Should I lift weights during the season?
Yes. Strength built over a pre-season starts to decline within a few weeks of stopping, so an athlete who lifts hard until round one and then stops spends the second half of the season weaker than they started it. What changes in-season is the volume, not whether you lift at all.
The usual shape is fewer sets at a weight that holds rather than climbs: enough stimulus to maintain, little enough fatigue that it does not cost you on game day.
Why
The fear behind the question is reasonable — nobody wants to arrive at a match already tired. But the fix for that is placement and volume, not abstinence.
Cut sets, not weight. Dropping the load and keeping the volume is the wrong way round: it keeps the fatigue and removes the stimulus that maintains strength. Keeping the weight heavy and halving the number of sets does the opposite.
Place it away from the game. Early in the week, after the game rather than before it, is where lower-body work belongs.
Train Smart scales set volume by roughly 30% once competition starts and holds the prescribed weights rather than continuing to climb — the program changes shape at the same time the season does, without you deciding when.
Related
How long before a season should I start training?
Eight to twelve weeks is the usual window, and the order of what you build in it matters more than the length.…
OpenWhat should I do in the off-season?
Rest properly, then rebuild the general strength and the niggles the season did not let you fix. It is the onl…
OpenIn-season lifting: the full guide
OpenHow periodisation works
OpenA program that already answers this for you
Train Smart builds your week around your sport, your season and the days you actually train — with the weight to put on the bar on every set, and the reason each movement is there.
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