Can you believe that we are into November already??  I certainly can’t. Seems like it was just yesterday I was doing a happy jig celebrating winter ending and now we’re headed right back into another one.

When I first started my business, I thought that summer would be the best time to work with athletes. School is out, so there should be ample time to get these kids in shape in time for fall practices.

What I quickly learned is that summer stinks for my business. Maybe stinks is too strong of a word, but we aren’t nearly as busy as I thought we would be. The reasons are several:

  • Summer vacation nowadays is really about 8 weeks. Maybe 9 in length.  This is actually a reasonable amount of time to see some athletic improvements IF you can get the athletes in consistently for that length of time.
  • Your training gets interrupted with family vacations which could be 1-2 weeks.
  • Then there is always some type of team camp, which once again could be 1 or 2 weeks.
  • Finally, what seems to be popular is doing some type of “Hell” week the week before fall practices are supposed to start. Which scares the heck out of kids, so they don’t want to train that week.

Doesn’t leave much time for some serious training does it. That’s why WINTER is the absolute best time for athletes to train. Unless of course you are participating in a winter sport, then training is probably out of the question.

The winters at my facility are jam packed with athletes. This is like my “tax time” if I was an accountant. Here’s why winter is such an awesome time to train.

  • I live in Columbus, so the winters here can be cold, snowy, and dark early. Doesn’t entice people to go outside and practice or play around. They have to do most activities inside and if you have the right facility to do that at, you are golden.
  • Winter training for us begins when the fall sports are ending. Depending on what level the athlete is at, he/she could be done as early as mid-October. If they make it far into the state tournament for their sport, it could be around mid-November early December. If they play a spring sport, that practice usually starts beginning of March. So, even if they don’t start with us til December 1 that gives them at minimum 3 good months of solid training.
  • Just about all the athletes we work with are currently in school. The only interruptions that could happen would be a short trip over Thanksgiving or maybe a week long Christmas break trip. That still leaves us a lot of time to train the athlete.
  • Fall sports has the most athlete participation because they have the most sports going on at one time. With soccer and football alone that is a ton of athletes. Winter sports has the fewest sports going on at one time. So a big chunk of athletes can take advantage of the training time.

What this all adds up to is a solid 3 to 4 months of practically uninterrupted training to give your athlete that maximum chance to reach new heights with their athleticism.

Why would you not want to take advantage of it?

So as we begin November and if you aren’t playing a winter sport, you need to ask yourself if you are doing all you need to do to be a better athlete. When “time” is one of the biggest excuses why athletes can’t train with us, the winter seems to eliminate that excuse.

 

Seize the opportunity and make plans to get started on a great training plan. Like I always say, if you don’t seize the opportunity your competition might.

Photo courtesy of Gregor on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/stoermchen/