The In-Season S&C Problem: Why Most Soccer Players Lose Their Gains by March

You spend pre-season building strength, power, and resilience. By the time January arrives, it's gone. Players are weaker than when the season started, more injury-prone, and running on fumes.

This is the in-season S&C problem. And almost every team at every level struggles with it.

The good news: it's solvable. The solution just requires a fundamental shift in how you think about in-season strength work.

Why Players Detrain

The math is simple. Match days and recovery days consume the week. Coaches prioritize technical and tactical work. Gym time gets squeezed out. When it happens, it's light — maintenance work becomes no work.

Here's what happens physiologically:

Strength: Maximal strength starts declining within 2-3 weeks of detraining. Players who were squatting 1.5x bodyweight in August might barely manage 1.2x by December.

Power: Power drops even faster. Plyometric qualities — essential for sprinting, jumping, cutting — diminish noticeably within 2 weeks of stopped training.

Tissue tolerance: This is the big one. Muscles, tendons, and connective tissues that were prepared for high loads become vulnerable. When an aggressive sprint or change of direction occurs, the tissues can't handle it. Injuries follow.

The season itself is not sufficient stimulus to maintain what you built. Playing matches provides conditioning, but it doesn't provide the progressive resistance needed to maintain strength.

The In-Season Mindset Shift

In-season S&C is not off-season S&C. The goals are different:

Off-season: Build. Develop. Push boundaries. Create adaptation.

In-season: Maintain. Protect. Support performance. Prevent the slide.

This mindset shift changes everything. You're not trying to add 10 kg to a player's squat during the season. You're trying to keep them at the level they reached in pre-season — or at least limit the decline.

Once you accept that maintenance is the goal, the programming becomes clearer.

The Two-Session Rule

Two strength sessions per week is the minimum effective dose for in-season maintenance.

One session doesn't cut it. Research and my own experience confirm that a single session per week results in steady strength loss over a season. Two sessions holds the line.

Three sessions would be better for maintaining strength, but it's rarely feasible with match demands and recovery requirements. Two is the practical sweet spot.

Timing rules:

• Never within 48 hours before a match. Neural fatigue and muscle soreness compromise match performance.
• Ideally 72+ hours from the previous match. Day two post-match is often too soon for heavy loading.
• Match-day minus 3 (MD-3) or minus 4 (MD-4) are the prime windows for strength work.

For teams playing once per week, this gives plenty of options. For teams with congested schedules (twice per week), it gets tighter — you might only manage one proper session with one lighter session.

What Goes in the Sessions

The Non-Negotiables

1. Compound lower body strength

Squats, deadlift variations, split squats, or similar. At least one session per week should include a heavy compound movement at 80-85% of max for 3-4 sets of 4-6 reps.

This isn't about building muscle. It's about maintaining neural drive and tissue tolerance. Heavy loading tells the body: keep this strength, we need it.

2. Eccentric hamstring work

Nordic curls, Romanian deadlifts, or eccentric-focused variations. Every single week, no exceptions.

The research on Nordics and hamstring injury prevention is overwhelming. Players who do consistent eccentric hamstring work get injured less. Full stop.

I've worked at clubs that implemented mandatory Nordics twice per week for the entire squad. Hamstring injury rates dropped by over 50%. When players skip this work, injuries return.

3. Unilateral work

Single-leg squats, split squats, step-ups. Soccer is played on one leg at a time. Bilateral strength doesn't always transfer to single-leg stability under load.

Include unilateral work in at least one session per week.

The Flexible Components

• Posterior chain accessory work: Glute bridges, hip thrusts, back extensions. Useful but lower priority than the non-negotiables.

• Upper body: Important for injury resilience and winning duels. Can be reduced to one session per week in-season without significant decline.
• Core: Integrated throughout — anti-rotation, anti-extension, rotational patterns. Doesn't need dedicated sessions.

Sample Week Templates

One Match Per Week (Saturday)

Two Matches Per Week (Wednesday + Saturday)

In congested weeks, you accept that one session is better than zero. Keep the Nordics in — that's non-negotiable even if you only have 20 minutes.

Managing Fatigue and Freshness

In-season training walks a tightrope. Load enough to maintain adaptation, but not so much that you compromise match performance.

Signs you're loading too much:

• Players report heavy legs consistently on match day
• Power output in gym sessions declining week over week
• Increase in soft tissue complaints

Signs you're loading too little:

• Strength tests (if you do them mid-season) showing significant decline
• Players reporting they feel weak or underpowered
• Increase in non-contact injuries

Adjustment levers:

• Volume is the first thing to reduce. Keep intensity (weight on the bar) but do fewer sets.
• Move sessions further from matches if players aren't recovering.
• Reduce gym frequency during fixture congestion.

The Investment Pays Off

Players who maintain strength through the season:

• Get injured less (especially hamstrings, groins, and knees)
• Maintain speed and power into the final months
• Recover faster between matches
• Perform better in the decisive games

The teams that fall apart in March and April are often the teams that abandoned the gym in October.

Two sessions per week. Never skip the Nordics. Keep the big lifts in. It's not glamorous work. But it's the work that sustains a season.

What does your in-season S&C setup look like? Are you maintaining or watching it slip away?