June 10, 2019 • CoachingFootball

Non-football workouts perfect for summer

{Sponsored} When the weather heats up, the last thing student-athletes want to do is gear up for football. There are certainly more warm-weather-friendly workouts that will benefit players and allow them to choose when and where they get their exercise.

Discuss goals the team has for the summer and come to an agreement about how often they will work out a week. You can tell the team to pair up to keep each other accountable — and use the same pairings to work on the intangibles that student-athletes worked on throughout the school year (check out suggestions here). Encourage players to choose at least three workouts a week and have each pair track their progress.

Summer workout ideas

If your players have access to a pool, swimming is an excellent way to build muscle without taxing joints. Taking laps is a prime cardio and endurance workout, which could help your student-athletes play b minutes each game.

Yoga, ballet, or a Barre class tend to get a lot of laughter in the football community. However, the balance, strength and lean muscle that players develop during these activities is more helpful than players would initially think. Using a balance and strength exercise will help smooth out issues student-athletes may have during their continuous growth process. Plus, It’s a different way to work the body than football players do on the field.

It might be a no-brainer to stay in the weight room but lifting weights will always help your players improve. Encourage your team to incorporate weights once a week during the summer.

To keep up their running fitness, suggest that your players incorporate a morning run into their routine. No matter where they start, have an end goal that is appropriate for each position. Start with the distance or speed that each player is running at the end of the season and make it a goal to increase by at least half of that distance at the same pace.

Work with your team to come up with collective goals for their daily conditioning plan. As the summer progresses, increase reps. This might look like starting with a 30 second plank and adding 5 seconds per day. It could also be 10 push-ups day one, with a goal of 100 without stopping by the end of the summer.

Does your community offer indoor activities such as indoor soccer, a climbing wall or other sports out of the sun’s glare? Encourage players to seek these out as alternative “fun” workouts.

Keeping it accountable

By keeping up fitness without football during the summer, the beginning of the season will get athletes fired up to start football workouts. When the team meets for the first time at the start of the season, ask your team to talk about what they learned from their accountability partner. Encourage praise for hard work during the break and watch the motivation for future summer workouts!

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