We’re at the tail end of exam time for students and a long summer without the stress or worry of study awaits them. For a lucky few the biggest decision is do I go to Philadelphia or San Francisco to play ball for a few months, for the rest of us muggles who aren’t getting flown over by the Irish American Express it’s a matter of readjusting to a new routine and getting the most out of the summer months.

The transition from University living back to home in the summer can be a strange one. For the majority of us we’re back under the roofs of our parents so we might not get away with rolling out of the pit at whatever time we like, catching up on Love Island over a bowl of cereal and deciding how we’ll kill a few hours before training.

Chances are you’ll be politely told not to be lazy and go do something useful with your newly found free time.

And it’s what you do with that extra time you have on your hands where you can really make hay this summer.

Whenever I’m putting together programming for teams or players I always try and make it the best bang for their buck it can be. Time is precious so it was imperative that we hit the most important muscle groups and movements patterns as best we could and this would mean that there’d very rarely be any bench pressing or arm curling.

In fact, I’d go as far as saying I actively avoided them – mainly because in terms of athletically developing the GAA player I feel there are so many better exercises to build into a program – BUT, and that’s a big but, even when I was there with the players going through the programs so many of them would tag on a set of curls at the end of the session, or substitute in a bench press for a different pressing motion.

So if you’re going to work your disco muscles, at least do it intelligently. Not only that, if you’re going to have a summer of increased gym time then invest in a coach.

At the very least get them to write you out a program, specific to your goals – arm curls and all – which you can follow over the summer months. Better again if you’re able to get a session with them a week so they can help accelerate your development with good coaching.

You may very well be training plenty as is and feel like you don’t want, or need to do any extra training, and that’s fair enough!

Whatever you decide to do with these few months of limbo between full time study and full time work, don’t waste them because you’ll never get them back!
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