Once you have turned the corner into the off season and your mental mojo has kicked back in as part of your prep phase, its time to get focused on your training ahead. Our coaches walk you through the planning processes of this key phase as a major opportunity towards your future race potential.
Work on your limiters
Depending on how long your offseason was, you may need to start back up with more substantial base work. This means an overall flavor of heart rate zones two to three and < 80% of FTP. Once a reasonable base (total training load and heart rate economy) has been established then we can start to think about moving the dial on your limiters.
If you are strong on the run, its time to get dedicated to riding. With the planning help of your Tristar coach, this means raising your bike FTP (hour of bike power) over the off season time period. You will need to back off your running to allow your bike to grow.
Make sure easy is .. easy. Truly easy runs in this case would in fact need to be slow and likely not as long. Think about individual sport athletes and what they are able to accomplish vs multisport athletes who constantly need to work for three sports. If you are doing one sport alone this may not matter as much, however when you have multiple sports such as swimming, biking, and running you will need to overload them more directly at this time to see results.
Switching it up - Our coaches will have you focus in on one sport for at least two months and up to four before working on another sport or brining it all back together for your season. (Unsure how long this phase should and can last as your coach)
Multi-sport - For those whose are doing all three sports, increased swimming in the off season is a great way to boost total aerobic fitness and work on your swim stroke limiters. 90% of the Tristar Atheltes on our team have some level of form limiter! This is also low hanging fruit in terms of race potential where you can make substantive gains.
The off season is a great time to focus in on your swim since you will likely have more time to commit to swimming.
Key in on nutrition 🍏
You cannot outwork a bad diet! The off season when volume and total intensity is lower, is the time to make adjustments to your nutrition and health.
Leaning out can be a major consideration as coming out of the off season usually means carrying a few extra pounds/kilos.
Hone in on eating clean, unprocessed foods, fresh fruits, veggies, legumes, fish or other lean proteins as part of your diet. Incorporate slow burning fuels into your diet as well, carbs are NOT the enemy!
VO2 Max a key marker towards athletic performance is mostly influenced by a lean body composition. Leaning out will in fact improve performance.
To get started with a meal plan and coached nutrition strategy towards your goals, join our Tristar, Lean Endurance program.
Thresholds in the off season
If you do not raise our off season potential it may take longer to get faster in the peak of the season, and or there is the chance that you may celebrate the same race potential as you did the previous race season. To get faster… you need to raise the bar!
Moving thresholds is a slow process and does take considerable time and dedication.
Learn more about how to raise FTP here.
Heart rate thresholds vs power and pace? Generally speaking we are talking about improving your pace and power.. heart rate thresholds should stabilize over time and not change much if at all. Over time, longer distance endurance athletes will see there absolute threshold heart rate drop which is a positive sign that the aerobic engine is being enhanced.
Get stronger, much STRONGER!
Building out the frame of the house means rebuilding any muscle loss or damage that may have occurred from previous seasons.
LHS - Lift heavy shit! Whoops?! We said it, you need to not be afraid to pick up heavy weights in this phase which will only aid in the leaning out process. Stick to your Tristar plan which will help guide you how to keep lean and stronger with specificities to weights, reps and RPE.
Challenge the stabilizer muscles; often times endurance sports overworks two dimensions of training “2D”. The “3D” muscles our lateral muscles need to be work and developed to keep injury free in the build phases of training.
For more on strength training visit Tristar Core here.
Top performances, age group wins, personal bests all come from the fact that “athletes are made in the off season”. What you do today is a ripple effect to your future self and athletic potential. Our coaches want you to be the best you can be! Plan early, dedicate and be amazed what you can accomplish.
~The Tristar Athletes team Coaches 👨🏻💻
