Whether you are a competitive triathlete, or just looking to maintain optimum health, your training needs to have what we call an “off-season.” This is a time to rest, refresh, plan and prepare for the next season. Give yourself both a physical and mental break. You may gain perspective on your prior training, or decide it’s time to switch things up completely.
For multisport/endurance sports the end of the year/winter is considered offseason. This is the time between your last race of the year and the beginning of next year’s focused training plan. This can last anywhere from 3-4 months.
Many driven individuals have a hard time taking time off, it’s seen as “I’m losing my fitness”, or some say, “I’m being lazy”. In actuality, the off-season is just the opposite. Time to allow your body the chance to recover from all the trauma (yes exercise to the extent we put it through is trauma), time to mentally recover, time to catch up with family and friends, and also time to plan for your next season.
Here are a few tips on how to make the most of your off-season.
REST: Easier said than done. It’s recommended to take as long as two weeks away from all workouts, followed by relatively light workouts to get you rolling. This leads me to the concept of periodization. Which is strategically planning your training calendar so you have various phases of training throughout the weeks and months of your in-season training.
If you ended your season with major or minor injuries, rest is a good idea. This may be a good time to visit a physical therapist for help with your injuries, or a sports mobility coach for help with your mobility issues.
Mix It Up: Cross-train. The occasional swim/bike or run doesn’t hurt, but the key is to break the routine of your in-season workouts. This is the best time to begin to incorporate weight training, especially heavy lifting and powerlifting into your routine.
Set Goals: There are two parts to goal setting, internally and externally driven.
Internal: Look over your prior year’s performance, how pleased are you with your races and your injury status? You may realize that you want to dramatically improve your swim times, get fast on the bike, or that you have a nagging IT band issue that you need to address before hard training again. Or maybe this upcoming year is the year you jump up to a much longer distance, or a more competitive age group.
Improvements in your desired growth areas can become part of your goals for next season. Don’t forget to set a goal for how to take action on each line item goal. To become a better swimmer, maybe you need to join a local masters swim group, or even get one-on-one coaching to address that IT band issue. Perhaps you need to set a series of appointments with a therapist or rehab specialist.
External: Now let's look at the calendar. Find the races you are interested in participating in and place them on a calendar. Once on the calendar look to see how far apart they are spaced out. You may have some a few weeks apart, or others months apart. The important part now is to decide which ones are your “A” races, the ones you want to be in top shape for and maybe are hoping for a podium finish, or maybe an overall top finish. Then do the same with the rest of the races, labeling them B, C, and D of lesser importance or focus. Think about other likely family or work commitments too - it's not fun being in peak training mode right when you are taking your family on a trip to Europe. Whatever works for you, be intentional about your races so your training plan has a definition and focus.
4.Start Your Base Training
After a few weeks of resting your body, breaking out of old habits, and doing some cross-training, it’s time to begin base training. This base training is characterized by low-intensity but consistent training that allows your body to establish both a cardiovascular and muscular base of fitness before adding intensity and distance. That being said, now is the best time to be hitting the BIG weights, and working your power movements. Obviously, you need to build up to them, improving your mobility to get lower into your squat so you can engage the end-range muscle better and get a fuller range of strength. This practice of routine structured workouts will help your mental toughness later in the harder stages of training.
Your off-season time is a great time to experiment with new techniques or training inputs. From looking at your nutrition and hydration options, to swimming or run form analysis, or maybe you haven't been up for power meter input yet. Now is the best time to start to play with these new modalities, instead of race week or even race day.
5.Find or Create a Plan
Some people like to wait until the offseason is over to start looking at the race/event calendar. I challenge you to look now. Use this time to see what events you might want to do, and see if they fit into your calendar, obviously working around family and work stuff. Once you have an idea of your events it’s time to sit down and look at whether these are feasible for you. Meaning, if you did these same events last year, but you never felt quite prepared, maybe you had too many events, or maybe you didn’t plan your training peak for the right time. These issues can cause some people stress. You don’t have to stress alone. Maybe this year it’s time for a coach. Coaches are there for more than just creating a program to follow. They provide feedback on your race calendar and can help you set up your plan of attack for the season/year. They can also help you figure out why last year you didn’t peak or peaked too soon.
6.Check Your Gear
Your bike may have had a squeak or felt sluggish in the braking power, or your goggles are fogging up on all of your swims. Offseason can be a great time to do both maintenance and gear inventory. Doing this maintenance when you don’t have an urgent ride or race in just a few days away can be fun, and for sure much less stressful. You may even learn that you like certain parts of bike maintenance, and this can help save you time and stress during the season.
This time of year is also a good time to get discounts on all your gear as manufacturers are closing out on last year's models. Old models of gear work well, sometimes better than the first iteration on a new one where all the kinks have already been worked out. If you wait closer to the season there is a good chance that gear prices will go up as demand increases. Also really important: make sure everything you use is in good working order. This goes for your bike, helmet, bike shoes, bike computer, running shoes, watch, glasses, wet suit, swimsuit and goggles. Perhaps your bike helmet is past its safety range and it’s time to replace it. Or maybe your tires were not as grippy or maybe too heavy for your liking, or just worn out, now is a good time to replace them.
This is the perfect time to make changes like going tubeless or switching to disk brakes. Switching in the offseason gives you time to learn some of the ins and outs of what these changes entail.
Use your offseason to recover from your prior racing/event season and also prepare for the next one. Just because it’s the offseason doesn’t mean you lose structure and discipline in your workouts, instead, it’s about consciously taking a break, and taking the time to evaluate and decide what routines to walk away from that don’t suit you, and replacing them with ones that help you thrive and enter your next season with proper goals for you, renewed health and even better base conditioning than last year.
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