The Straughn High School football team has been working on its own somewhat-different summer routine since June, in order to get ready for the fall.

Since June, the Tigers have been meeting twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This month, the team will meet Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Straughn coach Trent Taylor said focusing on weight lifting and running were the priorities in the team’s June workouts.

“Basically, that’s the way we’ve done it,” Taylor said. “I don’t know if that’s the right way or the wrong way and again I don’t know if anybody can do what is right and what is wrong.

“What we try to do is to let them have some time in the summer and when we come back next Monday, it’s close enough that their focus ought to be on the upcoming season,” he said. “When they’ve been here, they’ve worked and have worked extremely hard.”

Taylor said the team is looking to be in the best shape cardio-wise right now.

“I think that we probably are in better shape from a cardiovascular standpoint right now than we were at the end of July last year,” he said. “We’ve done a pretty good bit of running and I think it’s helped our kids, especially back in June when it was so dog gone hot for a number of weeks.”

Working out two days per week in June and three days per week in July has been a different routine for the Tigers.

“The thing we did instead this year, is there are 18 possible workouts and we told them in order to play they had to make all 18 of those,” Taylor said. “Of course, once we get started, there will be some make up days, but on the one hand I know that has helped with the participation.

“Then again, I think they would have come anyway,” he said. “It has without a doubt been the best overall participation we’ve had in a number of years.”

This week, the team has taken the week off for vacation and will start up again next Monday. The workout session will conclude July 30, tentatively.

“We’ll start next week with heavier weights than what they were used to,” he said. “That’ll run through early August. That’ll give us five weeks to lift heavier weights.”

Taylor said the workouts are essential because it gives the players something to do.

“I think you’d have some parents that would say at this point kids don’t have a summer anymore and there’s probably some truth to that,” he said. “But there’s one thing that’s a litlte different — you don’t have as many kids having summer jobs. We do have a good many that are working over the summer.”

Taylor said the main difference he has seen this summer is the strength the team is building on weights.

“We maxed right before we got out of school (in May),” Taylor said. “Obviously this is the strongest group we’ve had since I’ve been at Straughn as far as the amount of weight that they lift.

“It doesn’t matter if they can lift the entire building, but we are a much stronger football team,” he said. “I think the biggest difference is probably we’re in a little bit better shape as a team. I think our kids have handled the running a whole lot better this summer, too.”