Use the Summer to Step Your Game Up

Are you taking the rights steps to reach your athletic potential? Are you looking to have a breakthrough season or potentially win a starting position on the team? Either way you’ve got to have a plan to reach your potential.

The majority of this year’s high school sports seasons have ended and the rest are coming to a close. With summer right around the corner, it’s time to take advantage of your free time and step your game up. Here are few key areas to focus on .

Manage Your Time:

We all know that the summer is the prime season to relax and hang out with your friends. However, with proper time management, you can definitely find time in your day to get workouts in and still enjoy the good life that summer has to offer. Sit down and create a specific schedule tailored to the demands of your sport. I recommend you schedule your intense workouts in the morning as it’s more difficult to do them as the day moves on. Also you should assign certain days for specific areas of your training program such as resistance training, speed / agility training and conditioning. Some days you might have a training session and practice, in that case I recommend handling your strength and conditioning workout in the AM and your practice in the PM. Once you create this schedule, be sure to stick with it. This will certainly pay off once your season comes around. To make sure you keep up with the schedule, post it on a calendar in your home or at least hang it up somewhere visible in your room.

Set Personal Goals:

It’s always great to actually notice and feel some improvement in your conditioning and skills. Go ahead and set some goals for yourself so that you can feel inspired to get out and train each day. The key point here is to write your goals down and be specific. Goal example: “To improve my overall strength by 10% over the next 3 months.” You can measure this by keeping track of your workouts and the amount of weight you are using per lift / exercise. Once you start seeing the slightest progression in your game, you will definitely want to continue making progress with your training program. You can set pre-season goals, so that you’re in top shape and ready once pre-season practices start, as well as set goals for the season to motivate you to strive for perfecting your overall abilities in your sport.

Tackle Your Weaknesses:

The downtime you find during the off-season provides the perfect opportunities for you to analyze your weaknesses and tackle them head-on. There is always some aspect of your game that could use improvement. Take a moment to reflect on past performances and list the areas where you believe you could improve the most and why. I’d also ask someone you trust, whether it’s a coach or one of your parents, what areas of your performance could you improve the most. This will help provide clarity on what areas you should focus on.

Your weaknesses could range anywhere from rehabbing an injury to improving your flexibility to working on your jump shot. In general, progression in any sport is highly dependent on athletes’ abilities to address their weak points directly in order to become successful, complete and consistent performers. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to the SportsForce Blog!

The SportsForce team is excited to be launching our blog prior to launching our new online sports career development platform this summer.

The goal for the SportsForce blog is to provide athletes, coaches, parents and more with valuable in-depth insight and interviews covering the college recruiting process, advanced training tips, coaching advice and more.

Imagine applying proven strategies and having a clear game plan in place to help reach your sports career development goals.

The SportsForce team has over 60 years of combined college and professional sports experience. We will openly share our sports experience and insight with working with almost 1,000 student-athletes and families over the last couple years and numerous conversations we’ve had with high school coaches, college coaches and professional athletes from around the country.

Here are some of our current blog posts:

Elevate Your Game During the Off Season

Selecting the College That’s Right for You

Creating the Right Parent/ Coach Relationship

Upcoming Topics:

The Decision to Play a Sport in College

The Advantages of Being a Multi-Sport Athlete

Time Maximization in College

We recommend you subscribe to our SportsForce newsletter to automatically receive the latest insight and interviews in your inbox.

We will also be offering a special invitation to be on our private beta list to be one of the first people to see our new site we’ll be launching this summer.