Offseason doesn’t mean time off

UCLA athletes really don’t get much of a break.

Even when they’re not in season, a good portion of their offseason is spent training for the next regular season. If they’re lucky, maybe they can squeeze some free time for themselves in there as well.

“We have weights three times a week, running twice a week, and then practice every day but Thursday,” said Erin Hardy, a sophomore on the women’s soccer team. “It’s harder than season.”

Part of the reason the offseason can be so difficult is because of the high expectations for the year to come. UCLA teams hold themselves to such high standards that the months in between seasons must be taken advantage of. Especially for a team such as women’s soccer, which has reached the College Cup four years in a row and has its eyes on a national championship every year, the time between seasons is crucial training time that cannot be wasted.

“Offseason, you try to get better,” Hardy said. “Practices are harder, everyone works a lot harder. … You run more, you lift harder, because you don’t have games.”

But at the same time, that does not mean there is no free time.

“Yeah I do (enjoy the offseason),” Hardy said. “It gets tiring, but I think it’s always bonding time with the team; you get to know everyone better. And hard work brings you together too; you have to get through it together.

“Everyone on our team lives with other soccer girls, so of course you see the people you live with. A lot of times you’ll get together ““ I’m a sophomore, so we’ll go eat with freshmen, or they’ll come in and we’ll make dinner. Or we’ll have “˜Grey’s Anatomy’ night at our apartment. … I think we’re always around our teammates because that’s our group of friends.”

For the men’s volleyball team, the offseason is a bit different. Some might even say the players have it a bit easier.

Men’s volleyball, like women’s soccer, trains hard during the offseason. But unlike other teams, volleyball offseason training has a pleasant element that brings some fun into training ““ the beach.

“The thing is with volleyball, because we’re not a cardio sport, and our season is not until spring, that we use this time to work on our overall game,” sophomore Jamie Diefenbach said. “The way that you can do that best is by playing beach volleyball and that’s a lot more enjoyable than, say, conditioning for soccer. For the volleyball players, our offseason is a lot more fun than I would say most teams’ offseason regiments are.”

With UCLA’s incredible location, there aren’t many better places in the world to train in this manner. Not only does the campus itself offer a multitude of facilities to train at, but with Santa Monica and Manhattan Beach just a short drive off the 405 Freeway, the volleyball players have a lot of freedom in how they choose to train.

“On the days that I don’t have class, I usually go to the pool,” junior Tony Ker said. “We play a lot of beach volleyball at the pool. If we’re not at the pool, then we’ll get a bunch of guys and we’ll go down to the beach and play beach volleyball down there. I love the offseason.”

Another popular ritual for the men’s volleyball team involves dressing up in costume and going to the women’s volleyball games to cheer them on. Not only is the event entertaining for athletes and fans alike, but it provides an even better opportunity for team bonding.

“It’s a huge camaraderie event for us,” Diefenbach said. “We all enjoy being with each other and having a good time. It’s definitely something that I don’t think a lot of other teams have that type of bonding event. It brings us a lot closer. … We’re all really good friends.”

Despite all the fun this team has, for the same reasons as women’s soccer, offseason training can still be more difficult than regular season training.

“Our training is way more difficult in the offseason than it is during season,” Ker said. “We’re already training for next season.”

For Tony Ker and his brother Kevin, who also plays on the volleyball team, this is also a time for some friendly, albeit tough, competition.

“I want to get my vertical over 40 inches,” Tony Ker said. “I’m at 39 right now. … I want to try and do that and continue to be higher than my brother; there’s a little rivalry going on between the two of us. His vertical is not as high as mine but he touched 10.5 and that was higher; he had beat my previous highest touch. So then last time that we tested I had to make sure that I went higher than him. … Hopefully next time we do testing again he won’t be higher than me.”

Like women’s soccer, and most of the other UCLA teams, the offseason presents a crucial opportunity to accomplish one specific and necessary goal: bonding as a team.

“As soon as we get into next year, (the offseason becomes) really critical,” Ker said. “We need to start really gelling as a team early on in the year. … I think the offseason as in team bonding and … the team structure in itself is very, very important. … We just play beach volleyball and hang out. I think that helps with the team bonding from an emotional level and a physical level because you’re playing with the same guys over and over again and you get to know, playing right next to each other, what it’s like.”

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