You just finished your last race of the season and set a new personal best for that course. Once his feeling sinks in, it is quickly replaced by a feeling of emptiness. What do you do now that the racing season is over? What could you have to look forward to for the rest of the year? The answer… next season.
Now is not the time to stop training four months. Sure, go ahead and relax for a few weeks after a good season, but you should already be preparing for next year and avoid letting your current fitness levels drop too low. Your goal doesn’t necessarily have to be to improve your fitness, but your top priority should definitely be maintenance. Why waste all the hard work you did last year? Stay on your game and come back strong next year. So how do you do this?
Off-Season Tip #1: Don’t Train Like a Maniac
Chances are you’ve been training like crazy during the season and your body needs an active rest. If you were training to your full potential, it would be very difficult for your body to endure very intense and long training cycles year after year.
Now is the time to give your body and mind a break by taking it easy and trying something different. Maybe spend time with family or call some friends and family you haven’t talked to during the last eight months of training. They would probably be excited to hear from you.
Off-Season Tip #2: Cross-Train
If all you do is swim, bike, and run, you’ll have severely underdeveloped muscles that go unused during these activities. This can affect performance and cause injury. Take advantage of this off-season to do other things you enjoy to activate those forgotten muscles.
Go surfing, hiking, skiing, or play soccer, football, hockey, etc. Definitely swim, bike and run once in a while, but keep the intensity below max and keep it unstructured. Just go with the feel, and if you’re the type who feels the need to punish yourself with every workout, you may need to structure your off-season workouts to be less intense.
Off-Season Tip #3: Hit the Gym
I can rave about the benefits of resistance training for endurance athletes, but many still refuse to do it, mostly due to time constraints. Now it’s the off-season, your workouts are shorter, and it’s time to hit the weights.
Strength and resistance training is probably the best thing you can do to increase power and prevent injury. Just start slow if you’re new to resistance training, then increase the sets, reps, weight, rest duration, etc. as it advances. It would be better to find a training plan or get a personal trainer, but just doing it is better than not doing it at all. Just make sure you’re using the proper technique or you could injure yourself.
Start slow and work your way up. Don’t feel like you need to throw heavy weights and barbells to train for more power. Resistance bands, stability balls, medicine balls, and many bodyweight exercises can be almost as beneficial and much less dangerous. All you really need is two to three days a week for 20 to 30 minutes. Try doing back-to-back circuits without rest.
Off-Season Tip #4: Focus on Fitness
Now is the time to correct the problems you have with your technique. Your workouts should be shorter and less intense, so now you can really focus on correcting flaws in your swimming stroke, pedaling efficiency, or running form.
What’s the use of logging countless hours using poor form? Your body will simply learn the bad technique and it will be more difficult to correct later. Use this offseason to improve technique on your weaknesses, allowing you to go faster and use less energy. Ask a trainer to observe your technique and maybe even get a video of yourself so you can see what you’re doing wrong.
Off-Season Tip #5: Plan Your Race Schedule
What’s the best after racing and training? Planning your races and training, of course!
Do some research on what races you’d like to do next year. You can start planning your training early to be prepared for those races based on the distance and terrain of the race. Do not decide that you are going to try your first Ironman a month before the race; you won’t be able to be ready on time.
Hopefully some of these tips have been helpful. It is very easy to become complacent and lose fitness in the off-season. Be the person who maintains or even improves before the next season begins. Now go out and have a social life for the next few months, it won’t last long.
