07/22/2026
From Coach Mike Turpin
Every year I hear some version of the same thing.
“I’ll just get back into lifting once the season starts.”
The problem is that the season isn’t when you’re supposed to build your body. It’s when you’re supposed to use it.
The offseason is different. It’s the one part of the year where your body can actually handle hard training that takes time to recover from. You can push your squat. Add weight to the bar every week. Get stronger without worrying about feeling beat up for practice on Tuesday or a game on Saturday.
That’s what the offseason is for.
A lot of people worry that lifting will make you sore or slow once the season starts. Ironically, the opposite is usually true.
The athletes who spend months building strength before the season are the ones who handle in-season lifting the best. Their bodies have already adapted. They aren’t crippled by soreness every workout because strength training isn’t new anymore. They’re simply maintaining something they’ve already earned.
That’s the goal.
Get stronger in the offseason.
Maintain it during the season.
People think strength is something you train for a few months. It isn’t. Strength is a year-round sport.
Every athlete with an impressive squat, press, deadlift, or clean has spent years building those numbers. They don’t stop lifting once they get strong. They keep showing up and maintaining what they’ve built.
The good news is that maintenance is much easier than building it in the first place.
The hardest work happens now.
One of my favorite parts of coaching isn’t watching a kid add ten pounds to a lift. It’s watching what happens after they double or even triple their numbers over the course of a couple of years. And yes, that happens more often than people think.
They don’t just become stronger.
They carry themselves differently.
They become more confident. More resilient. They stop backing down from challenges. They work harder because they’ve seen what consistent effort produces. They become more physical without trying to be. Somewhere along the way they stop looking and acting like little boys and start carrying themselves like young men.
Strength has a funny way of changing more than muscles.
And when I watch youth lacrosse, I notice the same thing over and over.
The team that wins usually isn’t the team with the fanciest stick tricks.
It’s the team that looks bigger. Faster. Stronger. The team that wins ground balls because they’re harder to move. The team that keeps their speed in the fourth quarter. The team that can absorb contact instead of avoiding it.
Skill matters.
Stick work matters.
Conditioning matters.
But strength quietly makes all of those things better.
That’s why we train so hard in the offseason.
Not to be tired.
Not to chase soreness.
Not to lift heavy for the sake of lifting heavy.
We train now so that when the season arrives, your body is already prepared to do what your mind is asking of it.
The work you put in today is what lets you play your best when it actually counts.
