The offseason is a great time to throttle back, try new ideas, make gear changes, and address weaknesses. Here are some tips to help you find the mental and physical adjustments that might just make you faster, more efficient, or better able to handle the stress of training and race day.
Pickup Some New Skills
Skill counts for a lot on race day. Work on your running form. Master cornering, bike handling, shifting, or increase the range of cadences that you can handle. In the pool, perfect your position in the water or improve your catch.
10 Basic Cycling Skills Every Triathlete Should Master (Triathlete)
Keep a Strength Training Journal
I have to admit that sometimes I walk up to the squat rack and am pretty sure that I had a 45 lb plate and a 25 lb plate on the bar last time or that I did 4 x 400-meter intervals last week. This is not the path to greatness. Keep an exercise journal on your phone or use an old-fashioned notebook and record every workout.
Hacking the Workout Journal (James Clear)
Go Off-Road
Try trail running or mountain biking. It will give you a change of focus, a change of scenery, and new skills to master. In addition, mountain biking with its slower speeds and plenty of climbs is usually more comfortable than winter road cycling.
Learn from the Masters
Increase your knowledge by reading about the science, strategy, or history of your sport. Check out these titles, and yes, three of the four are available in audiobook form. I’ll be writing a review of Good to Go later this month.
Triathlete EQ: A Guide for Emotional Endurance by Dr. Izzy Justice
Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance by Alex Hutchinson
Ride Inside: The Essential Guide to Get the Most Out of Indoor Cycling by Joe Friel, Jim Rutberg
Make Core Strength a Priority
There are three forms of strength upper body, lower body, and core. Guess which one improves performance whether you are swimming, biking, or running? Check out the ATHLEAN-X and StrengthRunning YouTube channels for workouts that go beyond the basic plank.
Get Serious About Your Sleep
The best way to ensure that you reap the benefits of those hard workouts is to be as serious about recovery as you are about training, and the number one recovery modality will always be sleep.
Sleep Hygiene (Sleep Foundation)
20 Tips for Better Sleep (WebMD)
Become More Flexible
Head on over to YouTube and check out the videos in the link below. Cast one of them to your widescreen TV, go to YouTube settings and make the playback speed 0.75 and follow along. You might just find that range of motion that you had a few years ago.
The 15 Best Yoga Videos On YouTube Have 90 Million Views Between Them (Women’s Health)
Spend Some Quality Time with Your Sports Watch
Whatever make and model of sports watch you use check out some YouTube videos or head over to DC Rainmaker. I’m willing to bet there are features that you don’t know about that would benefit you if you only knew they existed.
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