When was the last time that you took a week off after a successful period of training? Think about it for a second, aren't we conditioned to keep going and going? I talked to people day after day that tell me they have had a really good 8 weeks of training or that they had a great start to their off-season conditioning and now want to know what to do to keep it up.
My usual answer?
Take time off.
Now I know that most people aren’t too concerned with peaking as athletes are but the same rules apply. You must allow time for your fitness to catch up with your fatigue.
What I mean here is that most people are just about “going” all the time. Assuming that you have your goals defined for each training period the best thing that you can do is program in a 1-3 week period for backing off.
I often see this with athletes whom I work with. They’ll come in post season and say that they want to do X,Y and Z during the post season. Most athletes are going to have about 4 months in their offseason so if we can address points X through Z in those first two months then we’ll finally be able to prep them for the season.
Month three is going to be about maintaining their fitness and month four is going to be doing a little bit of nothing. Sure they’ll still train and eat right but under no conditions are they going to go hard. If you have to go hard the last month of the off-season then you screwed up somewhere big time during the previous three months
Yes, it works for “regular” people as well. I recently spoke with one woman who was so obsessed with losing five pounds. She took a back off week and lost two pounds. Not huge, nothing alarming but it’s proof that the fatigue we accumulate through our training is our biggest hindrance in achieving our goals.
Think about it. When was the last time you had results?
Smelling The Roses
When was the last time that you took a week off after a successful period of training? Think about it for a second, aren't we conditioned to keep going and going? I talked to people day after day that tell me they have had a really good 8 weeks of training or that they had a great start to their off-season conditioning and now want to know what to do to keep it up.
My usual answer?
Take time off.
Now I know that most people aren’t too concerned with peaking as athletes are but the same rules apply. You must allow time for your fitness to catch up with your fatigue.
What I mean here is that most people are just about “going” all the time. Assuming that you have your goals defined for each training period the best thing that you can do is program in a 1-3 week period for backing off.
I often see this with athletes whom I work with. They’ll come in post season and say that they want to do X,Y and Z during the post season. Most athletes are going to have about 4 months in their offseason so if we can address points X through Z in those first two months then we’ll finally be able to prep them for the season.
Month three is going to be about maintaining their fitness and month four is going to be doing a little bit of nothing. Sure they’ll still train and eat right but under no conditions are they going to go hard. If you have to go hard the last month of the off-season then you screwed up somewhere big time during the previous three months
Yes, it works for “regular” people as well. I recently spoke with one woman who was so obsessed with losing five pounds. She took a back off week and lost two pounds. Not huge, nothing alarming but it’s proof that the fatigue we accumulate through our training is our biggest hindrance in achieving our goals.
Think about it. When was the last time you had results?