The simplest guide to soccer off-season training on the internet
I am writing this specific article (1) because readers of our in-season training article asked for recommendations for what to do in the off-season, (2) because it’s largely applicable to all field and sport athletes, and (3) because off-season is my favorite time of year to coach!
Off-season is the perfect time of year for athletes to grow; not just in their sport, but as competitors and as people. But this requires an investment from the athletes (the results don’t show up overnight; they show up in-season!), careful planning, and lots of intensity in training and recovery!
But let’s cut the fluff and get down to the basics that matter in the off-season. Our goal is to improve all fitness qualities - flexibility, strength, endurance, power, and speed - but that doesn’t mean that all those attributes will be directly trained!
Remember: off-season is the foundation that prepares for the pre-season that prepares for the in-season. Don’t just think “what do I need/want to do in the off-season?”, but rather “what do I need/want to be able to do in the in-season?”.
That is the question!
PLANNING THE PLAN
Before you even put pen to paper or your fingers to the keyboard, you need to determine the following:
How long is the off-season, and how many training days are realistic? Remember to calculate including vacation and travel days or other events that will limit ability to train.
What equipment and space is available to train with?
What specific qualities need to be improved in order to raise performance, lower injury risks, and boost health?
These are important factors to consider in your plan, as you will need to know how many times you can train first before you can figure out how to train to achieve your cycle goal.
KNOW WHERE YOU’RE STARTING
Although the off-season contributes, whether directly or indirectly, to the improvement of all fitness qualities, the primary factors in focus during this cycle are strength, speed (specifically acceleration), and regeneration. Steady-state endurance training can be done early in the off-season cycle, in which the phase is usually general adaption and hypertrophy (fatiguing certain systems, such as muscles, in order to improve their capacity), but is a secondary quality.
In order to plan how to train and what exactly, you need to know where you are starting from before the first week. Without this data point (called a KPI), it’s impossible to truly say if you improved anything over the off-season, and, thus, unable to say whether the cycle itself was effective.
If you have access to formal performance testing, that is fantastic data to have (also check out this article on performance testing for ~*the poor~*). If not, then consider what kind of data is important for you to have.
Example: we want to measure an athlete’s maximum capacity for lower-body strength, so we did a 1RM/3RM squat and deadlift test and estimated the 1RM from there.
Example: we want to measure an athlete’s maximum acceleration speed, so we measured their time from 0-10m over three trials, and took the fastest time as the marker.
If you want to measure power, broad jumps, vertical jumps, or force/velocity data from a jump squat are your best bet. Maximal speed can be tested in trials over 40-60m. You get the idea, but please remember to make sure your test actually measures what you want to test for. A burpee test will tell you a grand total of nothing about lower body strength or acceleration speed.
Use the same test(s) you used before the off-season at the end to test your progress. Using a different kind of test is unreliable and invalid, because comparing data requires a replicated test.
STARTING THE PLAN
Move a lot and learn how to have fun doing it again. Pictured here: TSG Wieseck U19 Team in summer training camp.
The sport science community calls the off-season cycle a “Preparation (General) Phase”, and it truly lives up to its name.
GET MOVING: GENERAL PHASE
Start generally (aka nothing “sport-specific” - athletes from all field and court sports could do the same off-season plan and likely all see results, because it’s supposed to be general!) and, over the course of the off-season, get more specific.
This means that, if my sport requires short sprints very often, like in soccer, getting specific means having a grip on acceleration mechanics and being strong enough to propel myself forward. In the pre-season, then, I can focus on the explosivity and specific endurance to help me do that repeatedly over 90 minutes.
The first weeks of off-season should be simple, general, and cover the basics, with a slow progression in either volume, weight, or intensity. This phase can also be called post-season and is critical for regeneration, load management such as the distribution of stress to the whole body, and re-learning how to move as preparation for more increasing intensity.
Include many movement patterns across their full range of motion and in all directions. This should not be exhausting nor physically or emotionally devastating, but can include some “conditioning” work, such as interval circuits or tempo rowing/biking. I highly recommend medicine ball or kettlebell movements in this phase (think goblet squats, MB chest passes, KB swings); the weight stays light enough for us to master the movements and then transition to hypertrophy.
MOVE A LOT: HYPERTROPHY PHASE
Following one to two weeks of this adaption phase, a hypertrophy phase is in order. This means dropping the weights down, cranking up the volume (rep scheme is 8-15 reps), and getting to work at mastering movement.
I may be biased, but I strongly believe that every athlete needs a hypertrophy phase at least once a year, as long as their total off-season time is more six weeks or more. This allows, even in tight timelines, for athletes to increase their ability to handle volume and recover from it at the beginning of the season as the foundation of their fitness. This is important, because an athlete’s capacity to handle volume and physical (and psychological) stress tends to weaken over a long competitive season. At the end of a competitive phase, we can expect a reduced ability to manage a lot of stress while still performing exceptionally well and staying injury-free. We need to raise this threshold again before the next season, so that the athlete is able to handle the same amount of, if not more, volume in the comping competitive phase as before.
And, while some people still believe a hypertrophy cycle cannot possibly shorter than six weeks long, I would beg to differ: for White Lion Athletes with 6wk off-seasons, we give 2-3 days off at the beginning, rest of the days of the first week as general adaption (part 1), Weeks 2-3 hypertrophy (part 2), Weeks 4-6 max strength (part 3) transitioning to power and speed (part 4) in the pre-season. Even these “microblocks” improve fitness qualities - but you will have to test it yourself to know for sure.
Regardless of whether you have two weeks or eight for your hypertrophy cycle, remember that the goal is increasing an athlete’s capacity to handle more volume (to move it and recover from it). The best way to do this without rapidly throwing yourself or someone else toward overtraining is a steady, progressive increase in volume over time to each muscle group.
Example: we train the squat progression/the quadriceps/lower body push (or however you want to break it down) twice per seven-day cycle, one day with a squat variation and a leg press, and one day with step-ups and lateral lunges. Over each week, we increase the total number of repetitions completed in each set or for each exercise or for each muscle group: Back Squat 3x6 -> 3x8 -> 4x6 -> 4x8 over four weeks, same/similar weight but more total repetitions in the exercise.
This increase in reps leads to increased fatigue, followed by adaption to that volume and an increased capacity to handle it again next time - given you allowed for enough regeneration, which should be absolutely no problem in the off-season, as there is usually no team training, endurance work is absolutely secondary, and the purpose of this cycle is Regeneration + Rebuild. Nobody should ever approach overtraining in the off-season!
MOVE WEIGHT: MAX STRENGTH PHASE
Following this new capacity for volume and overall improvement of general fitness qualities, we shift our attention increasing the capacity for strength, to move as much weight as possible. Again, although it is a dream to have a 6-8 week maximal strength cycle at least once a year, that’s usually exactly what it is: a dream!
BIG OFFSEASON ENERGY. WE love off-season in my football club.
In global football, specifically here in Europe, athletes get a total of about 12 weeks off a year, including summer, vacations, and winter holidays. Once you get busy calculating how to position your max strength cycle for maximal strength gains (which is obviously what we are here for!!), the math gets a little ugly.
That said, 3-5 weeks of maximal strength training consecutively can serve most athletes greatly, so please don’t stress about timing and durations more than necessary. Again, at the beginning, determine how much time you have and what you can realistically do with it. That planning really matters now, as this is our last cycle before pre-season, and other goals and factors take priority.
The maximal strength phase works just like the others, in that we want to plan and follow a progression of weight and intensity in order to see progress.
My go-to starting point in the first week of maximal strength work is 5x5 @ 80% for all primary movements (pullups, squats, deadlifts, the main pulls and presses too). This rep scheme is a nervous system’s friend and foe. From there, gaining strength requires gradually less volume but more weight. Going off the 5x5 starting point for a five week cycle, you could follow this absurdly simple progression:
5x5 (25 reps) @ 80-82%
5x4 (20 reps) @ 85%
6x4 (24 reps) @ 85-87%
6x3 (18 reps) @ 88-90%
5-6x1-2 for heavy singles/doubles
For most athletes, it really is that simple, regardless of the lift chosen: slowly reduce the total number of reps while adding load (weight) and intensity (purpose/speed/effort).
Apart from main lifts, however, we also need accessory lifts in the program. These mustn’t follow that same rep scheme, but remember this: the goal is minimal volume for maximal progress, meaning don’t throw 1000 reps a week of assistance exercises at the wall and hope it makes you stronger. Only do what you have to.
For our White Lion Athletes, we differentiate between Primary Assistance Exercises and Secondary Assistance Exercises.
Primaries tend to fall in the range of 3-5 sets of 4-6 reps per exercise, which is usually 2-3 per workout. These exercises are often (Bulgarian) split squats, chin-ups or pulldowns, front squats, shoulder presses, etc.
Secondaries are 2-3 sets of 6-10 reps per exercise, usually 2-3 per workout. These exercises are typically core and stability work, such as dead bug variations, tricep or bicep work, lateral or frontal raises, chest or back flyes, facepulls… the stuff that helps but is not absolutely critical to gaining strength. Under duress or time constraints, these secondaries can be yeeted off the workouts for the day.
A quick note on exercise selection: remember that the body requires time to adapt, so do not change your exercises every week! Pick how you will structure your training days and with which exercises, and leave 90% of it like that for the entire cycle, unless you really notice something not working. Too much variation, especially in max strength and speed phases, can throw you off track faster than the German train system can delay its entire fleet (extremely fast). If this is your first off-season ever, you do not need to worry much about changing up your exercises each week - the progression of reps and weight across the cycle will be enough to produce positive results.
A NOTE ON WARM-UPS
A good warm-up should be the staple of every single training session.
Start with dynamic stretching, activation of the primary muscle groups, raise your body temperature at least slightly, notice how your body feels today and where there may be soreness or pain points.
After the body is mobilized, activated, and literally warm, start warming up with the specific exercise under lighter loads than prescribed.
Squats on the docket today? Warm up with your KB or under the bar.
In it for the deadlifts? Get your hands on a bar or some weight, and go through the motions.
Your warmup should take 10-15 minutes. More than that and you’ve wasted both time, sweat, and energy. Save that for the workout itself, and use this time to address any specific mobility, pain, or positional issues before jumping into a session.
Save static stretching for your cooldown or, at best, before bed. Strengthen the structures before and with training. Lengthen them later, when they are ready to recover.
A NOTE ON REGENERATION
At the risk of repeating myself one too many times, just hear me out (again):
PRIORITIZE REST AND RECOVERY IN THE OFF-SEASON. YOU SHOULD NOT BE GETTING INJURED RIGHT NOW!
Athletes should go into their first day of pre-season injury- and hopefully pain-free and more recovered and strong than they were all year. Off-season is not the time to get injured, make risky decisions, or skimp out on recovery (stress management, sleep, and food!) - or to overtrain.
Remember: off-season is general preparation and leads into pre-season, the specific preparation for competition. Use the off-season to prepare, to train, and to recover so that nothing is lacking, then progress into specific preps.
And - have fun. Get strong. Get fast. Off-season is awesome!
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