By Rhianne Kerr | Exercise Physiology
Your body needs recovery after a long season — but doing nothing for months can make your return much harder than it needs to be.
The season is finished.
So should you stop training?
Usually, no.
The off-season absolutely should include recovery. After months of training, competition, work, school and accumulated fatigue, reducing load can be exactly what your body needs.
But there is a difference between recovery and complete deconditioning.
Stopping all structured exercise for weeks or months can lead to reductions in strength, fitness and tolerance to training.
Then pre-season arrives.
Suddenly you’re running again.
Lifting again.
Changing direction again.
And trying to tolerate several sessions each week.
That rapid jump from very little activity to high training loads is where problems start.
A better off-season has phases.
First: recover.
Reduce the demands that have accumulated through the season.
Sleep.
Move.
Address injuries.
Allow soreness and fatigue to settle.
Then: rebuild.
This is where strength training becomes particularly valuable.
The off-season gives you something that is difficult to get during competition:
time to work on your physical weaknesses without needing to recover for the next game.
That might mean improving:
- lower-body strength
- single-leg control
- calf capacity
- trunk strength
- upper-body strength
- aerobic conditioning
The goal isn’t to train like you’re still in-season.
It is to maintain enough fitness while building qualities that will make you more robust when training intensity eventually increases.
Your off-season program should also reflect your sport, injury history and goals.
A footballer with recurrent hamstring issues needs something very different from a recreational runner returning from Achilles pain.
Random gym sessions aren’t an off-season strategy.
A structured plan is.
The ideal outcome is simple:
When pre-season begins, you shouldn’t be trying to get your body back to where it was.
You should be starting from a better position.
Call to book with our Exercise Physiologist and build an off-season program around your goals.