Football season is full of hard hitting workouts, studying opponents, and mastering execution of plays. The player with football confidence hopefully progresses in their ability with each game played. However, the time when most physical and mental growth occurs is during the offseason. The player who learns to maximize their offseason training regimen develops conditioning, strength and mental toughness that greatly increase their performance in the next regular season.

Many view the offseason as strictly a time to hit the weight room to gain in mass and muscle strength. While this is a component of an effective offseason program, it is also critical to address mental strength and focus while lifting the reps. Is your mind “idle” while working out, or allowing outside influences to control your focus during the workout? Are you pondering what to do this weekend, or what’s or lunch? This is a waste of mental energy that eventually saps football confidence.

Maximize your workout by engaging your thought process to envision goals, perfect play, and conquering opponents. Develop your focus so that when the regular season returns, you are able to filter any negative distracter from your mindset. NCAA Football Champions Alabama Crimson Tide emphasize the importance of mental training in the offseason, and strength coach Scott Cochran offers this insight; “We definitely set goals. We write them down, not on a piece of paper, but on their mirror, where they brush their teeth every day. I want them to see the goals when they are looking themselves right in the eye.”

The mental preparation for football begins in the offseason, whether in community youth leagues or the National Football League. Success follows those willing to train and sacrifice and the mentally tough athlete relishes the time of offseason to resolve any weaknesses, either physical or mental, and accentuate their strengths to the fullest potential possible. Bottom line is that offseason promotes growth, both physical and mental. This is the time to attack deficiencies with a systematic plan based on football psychology and principles to develop mental toughness.

2013 NFL Strength Coach of the Year Cedric Smith of the Houston Texans offered this advice, “There’s a happy medium in there, but sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and say ‘This is what we have to do to change our mentality, some of the things that we didn’t accomplish last year to get over the hump in some areas.’ That’s what my job is, to help them do that.”

The development of a mature, mentally tough football player requires concentrated effort geared towards improvement, both physically and mentally. Sports psychology in football emphasizes the need to directly and consciously address the overall mental game of a player as much as their physical one. Creating goals for each day of workout as well as small achievement goals along the way combats boredom and a mentality of simply “go through the motions and get this done as quickly as possible.” Mentally tough athletes seek to find method to improve their mental game which ultimately makes them a far more successful player on the field in the upcoming season.