Why Off-Season Goals Matter More Than the Conditioning Test

The Off-Season Is Where a Kid Builds Himself — Not Where He Tries to Meet Someone Else’s Standards

There’s a moment every offseason where the panic starts to creep in.

A kid opens his email.
There it is — the conditioning test. Mile times. Shuttle runs. Push-ups. Numbers stamped on a screen like a judge’s verdict.

And suddenly, the kid isn’t thinking about playing lacrosse anymore.
He’s thinking about survival.

But here’s the thing no one tells him — the test isn’t the monster.
The monster is the way he’s looking at it.

Most kids treat the conditioning test like it’s the gulag:
Run fast enough or you’re done.
Hit the standard or you’re out.

But that’s not the truth.
The test was never built to destroy kids.
It was built to wake them up.

Coaches have known this forever.
Hell, even the kids know it deep down.

The test is just a lighthouse — a signal saying, “Start preparing now.”

It’s not a guillotine.
It’s a compass.

The Real Lesson Isn’t About Conditioning — It’s About Ownership

See, when a kid trains because of a number the coach wrote down, he never really owns the process. He’s just chasing approval.
Chasing not being embarrassed.
Chasing the fear of falling behind.

But when a kid sets his own goals — real ones, with numbers, timelines, and intention — everything shifts.

Now the work is internal.
Now he’s training for something bigger than a stopwatch.

He’s training for himself.

A kid saying:

• “I want to drop 30 seconds off my mile.”

• “I want to do 10 more push-ups.”

• “I want to cut my shuttle time.”

That kid isn’t afraid of a conditioning test anymore.
He’s building momentum.
He’s building confidence you can’t fake.

And here’s the beautiful part:

When he hits those goals — even the small ones — he starts to believe in himself, not because a coach told him to, but because he earned it brick by brick in the off-season.

That’s the kind of belief that makes other people’s opinions feel… background-level.
Still there, still technically relevant, but not something that can define him anymore.

Control the Only Thing That Ever Belongs to You

The world will always have standards.
Teams will always have tests.
Coaches will always have expectations.

You can’t control any of that.

But a kid?
He can control waking up and working.
He can control pushing himself one percent further each day.
He can control setting goals that are real, measurable, and his.

That’s where the real athlete is forged — not on testing day, but in the quiet months when nobody is watching, and every rep is a silent promise he keeps to himself.

And Let’s Be Honest — Everyone Knows What the Test Really Is

Teams like to frame the test as a pass-or-fail moment.
A gatekeeper.
A requirement.

But every coach alive knows the truth:

It’s not there to cut kids.
It’s there to make them train.

It’s a nudge disguised as a threat.
A spark meant to light the fuel before the season begins.

The test doesn’t decide who succeeds.
The off-season does.

A kid who owns his process, sets his goals, and shows up every day?
That kid walks into the conditioning test already winning — because the result doesn’t define him.

His work does.
His habits do.
His willingness to improve, even when nobody is grading him, does.

If He Chases His Own Standards, the Team’s Standards Won’t Break Him

So the lesson is simple and brutally honest:

If a kid trains for himself — not for approval, not for fear — then he walks into that conditioning test with a sense of calm most players never find.

Whatever the outcome is, he can live with it.

Because he knows he put in the work.
He knows he improved.
He knows he hit the goals he set.

And when you can look yourself in the mirror like that?

What other people think suddenly matters a whole lot less.

That’s the mindset that builds athletes.
That’s the mindset that builds good humans.
And that’s what the off-season is supposed to teach — long before a single whistle blows.