Summer training is an integral part of any football programs ability to compete during the season.
When teams start to plan their summer training, it can sometimes be hard to think of things that will help performance directly translate to the game field.
Here, we highlight ten strategies teams can use to get as ready as possible to win a championship when the season finally rolls around.
The teams that can last the entire season without being drained are the ones who can compete the best come playoff time.
Conditioning improvement can affect:
Whether it's wind sprints, shuttle runs, or other exercises, building overall conditioning is essential to preparing your team for the season.
While conditioning is important, strength building is just as necessary.
You not only have to have muscle endurance, but you must have muscle strength as well. In some scenarios, a few extra hours in the weight room will make the difference between winning and losing games.
The simplest way to get your team stronger is by getting them on a required weight room training regimen. This way they hold each other accountable, and no one's falling behind.
Another summer strategy that's sometimes overlooked is the ability to focus distinct time on honing your athletes fundamentals.
If you can have athletes who build the correct fundamentals into habits, you'll have players who won't forget who or what their assignment is.
Some teams will even have a specific day of the week during summer training that the only focus is fundamental building. Some fundamentals that your team needs to improve on can be:
Whether it's team competition, bonding events, group workouts, or even communication and leadership exercises, building team chemistry in the summer is essential to having a team that plays for each other.
Team chemistry is not often considered one of the main focuses of teams training plan. But it always seems like the teams that are winning championships are the teams that have players who all compete for each other.
Building team chemistry creates a much more fun environment for the players, and creates buy-in to the program as well.
Another easy thing to implement that can prepare your team to be ready for the season is the installation of your schemes.
It doesn't even have to be a full playbook. You just need to make sure that your players know where to be, and when to be there. By installing these schemes during the summer, you're skipping a step when the season rolls around, and thus saving your team valuable time.
The summer is also a great opportunity to cultivate and establish leadership on your team.
Players, and younger ones in specific, will automatically gravitate towards team leaders. Naming your captains and training them during the summer will develop their own leadership, and teach younger players how to be a leader in their own right.
Establishing your team leadership also creates another opportunity to get your athletes to better listen to the message you're trying to get across.
Putting your players in game-like situations in your summer training is integral to building a team that can compete in late-game situations.
Practicing a 2-minute drill, goal line defence, red zone offense, clock management, or even special teams situations can be huge helpers in preparing your team to win games.
It always seems like the teams who are most ready to compete in these types of situations are the ones who effectively execute and win close games.
Summer is a great opportunity to get all of your athletes on the same page. Setting team goals, whether that be making playoffs, winning 5 games, or winning a championship, is an easy way to get everyone working towards the same endpoint.
It creates buy-in from players, and gives them something attainable to work hard at. Over time, setting higher and higher goals leads to direct improvement of your teams.
While keeping team chemistry high, it can sometimes be helpful to put players in their position groups who they'll be spending most of their time with.
These relationships are even more important than general team chemistry, because you want your players to enjoy spending time with the people they see the most often.
This is also a great opportunity to train position-specific skills. Some examples of this can be:
If you've got a program that's serious about winning, you need to have FlipSled added to your summer training.
The FlipSled is a football sled that effectively teaches players to go through full game-like repetitions. Whether it's one of our 20+ drills, or drills you create for specific position groups, the FlipSled allows for hundreds of different uses.
It can be used as a sled, a flipping mechanism, as well as a full block simulator. That's already three separate tools in one innovative product.
Learn more about FlipSled at https://www.theflipsled.com/.