Rare photo of me actually relaxing in Noosa, Queensland. It didn’t last long.

Hi!

We’re gonna keep going with the theme of planning out your training year today. If you missed the first post about this, please read here before getting into this post.

Before we start, does anyone have a better name for “off-season”? I don’t like it because it makes it sound like you switch off… Let me know if you have any better names!

In my opinion, this phase is the second most important phase of training after the base phase. This is where you rest, recover, catch up with friends and dabble in new activities that may not be directly related to your sport. For me, this means going to all the running and fitness groups I can fit around coaching and work. It also means I don’t really skate much, but this is obviously a personal choice. This is where you wanna take a step back from the hard training you’ve done throughout the year and find out how to have fun again (lol). Not that training hard isn’t fun but we all need a lil break, ya know?

The off season goal is to cut the volume of training, the intensity and the frequency right back. Give your body and your mind a break. For some, this means skating once a week or maybe for others it means not skating at all. The off season can be anywhere between 2 weeks to a full month. I like to go as close to a month as I possibly can just to get a full break from skating. During this time, I still like to workout and run but I’m really just looking at maintaining strength and fitness so I don’t start from scratch in the new year.

In a well planned out year, you should be able to take this time off without hindering your training. Use this time to plan out the following year, think of what you would like to achieve and get involved in other club activities.

Goals: fitness maintenance, relaxation, rehab injuries, planning for the following year, reflection on previous year

Summary:

• No or little on skate training
• Full body stretch 3x week
• Yoga and meditation
• Cross train with different recreational activities

Late off season (last 2 weeks or so):

• 2x30min low intensity aerobic sessions per week
• 1-2x strength training sessions per week (1 Upper Body, 1 Lower Body)

So for me, this looked very different to previous years because of the half marathon I have at the end of October. This year I had 1 week completely off after Oceanias and then 1 week of only running. After that, I increased my running back up to normal (3-4x a week for me) and eased myself back into the gym for 1-2 strength sessions a week. Previously, I haven’t run as much as I am this year nor would I have kept up with strength training. However, relative to what my usual training weeks look like, this is still a big decrease in volume for me. Please only use this as an example and make sure you think about where you are personally and how much you already do or don’t do. I will be dropping the volume back down for about 1.5-2 weeks after the half marathon to allow for some recovery before I start my prep phase.

Once again, thanks for reading and stay tuned for the next post which will be on the Base/prep training phase. Make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the next post!

Mac x