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Intense Rest
Time off from structured training doesn't mean a free-for-all
Whether you did a fall base period or a full cyclo-cross season, if you
live in a cold climate January and February are the most difficult months
to train. If it's not already something they focus on, I encourage my
clients to take advantage of the cyclo-cross season as a way to maintain
fitness through the New Year before they're forced off their bikes or
indoors because of weather. Another way to utilize this time period between
the end of the road or mountain bike season and beginning of winter is
to try to do a fall build-up period. This allows them to work on a broad
base of aerobic fitness at a time when racing won't interrupt training,
as it does much of the rest of the year.
However they get to late December, I find it crucial that riders take
a full, deep rest between phases. Some clients may be heading south or
west to start racing early, while others who are winter-bound will move
into a pre-season period of weight lifting, Nordic skiing, or other off-season
fun. Still others, determined to be flying when the racing season starts
in March and April, will put their nose to the grindstone of their windtrainers.
Again, however they got here, and where ever they might be headed, this
is the time where almost all of them will need a true break between phases.
Too many riders think that taking a break means simply abandoning structured
training. The problem is unstructured training can be just as stressful
and difficult to recover from as structured training. I'll ask what they
plan to do on their break, and I'll here replies like "long mountain
bike rides," or full days of skiing. These activities are fun, and
certainly provide a mental break, but not a physical one. You need to
rest with just as much structure, intensity, and dedication as the way
you train. The mental break comes later.
For a minimum of ten days I ask all my clients to enter into a period
of complete inactivity. That's right, no training of any kind! It might
sound easy, but many of them simply can not do it. They may make it five
or seven days, but then they can't help themselves. They're bouncing off
the walls, gaining weight, and are often just plan bored. But that's exactly
the point. Get out of shape. Gain a pound or two. Plan this part of the
year as a programmed low, so that you'll be able to reach programmed highs
later in the season.
Here's an extreme example of just how much time off you can get away with.
I race with a rider who has an immense amount of talent and reaches incredibly
high levels of fitness. In order to maintain that focus and intensity
though, he needs to go to the other extreme in his off-season. He wrote
to me recently and outlined his winter program, mentally and physically:
"These are the mental stages I go through:
- The first 2 weeks after the season I miss the training and racing and
I get depressed.
- The next 2 weeks I start adjusting to not racing and training. I begin
eating badly, hanging out at strip clubs and drinking.
- The next 8 weeks I continue my downward spiral of rapidly getting out
of shape. I continue commuting to work by bike and I try to skate every
weekend but I see my entire season's fitness erode away. At this point
I contemplate quitting the sport completely.
- The next two weeks I start to feel so guilty about my poor diet, weight
gain and lack of fitness that I decide once and for all that I need to
start training Jan. 1.
Healthy, huh?"
Now, I reprinted this note for humor's sake as much as anything else,
but also to point out that this rider is one of the strongest regional
Category 1 racers in the Northeast. If he can ride at this level with
three months off, surely the ten days off I have to beg my clients to
take can't be enough to lose all that precious form from the season before.
The bottom line is, you have to take as active, disciplined, and intense
an approach to the time you take off as you do to your training. It takes
real effort to take a serious break. Focus on all the other things you
put off during the season that you could be doing now, and turn your energy
and attention there. Unfinished projects, books you want to read, movies
you haven't seen. If you're married, pay your spouse back for all those
weekends you dragged him or her to industrial park criteriums and go somewhere
nice for the weekend. Sleep late, take naps when you would normally train,
and allow your hormonal systems to recover from all the recovering they
had to do during the year.
Most importantly, and perhaps most challenging for many of you: take a
break from coffee. If you keep yourself ramped up all day long on a daily
basis with caffeine, you're squeezing the life out of yourself. To truly
and deeply heal from all the damage you do on the bike during the season,
try dropping your coffee habit for at least the time you're off the bike,
and as long as you can push it after that. I find that this makes a bigger
difference than people realize, and allows you to come back really refreshed
and charged up for the long term training ahead.
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