How Athletes Can Stay Fit During the Off-Season

Isabelle Zanzini is a certified personal trainer and works with athletes of all levels in Brazil and the United States. She is a former collegiate soccer player and currently coaches and works on educating players about the importance of physical health and how to train your body to be the best athlete possible.

During the summer she spends her time working as a Soccer Coordinator at Berkshire Soccer Academy for Girls. While a lot of her time is spent handling soccer assignments, staffing coaches, and handling field logistics, she also is known around the campsite as the person to go to to get fit during the off-season.

Zanzini gets up almost every morning at 5 AM while out in the Berkshires to train coaches and players. They work on technical mastery as well as interval fitness and basic strength and conditioning exercises. When TeamSnap spoke with Zanzini about the importance of off-season training, she emphasized the importance of running as well as lifting. “I focus on basic patterns that can be transferred into the game and power movements,” she said.

TeamSnap put together an Off-Season Training Series to help players, coaches, and teams stay disciplined but also united during the summer when a lot of players go off on their own. Each week (for 8 weeks) a new video was released. Every video would introduce a certain movement that was designed to help young athletes reach their full potential by increasing their agility, strength, and flexibility. Some of the exercises that were introduced in the video series were:

• Bottom up kettlebell press
• Banded wall crawls
• Lateral banded walks
• Single leg step downs
• Child’s Pose
• Couch stretch
• Pigeon pose

Did you get a chance to try any of these movements?

If so, we’d love to hear if you tuned in as an individual athlete or with your team. Zanzini includes a lot of similar exercises into her plan for athletes, but also a soccer player includes a lot of running, agility work and interval training. Off-season training is a great opportunity for young athletes to prioritize learning new skills, improving weaknesses, dedicating more time to proper form, and learning the importance of strength training and mobility. Want to know 5 reasons why off-season training can help your athlete in all aspects of their sports goals?