The football offseason begins the moment the last snap is played. Unlike other sports, football can’t be practiced exactly the way it is played, so offseason training looks much different for football players, such as Palmer Hemming. With the absence of game-like practice, football players use the offseason to improve their physical measurables, such as speed, agility, and strength, which all correlate to on-field performance. 

The Pella Football team hosts offseason morning workouts twice a week, and sophomore Palmer Hemming is one of the regular attendees. Hemming sees these workouts as something to help improve his game. 

“I think the whole offseason thing is just to improve from where you were the previous season to the next season. And by doing that during the offseason, you can take bigger steps and bigger jumps at the beginning of the season rather than having to wait till the end of the season to become your best,” Hemming said. 

These morning workouts typically consist of stretching, explosive running, and agility, and are held twice a week for 45 minutes. Not only do these workouts help with the physical side of football, they also help with the team aspect of the sport. 

“I think that the importance of those is just like building a bond between your team because when you can go through something that hard and with your buddies right next to you and you guys can look at each other and challenge each other to keep going and keep pushing harder and faster. It makes it a lot easier to respect the people around you because when they’re pushing you in, you’re pushing them that it’s just kind of like a mutual respect thing,” said Hemming. 

Hemmings favorite part isn’t the actual workout, rather enjoying time with his teammates. “I think the best part is probably afterwards when everybody’s talking, you can kind of just see like everybody’s really tired and most of us are wheezing or sweating a lot, but there’s one thing in common and that is that every single day, there’s at least 10 people there who have smiles on their face after the workout.”

With the workouts being so early in the morning, it takes a lot of discipline to be able to continuously wake up and workout, but Hemming has a different approach to the discipline aspect. 

“It’s really hard at the start of your day, but it means you’ve already got the hardest thing out of the way, so it kind of prepares you for the rest of the day,” Hemming said.

Next season, the Dutch Football team hopes these offseason workouts will help their on-field performance, as well as help coach McKinstrey have a great last season as head coach, Hemming said.

“You have to be disciplined and go, but the discipline comes from teaching yourself how to think in a different perspective,” Hemming said. “Just thinking about the team before me. I think that’s really where the discipline shows.”