How to Train During the Competitive Season

A study of English Premier League footballers by Malone et al. (2017) found that players who performed one structured strength session per week during the competitive season retained 92% of pre-season maximal strength after 18 weeks, while those who trained only reactively (lifting only when the schedule allowed) lost an average of 14% over the same period. That 14% strength loss translated to measurable declines in sprint speed, jump height, and end-of-season injury rates. The data is unambiguous: in-season training is not optional if you want performance to hold. The question is how to structure it within the constraints of a competition-dense schedule.

Three factors make in-season training fundamentally different from off-season development blocks:

• Residual fatigue: Matches, practices, and travel accumulate neuromuscular fatigue that reduces the athlete's capacity to recover from training stimuli. A session that produces adaptation in the off-season may impair performance in a competition-dense week.
• Time constraints: Training window shrinks to 30–60 minutes for most team sports during the competitive phase.
• Priority inversion: Performance in competition is the outcome — training is a tool to support it, not the main goal. This changes how training variables are weighted: intensity is preserved, volume is cut.

The fundamental principle of in-season training is stimulus preservation with fatigue minimization. You are not building new fitness; you are preventing the detraining that would occur without a stimulus.

Strength and power qualities detrain at different rates. Understanding these timelines prevents over-training in the quest to maintain qualities that are more resilient:

Importantly, intensity — not volume — is the primary driver of maintenance. Strzała et al. (2018) confirmed that halving volume while maintaining load intensity preserved maximal strength over 8 weeks in competitive swimmers. Dropping intensity to maintain volume had the opposite effect. In-season training should be heavy and brief, not light and long.

The most common in-season programming error is using a fixed weekly template regardless of competition schedule. A team playing Wednesday and Saturday has a fundamentally different fatigue profile than one playing only Saturday. Load management requires adapting training units to the actual week, not a predetermined plan.

The acute-to-chronic workload ratio (ACWR) provides a framework. Keep the ratio between 0.8–1.3. Ratios above 1.5 indicate a spike in workload that elevates injury risk; ratios below 0.6 indicate undertraining that risks detraining. During competition weeks with multiple games, training volume should be reduced to keep ACWR within range — even if the pre-written program calls for a heavier session.

Practical decision rule: calculate session rating of perceived exertion (sRPE) after each training session and game (RPE × session duration in minutes). Track 7-day acute load and 28-day chronic load weekly. On any week where acute load is projected to exceed 1.4× chronic load due to match demands alone, reduce gym training volume by 40–60% preemptively.

Adapt the following templates based on your competition schedule. All templates assume a game on Saturday and that heavy training is placed furthest from the game.

Template A — 1 game per week:

• Sunday: active recovery (mobility, light swim or walk)
• Monday: full strength session (2–3 exercises, 3–4 sets at 80–85% 1RM)
• Tuesday: speed/power session (sprint mechanics + CMJ or drop jumps)
• Wednesday: technical/tactical practice
• Thursday: maintenance strength (2 exercises, 2–3 sets at 75–80%) + speed work
• Friday: activation (light jumps, contrast work, low CNS demand)
• Saturday: competition

Template B — 2 games per week (e.g., Wednesday and Saturday):

• Sunday: active recovery
• Monday: moderate strength (2 exercises, 2 sets at 80%) — compressed to 30 minutes
• Tuesday: technical practice, no gym
• Wednesday: competition
• Thursday: active recovery
• Friday: activation only (5 drop jumps, 5 squat jumps at 30%)
• Saturday: competition

Template B sacrifices muscle-building stimulus but preserves the neural training effect needed to maintain power output.

Subjective wellness questionnaires (sleep quality, mood, soreness) detect gross fatigue but miss the subtle neuromuscular impairments that precede performance decline. Objective markers provide earlier warning:

CMJ height as a daily readiness screen: Measure countermovement jump before each training session. Compare to the athlete's 14-day rolling average. A drop of 5–8% indicates moderate neuromuscular fatigue; reduce session volume 20–30%. A drop above 10% indicates significant fatigue; replace the session with mobility work or active recovery.

Barbell velocity at a fixed load: If an athlete consistently squats 80 kg at 0.65 m/s on a rested Monday, a reading of 0.58 m/s on Thursday signals accumulated fatigue. Velocity loss at a standardized sub-maximal load (70–75% 1RM) is one of the most sensitive early fatigue indicators available to field coaches (Claudino et al., 2017).

Both markers require consistent protocol to be interpretable — same time of day, same warm-up, same load. The value is in the trend, not the absolute number.

Power qualities require specific maintenance strategies because they depend on neural drive as much as muscle cross-section. A standard hypertrophy approach (3×10 at 70%) will not maintain power expression even if it maintains muscle size.

Effective power maintenance exercises for in-season:

• Jump squats at 40–60% 1RM: High velocity intent, 2–3 sets of 4–6 reps. Rest 2–3 minutes. The key: maximal intentional velocity on every rep. González-Badillo et al. (2014) found that velocity intent — not actual bar speed — was the primary driver of neural adaptation.
• Hex bar jump from the floor: Lower shear than barbell, easier to execute with high intent under fatigue. 2×4 reps at moderate load.
• Drop jumps (minimal volume): 2×4 reps from 40 cm box, twice weekly. This is sufficient to maintain reactive strength when combined with competition-related jumping.

The key principle: fewer sets, same intensity, same movement intent. An athlete who completes 2 sets of jump squats at 50% with maximal velocity intent will maintain more power than one who completes 4 sets at 50% with submaximal intent, even though the volume is double.

A single in-season template applied for 20–30 weeks will produce staleness and gradual decline. Long seasons require micro-periodization — planned variation within the constraints of the competition calendar.

Block the season into 4-week mesocycles. Within each mesocycle, identify the 1–2 weeks with lowest competition density. These are your "training weeks" — increase volume and intensity modestly. The other 2–3 weeks are maintenance weeks at the standard reduced volume.

End-of-season performance is often better preserved through planned variation than through monotonic maintenance. An athlete who takes 2 lower-volume weeks before a playoff push (while maintaining intensity) typically peaks better than one who held steady volume throughout.

The practical barrier to velocity-based fatigue monitoring has historically been time: loading a bar, attaching an encoder, running a warm-up set, and recording the data adds 10–15 minutes to a session. During an in-season week, this overhead is prohibitive.

PoinT GO's 800 Hz IMU eliminates the encoder attachment step — the device clips to the bar or attaches to the athlete and begins measuring immediately. A standardized 60-second readiness test (5 CMJs or 3 jump squats at a fixed load) generates the velocity and jump data needed for load decisions before the session begins. For team coaches managing 15–25 athletes, staggered readiness testing takes less than 8 minutes for the full squad.

The software logs every session's readiness data and compares it against each athlete's rolling 28-day average automatically. Coaches receive a color-coded flagging system: green (train as planned), amber (reduce volume 20–30%), red (active recovery only). This systematic approach takes the subjective pressure off both athlete and coach, and creates an audit trail for load management decisions across the season.