A lot of you may hear the saying its off season, time to switch off and relax. Well, to some point, that's true, but what is off season, and is there really such a thing?

There certainly used to be a traditional off season in cycling and many other sports where competition had ended, and in a lot of cases so did training.  I used to do it myself, the last race would go by, and I wouldn't touch my bike for over a month. That gives me shiverers even thinking about that now!

As times change and sport moves on with more information, and also athletes having more awareness of what they might need, the traditional off season is becoming something of a dying breed.

As an example, think of all the hard work you may have put in to improve fitness, strength, well being, the full package to make you a better athlete. Now suddenly stop everything you've been doing and leave it for a month or so. Where do all those gains go?

So what's a good way to take some down time, but not lose everything you've gained. 

Here's my take on it.

• Ease back on volume and intensity 

So, let's say you've been doing 12 hours per week of training with some high end intensity to target race preparation.
Some of that HI work can be stressful, and needs good recovery to allow benefit. 
Since you aren't racing for a while, that can take a short back seat, to allow a full body reset and ensure your immune system comes up to full strength and protect against any colds or flu.
Replacing those high intensity sessions with far less stressful tempo to sweet spot sessions will enable you to keep fitness with out building stress.

• Change things up

Keeping fit is still the goal here, but we can also do that by doing other sports, and trying new things. 
For triathletes, if you're someone who tends to focus on your favourite part of the discipline, get out there and work on the neglected aspects. That might even mean dropping one completely to allow time in your normal week.

For cyclists, we can be the worse, doing other sports is like some strange thing which will only injure us right? Wrong!
Using this time to use other sports to maintain fitness is ideal, those who don't use strength training already, now is a great time to start. 
Running, if done progressively is a very good way of keeping the heart and lungs strong, as well as improving bone density and overall condition.
Swimming, again great session to add in. 
Of course these other activities take time, so using your normal training hours and switching some bike sessions out and moving others in, still keeps your weekly time routine on schedule.

• Skills

Maybe you're someone who's never ridden in. group. Well this can be a great time to learn those skills. Finding a suitable group with someone helpful within it can really bring on the confidence and bike handling skills to master this part of the sport. 
You'll also meet some likeminded people along the way, and possibly find a whole new group of people to train with.
MTB skills, practice those tough sections that normally scare you to death. Ride some wet roots, and rocky obstacles. The more you practice them while you're not focusing on effort, the better you'll dial them in. 

• What else can I do in this transition time?

Set your goals,
This is a big one! Short term, long term, race specific, non race specific, what ever it might be it needs to be something that gives you the drive to work at it. 
So if a major goal doesn't excite you, then take another look, perhaps it's not your goal, maybe it's something someone else wants as a goal for you, in which case it won't drive you.
Set out your goals and what you need to do to achieve them, that sets out your path. If those are strong goals, which they should be, then your focus to start on the hard work will come much quicker than you think.

Address injuries and equipment,
These two can go hand in hand, if you've been struggling through injury, have it checked by a professional. It may be a simple movement pattern which can be addressed, it might be something which needs full rest, well, this is the time for that.
Quite often injury is due to incorrect use of equipment or persevering through bad bike position.
Having a bike fitting done now especially if you're switching to a winter bike is important.
So often I see people switching bikes this time of year with the winter bike being just enough of a difference from their good bike to lead to an injury. Get it checked. 
Equipment that's worn out, get rid of it, worn cleats, pedals, saddles, shoes. All of those things can lead to injury. The worse thing you can do is use all that worn out equipment on your winter bike, a saddle which is dropped on one side isn't going to have you singing its praises at the end of a cold long winter ride. 

Massage,
Treat yourself to some self care as well, a massage can be great to take away all the built up tension of those long hard training days all added up on top of each other.
Quite often the little niggles and pains can be freed up and you feel fresh and ready to go.

So there you have it, just some small tips on how to get through this transition.

Tags: Training, Recovery