress you've made.
What Does a Maintenance Season Look Like?
During maintenance season, you’ll likely complete 2 workouts per week in 45-60 minute sessions, usually doing 2 sets per exercise.
The majority of exercises should focus on strength, power, and functional mobility - so workouts are mainly built around plyometrics, Olympic lifting and core lifts such as deadlifts and squats.
What is the Ultimate Goal?
Unlike other stages of an athlete’s journey, the maintenance stage isn’t really about aesthetics. Instead, it’s more about promoting overall health and making sure that your body is getting the recovery time it needs between competitions to perform at its very best.
Athletes that go through a maintenance season often find that they are better prepared to take on the task of the competitive season and they can transition to the offseason feeling much healthier and well-rested than those who do not train during the competitive season.
A maintenance season also allows for solid progression as your body will keep your muscles neural drive going. This means that you’re much more likely to keep the muscle that you’ve built over the winter months.
Rules to Follow for a Successful Season
A maintenance season may sound pretty laid back and easy, but it can easily be carried out incorrectly which can massively affect an athlete’s results.
For the best possible outcome, we strongly advise that you follow a comprehensive plan to follow that is specifically tailored to you will guarantee results.
That said, there are also a few other rules you should follow:
Always train fast and light. We recommend using no more than 85% of your max weight when training in the maintenance phase and focus on performing reps quickly and safely instead.
Don’t ignore aches and pains. Remember, this phase is all about avoiding injury - so if you feel any pain, make sure to focus on rest and recovery until it eases, rather than continuing to lift heavy and creating more of an issue later down the line.
You should also spend extra time both pre and post-workout focusing on stretching and rolling out muscles.
Don’t put too much pressure on yourself. The great thing about the in-season is that if you feel too burned out to work out some days, that’s perfectly fine. Don’t feel like you have to force yourself into the gym when you don’t want to - take it steady and your body will thank you for it.
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