After a long competitive season, the off-season is the perfect opportunity to rest and recharge. This article will discuss some off-season nutritional considerations, which will help you recharge, maintain body composition, and help you feel ready and raring to go when pre-season begins.

Fuel Appropriately

During the off-season, training load is lower to allow athletes to refresh both physically and mentally. Whilst training load (amount of exercise completed) is lower, energy requirements will also be lower. Therefore, throughout this period, athletes need to fuel appropriately which may mean reducing carbohydrate intake. For example, during the season at least half your plate may be comprised of carbohydrate (pasta, rice, sweet potato) to fuel a long and intense training session. However, in the off-season, only ⅓ of your plate may be carbohydrate based as you don’t require additional energy to fuel training. In addition, you may snack less often in the off-season compared to whilst in-season.

Keep Protein Intake High

It is likely that during the season you would have spent time developing your strength and building muscle mass. Therefore, during the off-season it is important to consume enough protein to maintain muscle mass. In general aim for 2 grams of protein per kilogram of your muscle mass. For example, a 60kg athlete would need to consume 120g of protein per day throughout the off-season. This can be achieved by having a source of protein with every meal (e.g., eggs, chicken, and fish) as well as some high protein snacks (e.g., Greek yoghurt, beef jerky, milk) throughout the day. Having high protein snacks throughout the day will also help with feelings of satiety.

Choose Nutrient Rich Snacks

Nutrient-rich snacks contain plenty of vitamins, minerals and fibre as well as being good sources of carbohydrate, protein, and fats. Fruit with Greek yoghurt, vegetable sticks with hummus and wholemeal toast with nut butter are all examples of nutrient-rich snacks. These should be consumed regularly as part of a healthy diet. On the other hand, energy-dense snacks such as chocolate, cakes and crisps do not contain a lot of nutrients and should be consumed once or twice a week. This is particularly important during the off-season, as energy-dense snacks tend to be higher in calories and provide little nutrients which could lead to unwanted weight gain if consumed often.

Start Preparing for The New Season

Without training, you may find you have a lot of spare time on your hands. Use this opportunity to start preparing for the new season. This may mean developing new skills such as cooking so that you can prepare meals and snacks to help you fuel for and recover from training once the new season starts. Similarly, it is also a good opportunity to batch cook and freeze several meals which you can eat during pre-season. In the long run, this will save both money and time, as well as help you make better nutritional choices.

Summary

The off-season is an opportunity to rest and recharge. Energy expenditure will be lower in the off-season compared to in-season, and therefore your nutrition needs to reflect this. This may mean reducing portion sizes, choosing nutrient-rich, lower calorie snacks and keeping your protein intake high.

Precisely how you arrange your nutrition during the off-season will be a matter of judgement between you and your coaching team, but this should give you a framework to follow to allow you to make better decisions in your off-season nutrition plan. For more specific and tailored recommendations, get in touch with us at info@innervateperformance.com and we can discuss how we can help you this off-season.

References

1. Holway, F. & Spriet, L. 2011. Sport-specific nutrition: practical strategies for team sports. Journal of Sport Sciences. 29 (1) S115-S125.

2. Houtkooper, L., Abbot, J. & Nimmo, M. 2007. Nutrition for throwers, jumpers, and combined events. Journal of Sport Sciences. 25(1) S39-S47.