It's been a journey for the athletes on my team.  This past semester has been full of physically and mentally defining workouts that has turned them into machines, and now beginning this next semester brings on the start of the indoor track and field season!

     A few notes on the conditioning that we did.  It is extremely important to not forget this phase of any training.  When pursuing a sport oriented goal it is necessary to keep true to that goal... but not become stagnant with the training.  It is easy to fall into a firm routine of the same workouts that can help advance certain sport specific movements.  This is a very big problem, because after about 8-10 months the body has completed adaptive cycles and fortifies the body to perform tasks in a more efficient way.  So a danger of performing the same workouts for entire phases of conditioning and in-season workouts will cause sport specific movements to cease major and influential changes and cause a stall in improvement.  Our training was based around our academic calender and it broke the season into phases of 6-8 weeks of routine workouts, event-specific training, supplemental conditioning, and then in-season training.  intermittent long weekends and a 1 week rest helps the body maintain steady improvements in performance.  The key to a good long term workout for sports is a variable system that can turn general strength into event-specific strength!  There has to be a good balance between training full body core movements and good reminders that shock the body into efficiently performing the things that you are pursuing.

     Keep working hard on your goals.  With proper training and good motivation, you can get it done!