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| Todd Smith Head Strength Coach |
The first four to six weeks following the season is considered post season here at Marquette. It is the period of time for recovery after a grind of a season. Recovery does not mean rest. It means change of activity. Changing the activity stresses the body differently. Competing in basketball is very taxing on your joints due to the repetitive impact of sprinting, guarding, and jumping. The anaerobic nature of basketball is a metabolic stress. Muscles recover very quickly, your central nervous system (CNS) recovers much slower. The explosive and speed components of basketball are hard on your CNS. Basketball is also very mentally demanding which is a stress itself. So overall, post season training decreases impact joint stress, changes metabolic stress, lowers CNS stress, and decreases mental pressure.
Basically the team gets one week totally off to catch up on school and give minor injuries a little time to heal. The structure of the next four to six weeks is high volume, low intensity strength work. I hate saying body building when working with athletes on performance factors, but that is exactly what it looks like. We do no explosive lifting, no plyos, no sprinting. No impact forces on their joints. The student-athlete's bodies are still getting stressed. Muscle tension pulling on different joints is the stress we are looking for, not pounding. It is a four day split routine broken down by movements. This gives a chance to get back into the weight room and relearn how to do things. I say relearn because in-season lifting is much different than post season lifting, which is much different than off season and pre season lifting. Most basketball student-athletes are not big weight room fans to begin with, they typically don't remember the name of the lifts let alone how to perform them correctly. This high volume, low intensity strength work gives us a chance to coach form. The number of sets is between four and six sets. Typical repetition ranges are above ten reps per set.
Post season is a time where I do very little movement training. This is typically where the basketball student-athletes get their metabolic conditioning with me. During this period of the year I do not do any acceleration, deceleration, or change of direction training with them. The student-athletes will do individual workouts with the coaches two to three weeks after the season. Their conditioning work with me is low impact in nature. It is call general physical preparation (GPP). The sled drags and exercises of this nature keep the student-athletes in some kind of shape without having to sprint.
After the season we tested the student-athletes on the force plate during various jumps. The results came back just as we had anticipated. Increase in countermovement jump on both double leg and single leg jumps. Decrease in static double leg jump. This makes sense looking at the plyometric nature of basketball. The student-athletes spent the last six months jumping and not squatting heavy. So now we turn it around on the CNS. Do more lifting and less jumping.
Lastly, post season allows for the student-athletes to come in the weight room and not get yelled at. These student-athletes just had six months of having someone (coach or teammate) coach and or motivate them. I back off on the high volume, in your face motivation/coaching. I want them to listen and follow directions come this summer/off season. Giving them a break mentally now is the best time. I am always trying to stay positive with them and I am always trying to get them to love this stuff as much as I do. I just don't cram it down their throats at this time.
