In-season gym programme for Sunday league players

Most Sunday league players do one of two things in the gym during the season: nothing, or the same bodybuilding split they did in the summer. Neither works well. Doing nothing means the strength and speed you built in pre-season fade by Christmas. A heavy leg day on Saturday means you turn up on Sunday flat. There’s a simple middle ground.

Why bother lifting in season?

Strength training is one of the most effective things an amateur footballer can do for short sprints and jumps. Recent network meta-analyses comparing training methods ranked strength training at or near the top for 5–20 m sprint and jump performance in footballers Wang et al. 2026 Du et al. 2026 Oliver et al. 2023. Those are the efforts that win a header, get you to the ball first or close a winger down.

The good news is that keeping strength takes far less work than building it. In a small study of professional players over the first 12 weeks of a season, one strength session a week kept strength and sprint gains, while one session every two weeks didn’t Rønnestad et al. 2011. It was a small sample, but it fits with wider research showing strength holds on a low dose as long as the effort stays high Spiering et al. 2021.

Where the sessions go

For a player who trains on Wednesday and plays on Sunday morning, a good week looks like this:

The logic is simple. After a match, strength, sprint speed and soreness can take up to 72 hours to come back Nédélec et al. 2012 Doeven et al. 2018. So the heavy session waits until Tuesday, and nothing heavy for the legs goes on Saturday. If you play Saturday afternoon and train Tuesday, shift everything back a day: heavy on Monday, lighter on Wednesday or Thursday.

Only five or six days between games, or a busy week at work? Drop the Thursday session and keep Tuesday. One good session beats two rushed ones.

The Tuesday strength session

Warm up for 8–10 minutes, then:

1. A few short sprints or jumps: 3–4 jumps or 3 × 10 m accelerations, fully rested. Speed work goes first while you’re fresh.
2. Main lower-body lift: trap bar deadlift, back squat or front squat, 3 sets of 4–6 reps.
3. Single-leg lift: rear-foot-elevated split squat or step-up, 2–3 sets of 6–8 each leg, weaker leg first.
4. Upper-body push and pull: press-ups or dumbbell bench, plus rows or pull-ups, 2–3 sets of 6–10.
5. Nordic hamstring curl: 1–2 sets of 3–5 reps.
6. Calf raises: bent- and straight-knee, 2 sets of 10–15.

Choose weights that leave two or three reps in the tank on every set. In season you’re keeping strength, not chasing personal bests, and grinding out reps adds fatigue you’ll still feel on Sunday.

The Thursday speed and power session

This one is shorter and sharper:

• Sprints: 3–6 runs over 20–40 m at close to full pace, with full recovery between them. If club training didn’t include any near-top-speed running, this is where it goes.
• Jumps: 3 sets of 3–5 box jumps or bounds.
• A light power lift: jump squats or a light trap bar jump, 3 sets of 3.
• Copenhagen adductor exercise: 1–2 sets on each side at your level.
• Trunk: side planks or a carry.

Keep the total volume low. You should leave feeling quicker, not tired.

Hamstrings and groin, all season

Programmes that included the Nordic hamstring exercise were linked with about half the hamstring injury rate in a large meta-analysis van Dyk et al. 2019, and a Copenhagen adductor programme was linked with 41% fewer reported groin problems in semi-professional men Harøy et al. 2019. In season, keep both going at a low dose: at least one Nordic session and one Copenhagen session a week. Avoid gaps longer than two weeks, because muscle-length gains from Nordics reversed within two weeks of stopping Presland et al. 2018.

Two timing rules matter. Never do them the day before or the day after a game. And don’t do Nordics earlier on the same day as club training: one set of five cut amateur players’ eccentric hamstring strength by 8–17% straight afterwards Marshall et al. 2015. After training, or on a non-training day, is fine.

See the full guides to the Nordic hamstring curl and the Copenhagen adductor exercise.

Adjust for how you feel

Some weeks you’ll be fine; some weeks you played 90 minutes on a heavy pitch, slept badly and had a long shift. On those days keep the weights the same and cut a set from each lift. That keeps the strength signal and trims the fatigue. If you’re ill with a fever, or anything hurts at more than a mild level, skip the session.

If you played less than 20 minutes or didn’t come off the bench, you’re not carrying match fatigue. Add a short top-up fitness session from Tuesday so your week isn’t lighter than everyone else’s.

Double-headers and midweek games

Playing Saturday and Sunday, or a midweek cup game, changes the week. Heavy legs go back to Tuesday at the earliest after a double-header, and between games three or four days apart there’s room for only one short session with no heavy legs. There’s more in the guide to training around Saturday and Sunday games.