E 75 | How to Keep Athletes Strong All Season (The Minimal Effective Dose)

About this episode

The episode discusses strategies to maintain athlete strength and performance throughout a competitive season.

Episode Summary Most athletes finish the season slower, weaker, and more banged up than they started. That is not bad luck. It is a coaching decision with a delayed invoice. In this episode we go through exactly what the research says about holding onto strength, power, and speed across a full competitive season, why so-called maintenance done wrong is really just managed decline, and the step-by-step framework to keep athletes sharp without burning them out. WHAT WE YOU WILL LEARN How fast athletes actually detrain, and which qualities you lose first Why power and speed fade before maximal strength, and why that is the dangerous blind spot The minimal effective dose, and how one quality session a week can hold the line The interference effect, and why the sport is already supplying your conditioning How to monitor and autoregulate so you prevent burnout instead of causing it A six-step in-season programming framework you can run this week How to taper into the games that actually matter KEY RESEARCH REFERENCED Mujika & Padilla (2000), Detraining I & II — Sports Medicine Ronnestad, Nymark & Raastad (2011), In-season strength maintenance frequency — JSCR Bickel, Cross…

People in this episode

Host: Brandon Smitley

Topics covered

• athlete strength maintenance
• season training
• minimal effective dose
• detraining
• in-season programming
• burnout prevention

Keywords

• athlete training
• strength maintenance
• power and speed
• detraining
• in-season programming
• burnout prevention
• minimal effective dose

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Mujika & Padilla, Ronnestad, Nymark & Raastad, Bickel, Cross & Bamman, Hickson, Wilson et al., Gabbett, Pareja-Blanco et al.

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