During the season, you can often be so focused on the next match, race or event that you don’t have a chance to work on aspects of your athleticism that, while they may not give immediate payoff, lay the groundwork for future success. While your sport should, and will, take precedence over all other training, the off-season is your chance to prepare to have the best season that you can.

Strength & Conditioning

Taking time away from your sport can sometimes feel like time wasted, or like you’re falling behind. Taking a break, however, can actually be very helpful. Training monotony (i.e doing a high volume of the same activity) has been shown to increase non-contact injury risk (1), and a break can help reduce the boredom observed in many sports (2). Also, whether you had a good, bad, or mediocre season, competition can take a serious emotional toll, and it can be beneficial to have a mental break from the pressure, intense focus, and relentless competing. Though you may be taking a temporary break from the sport, you always want to turn up on day 1 of the season at a better point than when you finished the previous season. So, how can you best spend your off-season?

There are a few non-sport specific qualities that will improve your performance, namely: Strength, Power, Speed, Agility, Endurance, and Injury Resilience. Different sports will require differing amounts of each of those qualities, but all should be trained to some extent. For example, a 100m sprinter may not need much endurance for their sport, but training their endurance will allow them to perform higher volumes of training without seeing a large drop in performance. At Innervate Performance, we work closely with athletes and teams, performing a battery of tests to determine the physical requirements of their sport and advise them on how they should be distributing their training. To get an idea of where to put your focus without such testing, you need to ask a few questions of yourself and your sport:

• What physical attributes does your sport require? 

• In what proportions? 

• What was holding you back last season? 

• What are your strong points? 

• What is causing you to under- or over-perform?

To start, the qualities your sport requires the most should be trained with the highest volume and intensity. A rugby forward should focus much more on pure strength than agility, whereas a fencer might do the complete opposite. In general, weak points that are holding you back from your peak performance should be targeted and improved, and the stronger elements of your game can be put on the back burner to maintain that level, or improve slightly. It’s important not to let any physical attribute regress (read more about that here), and remember that certain physical qualities underpin others:

• High volumes of training build Resilience (3), Endurance and Work Capacity, improving your ability to perform higher levels of training volume in subsequent sessions

• Higher training volumes are associated with more Hypertrophy i.e bigger muscles (4)

• Bigger muscles lead to better Strength in trained athletes (5)

• Strength has been shown to have a direct correlation with Power (6)

• Power (i.e Rate of Force Development) is a vital component of Speed and Agility (7)

You can see how, even if you are lacking Power, Speed, or Agility, you may have to take several steps back to develop work capacity or hypertrophy in order to properly set the stage for the desired outcomes. An important consideration is how long your off-season lasts, or how much time you have until your first match/race/bout, or at least until an important event. The more time you have in an off-season, the further away from the specific adaptation you can train, as each of the above ‘levels’ takes time. If you only have 6-8 weeks before the season resumes, that may not be enough time to build an appreciable amount of muscle, followed by a strength training block, then shift your focus to power etc.

Nutrition

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.

Exactly what you work on in training, and when, 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 Strength & Conditioning. 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. Curtis RM, Huggins RA, Benjamin CL, Sekiguchi Y, Lepley LK, Huedo-Medina TB, Casa DJ. Factors Associated With Noncontact Injury in Collegiate Soccer: A 12-Team Prospective Study of NCAA Division I Men's and Women's Soccer. Am J Sports Med. 2021 Sep;49(11):3076-3087. doi: 10.1177/03635465211036447. Epub 2021 Aug 18. PMID: 34406087.

2. Velasco F, Jorda R. Portrait of Boredom Among Athletes and Its Implications in Sports Management: A Multi-Method Approach. Front Psychol. 2020 May 26;11:831. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00831. PMID: 32528344; PMCID: PMC7264414.

3. Gabbett TJ. The training-injury prevention paradox: should athletes be training smarter and harder? Br J Sports Med. 2016 Mar;50(5):273-80. doi: 10.1136/bjsports-2015-095788. Epub 2016 Jan 12. PMID: 26758673; PMCID: PMC4789704.

4. Brigatto FA, Lima LEM, Germano MD, Aoki MS, Braz TV, Lopes CR. High Resistance-Training Volume Enhances Muscle Thickness in Resistance-Trained Men. J Strength Cond Res. 2022 Jan 1;36(1):22-30. doi: 10.1519/JSC.0000000000003413. PMID: 31868813.

5. Balshaw TG, Massey GJ, Maden-Wilkinson TM, Lanza MB, Folland JP. Neural adaptations after 4 years vs 12 weeks of resistance training vs untrained. Scand J Med Sci Sports. 2019 Mar;29(3):348-359. doi: 10.1111/sms.13331. Epub 2018 Dec 9. PMID: 30387185.

6. Peterson MD, Alvar BA, Rhea MR. The contribution of maximal force production to explosive movement among young collegiate athletes. J Strength Cond Res. 2006 Nov;20(4):867-73. doi: 10.1519/R-18695.1. PMID: 17194245.

7. ​​Developing Agility and Quickness-2nd Edition, Jay Dawes for NSCA -National Strength & Conditioning Association, 2019, ISBN 9781492569510

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

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