The off-season is a very important time for athletes. Consistent year-long training with no time off can increase the risk of burnout, overuse injuries, fatigue and sickness. A temporary and planned break can help rejuvinate and repair the body and brain.
Every athlete has her/her own approach as to the best way to tackle the off-season. While athletes recognize that a mental and physical break is needed, it can be difficult for a lot of athletes to worry about the loss of fitness that you worked so hard for during the season. A bit of de-training is needed as your body deserves rest to appropriately recover from the past months of peak training and racing.
As an athlete, you train to make physiological adaptations. This takes many many months. Training is something you need to do day after day, week after week and month after month. Thus, when you are not training, this doesn't mean you do nothing. You simply take a break from the structure, the early alarms, the sacrifices. On the other hand, working out is doing what you want to do, when you want to do it. There's no guilt, tight scheduling or obsession with the details. Whereas training is systematically designed to help you achieve race readiness to perform at your best, working out doesn't necessarily have a purpose. If you are working out to burn calories, to improve health and/or to relieve stress, there are many different ways to achieve those goals. Unlike training, working out doesn't require a plan, a coach, discipline and a rigid schedule to ensure that you develop and peak appropriately.
Sadly, many athletes fall into a trap of compromising health and fitness during the off-season. Either the athlete refuses to take a break from structured training or, in complete contrast, the athlete lets loose and all good lifestyle habits fall out the window.
Keeping in mind that you don't have to be an athlete (training for an event) to live a healthy lifestyle, maintaining healthy lifestyle habits throughout the off-season not only provides you great benefit in prep for your upcoming season but it's a requirement to living a healthy life - reducing risk for disease, maintaining a healthy body weight/composition and improving mental health.
The biggest mistake(s) that I see athletes making in the transition to the off-season is going from being extreme and all-in to being inactive and apathetic for nutritious eating. If this is the case, two things are to blame.
Every athlete has her/her own approach as to the best way to tackle the off-season. While athletes recognize that a mental and physical break is needed, it can be difficult for a lot of athletes to worry about the loss of fitness that you worked so hard for during the season. A bit of de-training is needed as your body deserves rest to appropriately recover from the past months of peak training and racing.
As an athlete, you train to make physiological adaptations. This takes many many months. Training is something you need to do day after day, week after week and month after month. Thus, when you are not training, this doesn't mean you do nothing. You simply take a break from the structure, the early alarms, the sacrifices. On the other hand, working out is doing what you want to do, when you want to do it. There's no guilt, tight scheduling or obsession with the details. Whereas training is systematically designed to help you achieve race readiness to perform at your best, working out doesn't necessarily have a purpose. If you are working out to burn calories, to improve health and/or to relieve stress, there are many different ways to achieve those goals. Unlike training, working out doesn't require a plan, a coach, discipline and a rigid schedule to ensure that you develop and peak appropriately.
Sadly, many athletes fall into a trap of compromising health and fitness during the off-season. Either the athlete refuses to take a break from structured training or, in complete contrast, the athlete lets loose and all good lifestyle habits fall out the window.
Keeping in mind that you don't have to be an athlete (training for an event) to live a healthy lifestyle, maintaining healthy lifestyle habits throughout the off-season not only provides you great benefit in prep for your upcoming season but it's a requirement to living a healthy life - reducing risk for disease, maintaining a healthy body weight/composition and improving mental health.
The biggest mistake(s) that I see athletes making in the transition to the off-season is going from being extreme and all-in to being inactive and apathetic for nutritious eating. If this is the case, two things are to blame.
- You were too disciplined, strict and obsessive with your training and eating during the season. You denied yourself from socializing, having fun and eating certain foods too much during the season that now you feel the need to enjoy those things that were previously off-limit.
- You forgot to establish/maintain good lifestyle habits prior to and during peak training. You failed at meal prepping, planning ahead, learning how to plan balanced meals and creating sustainable habits that will keep you healthy and well.
The off-season should not be used as an excuse to excessively overindulge in large amounts of nutrient-empty foods such as cakes, candy, chips, ice cream, cookies and sugary drinks. The off-season is not the time in the year when you should increase alcohol consumption, forgo restful sleep, binge on television shows on the sofa, skip meals, diet, overwork yourself, not drink enough water and stay up way past your bedtime.
Bearing in mind that doing something unhealthy often develops into a habit, take advantage of the off-season as a prime opportunity to enjoy a relaxing break from structured training. Be ok with your body changing from "race weight" (the body that enabled you to feel athletically ready to compete - not a number on the scale or a look) to a healthy body (a body that can function well in life, free of sickness and disease - it's not a look or a number on a scale). Take care of your body during the off-season for a healthy, rested and rejuvinated body in the off-season means you've created a solid foundation to build from when you start your training for the upcoming season.
And remember, you don't have to be an athlete to live a healthy lifestyle. Health first, then performance.