Take A Break

Obviously if you are preparing for Hawaii or 70.3 world in Florida you still have a bit to do, but for many athletes September marks a time when they start to wind down their season.

We get regular requests for winter training programmes to start almost as soon as the current season is done and these usually lead to prolonged discussions between coach and athlete about the benefits of an end of season break.

I can understand why, when you have a had a great season, you would want to hold on to the fitness that you have achieved but please take a moment to consider the following statement:

"The next step after a peak is always down"

One of the fundamental principles upon which all training programmes are based is that of adaptation.

Without the opportunity to repair the body (and the mind) from a prolonged period of activity the result will be a plateau and performance will rarely improve. In fact it may go downhill anyway.

Of the athletes that go straight into a winter programme, a large percentage manage to make it through to January or February by which time they are injured, ill or they have lost their motivation. Either way the result is usually a longer period of inactivity than the planned rest period would have been at the end of the season!

An interesting project is to ask the athletes who don’t want to rest, just what they are afraid of, by wanting to continue training. Some of the responses include:

1. Fear of losing fitness - yes you will lose some but not that much, in 4 weeks, maybe 10% of muscle strength, no muscular endurance in 2 weeks and can be maintained with 3 sessions per week @ 70%mhr

2. Fear of gaining weight - yes if you reduce activity and carry on eating the same you will gain weight

3. Fear of losing ground on your rivals - It will happen sooner or later if you don’t take time off

4. Too much time on their hands - make contact with your partner, children, friends etc, there’s lots to do if you think for a moment

Personally I don’t advocate complete inactivity for 4-6 weeks but certainly for the first 1-2 weeks, followed by a low level training programme.

The goal for all athletes is to be mentally and physically refreshed by the time they start again in October/November and ready to scale new heights.

For more information on what to include in your active recovery phase please see my Active Recovery article.

Have fun and Stay healthy.