Creating the platform for success.
By Matt Dixon and Craig Upton

The end of the racing season is fast arriving. Traditionally, as the season draws to a close athletes put their training logs away and have a couple of months of complete inactivity. With this physical and mental break the athlete has more time to be social, and, coupled with the fact this off time is in the holiday season, many of us quickly add on some pounds, almost at the same rate as we lose our fitness gains.

This strategy extends from the pro ranks down to the weekend warrior – but is it the best strategy? There is little doubt that a break from training is essential, not just to ensure a recharge of the mental state, but also to heal and adapt to the long season of training and racing. This does not mean that the break should be composed of complete inactivity and no structure. The simple goal of the off season is to allow complete recovery from the long season of racing and training, while minimizing the effects of detraining which would effect the gains you made over that season. The “off season” is the best time to set yourself up for success in the next racing season, and it should begin with a focus on structural strength.

To improve your endurance performance you must apply as much power as possible for an extended period of time. The greater the power applied over this period of time, the faster we will go. We all know that the stronger one can be, the greater the potential is to generate power, but it is not just brute strength that is the goal of specific strength training. There are various benefits to a specific and planned off-season that focuses on structural integrity and strength:

1. Injury risk: Improved structural integrity with strengthening off the supporting muscle groups and maintaining muscular balance will decrease the risk of injuries associated with endurance sports.
2. Power platform: Improved structural integrity provides a platform to improve specific muscular strength, and in turn, power in the functioning muscles.
3. Technique: In endurance sports one of the keys to success is maintaining technique. As training and racing events continue in duration technique inevitably suffers, usually due to a lack of strength in supporting muscles. With a specific strength program you are able to delay the onset of the faltering of technique. This leads to a lower energy cost to maintain the same speed.
4. Strength and Power: Once we have a secure structural system we can increase the strength of specific muscles. This will increase the potential to transfer this into power.

Many athletes realize the benefits of strength training, but delay adding it into their schedule until they restart full training. This strategy is, in fact, detrimental to the training plan due to the hormonal response to strength training being vastly different to the foundation training (high volume, low intensity) undertaken in the early part of the season. It would be counter productive to try and build a training plan incorporating the two areas of training concurrently and displays the need to begin strength training earlier.

By beginning early you are also able to better maintain the gains you made over the last year, limit effects of detraining, and begin the following season with a firm base of strength. This will aid your response to the metabolic training, act as a stepping-stone from one season to the next, and promote progression from one season to the next. This is in contrast to detraining and having to begin the next season back at the start.

One fear endurance athletes have is that they will add muscle mass if they include strength training. A well thought out strength program for endurance athletes should not result in massive gains in muscle bulk. In fact, the hypertrophy phase of the program, which is the style of training mostly responsible for gains in muscle size, is quite brief in the endurance program. It is certainly not long enough to see any large changes in size.

I hope this article proves useful to show why you should include strength training into your plan. By doing so you can focus on a completely different aspect of training, with much less time commitment, and still let the body and mind heal from the long year of racing. You should come back into the new season refreshed and well prepared for a great year.

Thanks for reading – Cheers,