After this last season's Super Bowl, we ran an article on Bill Belichick's decision to have players do 80% of their squat max out and going through full padded practices the week of the big game, on the nation's biggest stage.
The article was read an enormous amount of times, and sparked conversations among coaches on social media about the best ways to prepare players during the season, which prompted a number of interesting questions and discussions with an even wider array of passionate opinions:
Should they be lifting multiple times a week during the season?
How much of their max should they be doing?
How do you balance staying fresh and developing mental toughness?
Those questions are just the tip of the iceberg. Last night, Baylor released an interesting video detailing their in-season approach and in it they state that getting the most out of players on game day comes down to two key 48-hour windows.
"We look at it as, we really have two windows of opportunity where we can really affect performance in-season, and that's the first 48 hours after the game, and the 48 hours before the game," Baylor director of applied performance Andrew Althoff notes after saying that their approach is to take the latest research and sports science and apply it to performance.
"How can we help get them recovered, and get them back up to full speed by the time that practice starts the following week? Those final 48 hours are the massage, and body weights, and hydration and working with strength and conditioning, working with nutrition to make sure the athletes are ready to go, fresh, fast and physical on game day," Althoff went on to explain.
See more on Baylor's approach and philosophy in the weight room from Althoff and players under Matt Rhule's' new leadership in the clip.