I really don’t want to reduce my volume during the off season. Would it be beneficial to take 2 weeks of lower volume at some point? I just can’t see any benefits to months of reduce volume and intensity.
Rest and repair man… If you remain training the same year round, how is your body going to make any real gains? You will go stale and, in turn be hindering your ability to make real meaningful progress.
I know so many type “A” triathletes who think like this - but they don’t do it (triathlon) to get faster, they do it for obsessive reasons. I just don’t get why people would ever do this sport because they feel like they have to.
Take a break and drink some beers, gain some weight, and catch up on some of the finer things in life!
Another way to think of it is as an “out season” as opposed to an “off season”. IMO, this is a time when you can allow your training to become unbalanced in favor of focusing on an area of weakness. If your run is weak compared to the bike/swim, you can work on increasing your run volume beyond what you can do when incorporating full SBR training…this worked very well for me. If you aren’t a strong swimmer, go ahead and join a masters team and try swimming 6X a week for a couple of months.
People seem to worry that they will “lose their fitness” if they neglect any of the disciplines for a period of time, but it is usually pretty easy to get back to where you were, especially if you are remaining active by overloading on one sport.
As far as planning weeks of lower volume, those weeks always seem to find me. Sickness, family, work, injury…the lower volume weeks seem to plan themselves.
In the fall of 2012 I took about 2 weeks down after my last race and then got back into heavy training. I mostly focused on running because I’m not a great runner.
While my training time on the bike was lower, my overall training time was still over 80% of what I was doing from April to September.
My 2013 season was the best that I’ve had.
After my last race in 2013 I took 6 weeks of doing whatever I wanted to do just because there were things I wanted to do.
jaretj
I think most people view the “off-season” and “winter” as synonymous. They’re not. The off season is a period of time after your last A-race and lasts from 2-__ weeks (up to the individual). It’s a great opportunity for your body to fully repair any damage, niggles, rips, tears, shreds, etc. As a result, you have optimized your recovery. Now, you start training again but your body is at a higher starting point. You build from a higher base. If you don’t have the off-season, you never get that bump. Once training starts towards your next race, even if it’s cold outside, the off-season has ended and you are back in season. Increasing slowly will yield optimal returns on your training investment (more/ better chances to recover).
I ENJOY training and volume. So I had no intention of taking an off season. But right after my last race on 2013 I came down with a nasty case of pneumonia. I was on my ass for three weeks…
It took a month for my fitness to come back. But once it did I started making gains, and now in January, I am training at higher wattage and pace than I was last August when I was in peak shape!
That’s my N=1…
Next year I hope the off season doesn’t involve antibiotics and a 103 fever!!
The off season is one if the most important parts of your training. After my last race I take one month off and do nothing but spend time with family and friends. I don’t watch what I eat and I just have fun. Your body and mind need it. It is actually good to gain weight 5-10 pounds. It is not good nor realistic to maintain race weight all year. You have plenty of time to get back into shape and get to high levels of training. You break your body down during intense training and racing all year, so give your body time to recover and become stronger
I think you need a few weeks here and there after a “A” race and hte end of a season of unstructured training and jsut listening to you body. Mainly I back WAY off running. Usually not running AT ALL for 5 days minimum. Biek efforts are easy and fun.
I generally follow less of a regimented training plan in the off season and pick up on some neglected hobbies. Athletically I try and focus on my limiters (swimming and running) and do some non-triathlon activities like cross country skiing. I have the luxury of not having to keep sponsors happy or try to earn a living at this sport so I definitely gear down in the winter.
I’m not fond of this off season thing either. In my experience life throws enough mandatory breaks at you. I’ll get a rest week when I get the flu or when going on a family vacation. It isn’t optimal, but I enjoy training and I work in lighter weeks when I sense that the volume is getting hard to recover from.
You don’t need months of downtime, but you do need to shed the fatigue from the previous season. My best seasons have followed my biggest drops in CTL in the off-season. My worst season was the year I didn’t take an off-season (did a run focus). I was stale, showed no gains in my races and got injured. This year I took about two weeks completely off followed by several very easy weeks and my CTL dropped to one of it’s lowest levels since I started training in 2007. I’ve only been back to formal training for 4 weeks and I just set a PR on my threshold test. I don’t have the endurance I did last summer, but I don’t need that right now.
Two weeks has always been sort of a rule of thumb. Give the body a chance to de-train and as others have said to rest and repair, you will come back stronger!