Mailbag question: Coach Barwis and his program during the season

I love the blog.

Here's my question.

I think I have a pretty good general idea of what the strength and conditioning program is like during the off-season -- Barwis and crew basically kill the guys in the weight room and with running. But what is it like during the season? How do the goals and the workouts change? What is the balance between working hard on conditioning vs. making sure the guys are rested and ready to go on Saturdays?

Ken1851

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Thanks for the question and comments.

This is from the 2008 Michigan coaches’ clinic.

Coach Barwis told us his theory on in-season is different than many other coordinators. The UM program is not just about maintaining strength in-season, like many programs, but actually the expectation is for players to gain strength. This is accomplished by players continuing to lift heavy weights, but doing fewer sets per exercise.

Coach Barwis also informed us that he had multiple players at West Virginia set personal records in the hang clean and clean and jerk during the football season.

Individual player workouts in-season can vary. Extrusive factors include where the player is on the depth chart, whether the player is expected to play on Saturday, or travel with the team to road games.

As far as working out, Coach Barwis stated the players on the travel squad would do less of a workout than the players not traveling. The players who will not be traveling then have an extra day of working out, which is almost like a typical off-season program.

The traveling squad players will lift twice a week, whereas the non- traveling players will lift three times a week during the football season. Of course, this can change as a player might be on the travel squad one week and then off of it the following week, due to circumstances such as the opponent, injuries, or on the occasion a player beats out someone ahead of him on the depth charts.

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