Podcast 6

The speaker discusses the schedule for athletes during different parts of the year, focusing on football. In April, they have spring ball, which involves practices and workouts. They have a break in May and then start intense workouts in June. July includes a break for the 4th of July. Fall camp in August is the most intense period, with daily practices and meetings. During the season, they have two practices a week, with games on Saturdays. After the season, they have a break and then start workouts again in January. The speaker emphasizes the importance of sleep and balancing academics, social life, and sports. They express gratitude to the listeners and mention that there will be two more podcasts. Hello, and welcome back to the Sam Friendel show. I'm Sam Friendel. And here we are. Here we are for podcast number six. Today. No guests, just me. And we're gonna be talking about the preseason schedule, the football season, the college football player, and along with the in-season schedule, off-season schedule. And you know, what kind of like the all-around year-round schedule looks like for us athletes. So first, I'm just going to start out talking about what we're doing right now. So we're in April. April is kind of like you're finishing up spring ball. Spring ball is kind of like football practices that are just meant for getting better. We run some plays, some team stuff, where we go offense against defense. And we kind of just work on stuff that, trying some new stuff, work on stuff that maybe didn't work in the fall and trying to get better. See if it'll work against teams in the fall during our real season. So April is just fine-tuning some things. We'll have 15 practices in a short amount of time that we got to get in. So that's something we focus on. And then we also have workouts. So it's different because I'll get into like the fall schedule, but it's a lot different than the fall schedule and like the off-season schedule in that we have practices and then we'll have lifts, lift the next day, and then practice, and then lift the next day, and then practice, and lift the next day. So it's, some days we'll have practice two days in a row, but it's very rare. So it's mostly just practice and lift, practice and lift, which is kind of cool because you get a little bit more of a break. It's not the same thing every day. It's not repeating. It's not consistent, which is kind of nice because once we get in the pattern, it can kind of get old quick. But it's something that we like to do. So right now, we just finished up spring ball. So we're done with that. We're just doing straight workouts and like runs. So twice a week, as of right now, twice a week through April, we're going to go to the indoor practice facility and we're going to run at 6 a.m. So we'll run for about 45 minutes. And then the first lifting group for the skill positions, like the quarterbacks, receivers, running backs, they'll lift at 7, get their lift in. And then the mids, which is like the linebackers and the court, like linebackers, mostly just linebackers really and tight ends, they'll lift at 8 and then all the linemen lift at 9. So it's kind of split up so like the weight room is not all packed with all these football players. But it's pretty nice. And other than that, it's just you're done for the day really. Other than me, I'm doing physical therapy because I just had knee surgery a couple months ago. So I'm doing physical therapy, rehabbing for that injury and hopefully getting back to 100% soon. But that's what we do. That's one day. So we'll do that twice a week. We'll run twice a week and lift. And then usually the other two days, we'll just lift and then Wednesdays are off day along with Saturday and Sunday. So we'll lift, run on Monday and then lift. Tuesday is just a lift. Wednesday is an off day. And then Thursday, run and lift. Friday, just a lift. So it's pretty nice. It's not much time consuming. You're done by 10 o'clock if you're the lineman. Everyone else is done earlier. So you got the rest of the day yourself. The only thing that kind of stinks is waking up early and going to bed earlier. And you know, sleep is a big thing. And that's sometimes it's a struggle to go to bed at an early time and wake up. Wake up at that time, but it's something that you got to do. Just for like timing and like space and like mentality. You know, you really build a good mentality waking up early every day, eating after the work right away. And like once you get all the work done, you got the rest of your day yourself. And it's pretty cool. But that's just right now. So going into the finals, like the final week of school, we'll get that. That's our first week off. And we'll have that week through the last week of May-ish, kind of that week off from football. So we'll have no football activity, no requirements, but we got to be back. Like we got to be back in town because there's a lot of people that live out of town. Obviously they recruited everyone on the team is pretty much from out of town. So you got to be back like May 30th, May 31st, maybe June 1st. Actually, I haven't really looked at the schedule this year, to be honest. And then after that, we have a team meeting and then workouts start that weekend. We're back to kind of what our schedule is now, except in the summer, we'll have a period, our first period of workouts and runs and all that stuff going from like June, like June 3rd to like June 28th. So it's a good, it's a good span of workouts and lifts. And that's kind of what we do. That's kind of like what we're doing right now, except the lifts are more intense. The runs are every single day. So we do a run or something every single day, except we have Wednesday off. There's nothing Wednesday. So Monday, run and lift, Tuesday run and lift, Wednesday nothing, Thursday run and lift, Friday run and lift. And then Saturday and Sunday are off. But it's a lot more intense because that's the time we're really striving to get better. We're really trying to get, get to be our full self and be the best. That's where we grow as a team and get better. And like, that's where we really get stronger, faster, quicker, jump higher, all that, all that good stuff. So that's like, that's the time period we work on that. We had a little 4th of July break. So during the 4th of July, we get to race off. And we'll, you know, no requirements, just you probably want, you, you, you got to work out during that, that, that span. And then during, and then after that, we'll have our second period of workouts from whenever that break is done to fall camp, which is like August, August 1st. So it's, that's a, it's a pretty good intense workout periods. We really strive to get better and we really do a good job getting better during that period. But after that, it's fall camp and that means business. And we got a lot of stuff coming fall camp. Fall camp is probably the most intense time of the year. It, it goes every single day. We have something, we got to meet with the team every single day for the entire month of August, which is pretty grueling. So we'll have four practices, lift on two of those practice days, and then we'll have a day off. But on that day off, we kind of had to do something as a team, which is kind of cool sometimes, but also just, you want a break most of the time. But after that period, then after that, you just, you kind of, you keep going. I mean, sorry, I kind of lost my train of thought there, but we just, we keep going on that cycle, four practices, day off, four practices, day off. And then we do, or maybe it's three practices a day, I can't remember, but three practices or three or four practices and then day off and then all the way until August 28th. And that's from school back and that's our first week of games. And then we have a regular practice schedule. But that, that fall camp schedule is pretty grueling. On a day that we lift, the schedule kind of looks like a walkthrough at 7am. And then we come back, we eat breakfast, in our locker room. Then after that, we have our first meeting, which is an hour or so with both the special teams and the position meetings. And then after that, we go out and practice for a couple hours. We get lunch, and then we have a lift after in that afternoon. And then we got meetings at four, and then supper and then more meetings afterwards, which kind of, it's a really grueling day. It's hard on the body, hard on the mind, but it's fall camp. Like once you get through it, you're ready for the season and it definitely gets you prepared for the season, but it also gets you really tired. You just got to really lock in mentally and physically and make sure you get your body what you need during that time because it's just a hard time in your body and you really got to, you got to stay sharp during that time. After fall camp, that's when the season starts, we get back to practice and practice days are not nearly as bad as fall camp, except it can be a struggle sometimes. Usually it's the same schedule, except the first meeting's at seven. So we'll walk through, we have a meeting at seven. There's treatments and stuff in the training room always before starting at six. So an hour before everything we do, there's always treatments or something. And then after that, we, after that meeting, we go to the special teams meeting for about a half hour. And then after that, we go to practice, which is a couple hours. And then after that we get a meal provided to us, but we have classes all afternoon, even at night. Sometimes then we've got a meeting usually at three or four or five, whatever works in our position groups, class schedule. And then after that, we are off for the day and you're back at home working on homework, getting prepared for tomorrow and studying the practice script and knowing what we got to do tomorrow and what plays we're going to run and all that jazz. And then after that, then we're back to practice again tomorrow. So during the practice week, we'll have two practices. There are three practices, but Monday we have off. Tuesday's practice day. Wednesday, it's a practice day, but it's more intense. We practice in the morning, then we lift and then we have a lunch and then we class meetings, all that jazz, but the lift's kind of really hard on the body. Thursday is just a walk through day, but it's kind of like a run through. No, Thursday's a walk through. Thursday we walk through everything and then Friday's a run through. So Thursday's a really good off day. You just walk through, then you're done for the day. Friday's a run through and then that's usually the traveling day if it's away game or if it's at home, then you just get prepared. We have meetings that day if it's at home. Even if it's away, we'll have meetings that Friday night before the Saturday game and then Saturday morning. It's a game. You've got to be prepared. Depending on the time, you can either wake up at 6 or 10. It just depends on if it's a night game or a game at noon. It really just depends. That's the entire season schedule that goes on for a good couple of weeks. Then after that, season's over. Hopefully we've made the playoffs. Hopefully it's mid-December, but if we don't, like we made the playoffs this year, we lost round one, then we'll have all of December off really for Christmas break, so we'll have a good month off. Then after that, January, we'll be back doing workouts, kind of like what we're doing now, running twice a week and then lifts all the day. It's hard because of the consistent schedule year-round physically, but mentally staying locked in on that schedule is, I would probably say, the toughest part just because you've got to know the plays. You've got to know your class schedule. You've got to know what you're doing in class. You've got to focus on lifts. You've got to focus on waking up in the morning and bringing that mentality to get better today at practice. It's really just tough. It's something that not a lot of people can do, but it's a good test of what kind of person you are. It definitely grows you as a person and gets you ready for whatever you're going to do in the future or whatever stuff you want to do in the future. It's just a good test for that type of stuff. The schedule year-round, I mean daily, it's hard to enjoy, so you have to really focus on enjoying the stuff that you like to do. Because you're just so focused on everything else, it can be tough. It really all comes down to sleep. If you don't get enough sleep, then your schedule is going to be all messed up. You're not going to be able to focus. You're going to be falling asleep in class or in meetings. You're not going to be giving it 100% during practice or at lifts. It's just really going to disrupt you as a player and as a person because people take notice of that and they want the best player and person out on the field playing for them or in the classroom. So it's really important and that's why people always make a big deal being a student athlete because it's a big deal. It can be hard, which it is, but it's only hard if you're not prioritizing your needs and making sure you know what needs to be done. Because having a social life, that's a great thing, but it's also something that needs to be prioritized. You need to have a social life though because I remember hearing something a while back about the best players have a great off the field balance with their life and that's true. It really is. People that know how to have fun outside the field, not stuff that is bad to your body or stuff that you shouldn't do, but just playing games like video games or just hanging out with friends, watching sports. You kind of have to do that type of stuff to make sure you're locked in mentally and make sure you're doing what you're supposed to do and having fun because club football is supposed to be fun. You're supposed to have time. You've got to take advantage of the time you have off, but you also have to take advantage of that time off to get better on your game. I remember in fall camp, or not fall camp, but in the fall practice, I would at night run routes during practice stuff and that was really hard on my body. You have to know not to do too much either because your body is really like a tempo. You really have to take it as it's just really important. It's just what I'm trying to say. It's really important. Making sure that it's 100% is probably the best thing that you can do because being available is the best thing possible because people are going to get injured. People are going to do dumb stuff and they're going to plenty of times get diminished and being ready, being available is super important because if you're not, then here goes the next guy and you might just lost your opportunity. That's all I really wanted to talk about today. I really appreciate all those people listening in and our next couple of podcasts, we only got two more, so I just want to thank you all for listening and I'll be back with the last two in the next couple of weeks. Thank you and have a great one.