Continuum Performance

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Your Sport Season Has Started, Do You Stop Training?
Eric Belliveau • Aug 22, 2018

You’re an athlete that’s been training your entire off-season (for example, let’s say you’re a fall sport athlete and have been training all summer long to prepare for your season) and you’ve improved strength, power, speed, mobility, and flexibility. Then, you go into your season and you feel at your best. Then, you just get so caught up in the game, you decide to discontinue your training because your sport should be enough training. On my end, as a strength and conditioning coach, I’m thinking… “Why? All this work throughout the season to become the better version of yourself in all aspects of fitness, and now you’re willing to throw it all away now that you got to where you want to be?”

I don’t necessarily believe it’s because of laziness or the lack of wanting to, I think the problem stems from the unawareness between the players and the coaches on what can be done to maintain strength, and even enhance it. I’m here to tell you in this blog is the reasons why you shouldn’t stop training while you are in-season.

Literature shows that you can lose gains (size, strength, speed, power) just within two weeks of discontinued training. So, 4 months of training gone just in two weeks.

The first reason is that your in-season conditioning with your coaches at practice and games is not enough. Not saying that they aren’t pushing you enough, it’s more of that it’s not the only type of training you should be doing. What you will find once you’re playing your sport and nothing but your sport, you will lose weight, maybe even gain fat, and lose muscle… with that results in decrease in strength, speed, and power which is all parts of athleticism you were striving for in your off-season. Literature shows that you can lose gains (size, strength, speed, power) just within two weeks of discontinued training. So, 4 months of training gone just in two weeks. That right there, just proves why you need to put constant stimulus on your body, muscles, and nervous system. At this point, your in-season program should not be as difficult as your off-season program. Your frequency, intensity and overall volume of your workouts should decrease.

Your 2nd reason why you shouldn’t stop training in-season is because you’re now at more risk of injury without training. When you play your sport, you tend to use the same movement patterns, and muscle groups, repetitively which creates muscle imbalances and a one-dimensional athlete. Playing the amount that you do will ruin your mobility and flexibility that you’ve been working all off-season on, if you don’t train and work on those imbalances. When your mobility decreases, your range of motion decreases, which results to increased risk of injury because your joint can no longer work properly through that range of motion. PERFORMANCE IS ENHANCED BY MOVEMENT QUALITY, which is what you get in training. It’s not all about muscles, it’s about movements!!

Which brings me into my 3rd reason, performance. It’s a common misconception that training will only fatigue the athlete and make them too sore for performance. Like I stated before intensity, volume, and frequency of training changes because the goals of the program have now changed. The goals have now shifted from performance to injury prevention. You did all the grueling workouts in the off-season, you did the work to where you want to be, now you are now prepared for your in-season workouts which ensures that you don’t run out of gas in the tank… so no, you will not get fatigued or sore from your in-season workouts. If anything, your performance will only increase from here.

PERFORMANCE IS ENHANCED BY MOVEMENT QUALITY

My last reason that comes to mind, you will never reach your goals if you keep starting and stopping training. Every athlete that I know has goals whether it may be performance or physique, and they get frustrated why they just get can’t get their numbers up each year in their lifts or their weight, and how it’s always the same. It’s because you’re always taking one step forward in the off-season and one step back in in-season without training. You will always end up back to where you started. Which brings me back to my original question, why? Why do you want to keep doing that?

All you athletes work hard. You give it your all for what you love to do. Don’t sacrifice all that you’ve earned. Eat nutritious foods. Drink water like it’s your job. Get plenty of sleep. Train. Make it happen.

Be about it. All. Year. Round.

The Meat Hangover

By Eric Belliveau • 07 Oct, 2020
When it comes to taking meat out of your diet, some people have the idea that they will only see positive changes immediately following this choice. While those positive changes are definitely part of the deal, so is an adjustment period for your body.

We're Trying

By Eric Belliveau • 23 Sep, 2020
We were all thrown on this crazy ride together. Emotions were running high but so were patience, empathy, inclusion, and respect. Most of us could rally behind the #WeAreInThisTogether manta. We wanted to do right by each other - donate to charities, lend a hand, check-in on one another. Do our part. As the days turn to weeks and the weeks into months these dispositions decayed rapidly. I know that this Quarantine order has been going on for a long time. I know that a great number of us do not agree on the why. I know an even greater number of us are “over it”. I am painfully aware of the difference of opinions surrounding the pandemic. It is impossible to NOT be aware of this. This leads us all to frustration, anger, resentment, and the feeling that you are not being heard. Very real and very human emotions! It is okay to feel this way. I am not only writing this from the perspective of a fellow struggling human. I do find myself struggling with everything I mentioned above. Not just daily but multiple times a day. My ability to focus has been challenged by my worry. My ability to create time for myself and focus on self-care has been derailed for fear of other things becoming more pressing. I work on this every day. I am not only writing this from the perspective of one of the business owners who were never given a playbook for this. For weeks on end I thought WTF happened to the business and how would our model need to change and remain viable, how each business owner had to either weather a period in which we were completely shut down or allowed to operate under capacity restrictions, etc. The unknown of what the timeline would bring and whether we would be able to continue our dreams or make an extremely difficult decision of not continuing. This still haunts every one of us daily. I AM very much writing this as a service provider! I am writing this as an impassioned human who genuinely loves what I do for a living. I feel incredibly lucky to be able to have built a career surrounding something I get excited about every day. I am making a stand for all of us that make their living in the service industry. To the receptionist, hostess, waiter, cook, dry cleaner, teacher, technician, barista, utility worker, automobile service technician… It is truly impossible to be inclusive of everyone here.  No one human mentioned above asked for this ‘situation’ we are in. We are sure as hell trying to provide a level of normalcy, service, care, and happiness to the lives in which we choose to serve. With added restrictions, added expense decreased capacity and the fear of being fined or shut down for doing it incorrectly, everyday.

The Meat Hangover

By Eric Belliveau • 07 Oct, 2020
When it comes to taking meat out of your diet, some people have the idea that they will only see positive changes immediately following this choice. While those positive changes are definitely part of the deal, so is an adjustment period for your body.

We're Trying

By Eric Belliveau • 23 Sep, 2020
We were all thrown on this crazy ride together. Emotions were running high but so were patience, empathy, inclusion, and respect. Most of us could rally behind the #WeAreInThisTogether manta. We wanted to do right by each other - donate to charities, lend a hand, check-in on one another. Do our part. As the days turn to weeks and the weeks into months these dispositions decayed rapidly. I know that this Quarantine order has been going on for a long time. I know that a great number of us do not agree on the why. I know an even greater number of us are “over it”. I am painfully aware of the difference of opinions surrounding the pandemic. It is impossible to NOT be aware of this. This leads us all to frustration, anger, resentment, and the feeling that you are not being heard. Very real and very human emotions! It is okay to feel this way. I am not only writing this from the perspective of a fellow struggling human. I do find myself struggling with everything I mentioned above. Not just daily but multiple times a day. My ability to focus has been challenged by my worry. My ability to create time for myself and focus on self-care has been derailed for fear of other things becoming more pressing. I work on this every day. I am not only writing this from the perspective of one of the business owners who were never given a playbook for this. For weeks on end I thought WTF happened to the business and how would our model need to change and remain viable, how each business owner had to either weather a period in which we were completely shut down or allowed to operate under capacity restrictions, etc. The unknown of what the timeline would bring and whether we would be able to continue our dreams or make an extremely difficult decision of not continuing. This still haunts every one of us daily. I AM very much writing this as a service provider! I am writing this as an impassioned human who genuinely loves what I do for a living. I feel incredibly lucky to be able to have built a career surrounding something I get excited about every day. I am making a stand for all of us that make their living in the service industry. To the receptionist, hostess, waiter, cook, dry cleaner, teacher, technician, barista, utility worker, automobile service technician… It is truly impossible to be inclusive of everyone here.  No one human mentioned above asked for this ‘situation’ we are in. We are sure as hell trying to provide a level of normalcy, service, care, and happiness to the lives in which we choose to serve. With added restrictions, added expense decreased capacity and the fear of being fined or shut down for doing it incorrectly, everyday.
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