As things begin opening back up across the country, high school athletes are beginning to think about the coming school year and how they can be prepared for it. What does this mean for athletes who have been limited by their options for training or who are in a location where club programs have not been running? Chances are some of you out there have been training and others of you have been working to find areas where you can train. The first thing is don’t panic. Even if you have been unable to get much hard training done over the past three months, you still have time. And secondly, it’s time to get into a routine and begin recapturing some of the strength and speed that you may have been losing as this pandemic has raged. To that end, it’s important to know the hierarchy of needs for your sport.
The hierarchy of needs is basically what do you need to be good at and how good do you need to be at that particular thing to be successful at your sport, in order of importance. For example, if you are a lacrosse player the top two things you would want to work on are stick skills and endurance. If you are strong as an ox and can shoot 100mph but you can’t run for more than 3 minutes and the moment you are under pressure you lose possession, what good is all that strength and power. Conversely, being able to handle the ball and move it around effectively and be able to run and keep pace with the speed of the game, having less power and strength become less of a hindrance to performance. I am not saying that all four of these things listed are not important, but some are MORE important than others; and with limited time and equipment, knowing your hierarchy is important. Below are some sports and the top 3 training focuses as I would coach it for an athlete:
Lacrosse: Stick/ball handling skills, On-field cardiovascular endurance, and 1-on-1 situational skills
Soccer: Ball handling skills, On-field cardiovascular endurance, short and long sprint ability
Tennis/Squash: Racket skills, Wall ball, plyometric and change of direction training
Rowing: Erging/Sculling, mobility, endurance cross training
Football: Strength Training (hard to do if you don’t have access to weights but find some heavy objects and move those around), short/long sprint (depending on position), plyometrics
The general rule of thumb, the more you can play or practice your sport using your equipment, the better. Training sport specific skills is always going to be the best use of your time when time and options are limited. If you haven’t been doing that then it’s time to get back out there and start, and if you have, start to diversify your training to include some of these other needs.
