The Triathlon Off-Season is Where You Become a Better Athlete

It’s the time of year that triathlon is not taking the main stage, giving you the opportunity to shift your focus. This shift in focus helps by giving you a mental break so that you start next season fresh and raring to go without any decrease in conditioning as well as a lower risk of injury. In short, the triathlon off-season is where you become a better athlete.

For triathletes, the off-season is a perfect time to add variety to yearlong training by participating in different sports as well as the three aspects below that you’ll want to include in your training.

Improve your Weakness

Focusing on your weaknesses during the off-season will help you improve that weakness and will help you become a better triathlete. For some triathletes, the swim may be their weakness. In that case, you’ll be focusing a good chunk of your training doing swim workouts. For someone whose weakness is running, the focus should be on adding more running into your off-season. Not everyone is the same, some athletes may need to work on a better aerobic base while another may need to work on improving strength on hills.

Work on Technique & Efficiency

Besides working on your weaknesses, you’ll also want to focus on drills and improve your efficiency and technique in the sport. You can do this by incorporating drills in your workouts.

Strength Train

Another important aspect of the off-season is strength training.

OK, so you’re thinking this can be done year round and it’s not exactly a winter sport.  And it’s true. Strength training is something that can be incorporated into your yearlong plan. But now’s the best time to add another day of strength training to your week because you don’t have the added physical stress of increased mileage or races looming in the near future.  Some of the benefits of strength training include increased efficiency, power, speed, and injury prevention.

Planning you off-season is just as important as planning your race season. Talk to your coach about planning out your improvements so that you come back stronger next year.

Next week we’ll talk about variety and different sports that are perfect for your off-season.

In the meantime, comment below and tell me what your plans for the off-season are.