Why Your Athlete Needs an “Off-Season” And Why Elite Programs Never Skip It

Parents often hear: “If you want to get ahead… you have to do more.” More games. More practices. More AAU. More private lessons. More everything.

But here’s the truth backed by sports science, sports medicine, and what every elite-level program already knows:

👉 Athletes don’t fall behind because they take a season to train they fall behind because they never take one.

In fact, the highest-performing athletes in the world do not play their sport year-round. NCAA Division I athletes, professional athletes, and national-level players all follow a structured annual plan that includes:

Pittsburgh athlete training posterior chain strength , coordination, mobility, and control to reduce risk for injury.

• A true off-season

• A dedicated strength phase

• A gradual preseason ramp-up

• An intentional recovery phase

Yet youth and high school athletes, whose bodies are still developing, are often doing more sport volume than professionals.

Let’s break down why that’s a problem and why a training-focused season is not optional… it’s essential.

1. Year-Round Sport Increases Injury Risk Dramatically

Research from the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine shows that athletes who specialize in one sport year-round are 1.5x more likely to get injured than athletes who play multiple sports or cycle their training.

A 2022 study in the Journal of Athletic Training found that athletes with high weekly sport volume (more hours per week than their age) had a 2–4x greater risk of overuse injuries especially in the knee, ankle, and low back.

Another large-scale study led by Dr. Neeru Jayanthi (Emory University) found that year-round specialization increases the risk of serious overuse injuries by up to 70%.

And why? Because the body does not break down during games or practices. It breaks down when it never gets time to rebuild.

2. Just as Dangerous: Playing Year-Round Without Building a Strength Base

Even if an athlete “feels fine,” playing nonstop without foundational strength training creates a different but equally serious risk:

👉 A weak base amplifies forces that joints, ligaments, and tendons simply aren’t prepared for.

Here’s what the research tells us:

• Female soccer and basketball athletes with inadequate strength (especially quads, hamstrings, hips, and calves) show 3–6x higher ACL injury rates (Hewett et al., 2005; Myer et al., 2013).

• Athletes who didn’t participate in structured strength training were 50% more likely to miss time due to injury (Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 2020).

• Preseason strength deficits (hip abductors, hamstrings, calf strength) are strongly related to in-season overuse injuries, which is why elite programs never skip the strength phase.

But here’s the key point for parents:

👉 Skill work does NOT fix strength deficits.

👉 More court time does NOT fix movement mechanics.

👉 Extra games do NOT build the tissues needed to withstand stress.

Only a structured strength and corrective training phase can do that.

3. What Elite Athletes Do Differently (And Why Your Athlete Should Too)

Every NCAA Division I program, regardless of sport, uses periodization, which means structuring training into phases:

OFF-SEASON (8–12 weeks)

• Primary focus: Strength foundation, stability, hypertrophy, mobility

• Minimal sport skills, generalized training

• Movement pattern correction and tendon prep

• Force absorption training (landing, deceleration)

PRESEASON (4–8 weeks)

• Add speed, agility, power

• Introduce sport-specific conditioning

• Gradually increase intensity

• Reduce nonessential volume

IN-SEASON

• Maintenance strength 1–2x/week

• Low-volume, high-quality training

• Recovery and tissue health priority

POSTSEASON

• Mental/physical recovery

• Restore movement patterns

• Address asymmetries and compensations

College athletes do NOT play year-round because it destroys performance and skyrockets injury risk.

Yet youth athletes often have zero structured phases, just a nonstop loop of games, practices, and skill work.

So while everyone else is doing “more,” the athletes who win long-term are doing what works:

👉 Dedicated seasons for building strength, power, and resilience. “More” isn’t better. Better is better.

4. What This Means for Your Athlete

Instead of viewing a training-focused season as “taking time off,” think of it as:

The season that makes every other season better.

A season to:

• Fix movement patterns

• Build strength they won’t have time for later

• Prevent injuries instead of reacting to them

• Improve speed, power, and explosiveness

• Support hormonal, muscular, and skeletal development

• Build confidence in their body’s ability to handle stress

• Gain an advantage most kids never get

This is not downtime. It’s where real development actually happens.

5. How Earn the Edge Performance Bridges the Gap

At Earn the Edge Performance, this is exactly what we specialize in providing the same evidence-based structure elite programs use, adapted for youth and high school athletes:

• Movement and strength assessments to identify imbalances

• Corrective exercise to fix the “why” behind the pain or imbalance

• Strength progression built for young developing bodies

• Landing, deceleration, and movement control training

• Speed and power development

• Load management and smart in-season programming

We don’t guess. We don’t run kids into the ground. We build athletes, strong, stable, confident, and injury-resilient.

Because when your athlete moves better, they play better. And when they’re healthy, they stay in the game longer.

Ready to give your athlete the advantage that actually matters?

👉 Start your athlete at Earn the Edge Performance. We’ll build the strength and resilience that nonstop games and skill training never will and help them enter their next season stronger, faster, safer, and more confident than ever.

Message me or visit Earn the Edge Performance to book an assessment and get started.

Let’s build better athletes together.