During a postseason phone call, an athlete asked me, “do you seriously mean I have to do nothing at all for weeks after the season ends?”
That’s a fun question. It gets into the purpose, intent, and opportunity of off-season. If you’re a competitive adult athlete in an explosive sport – like track & field, basketball, volleyball, or weightlifting – you should take your off-season seriously.
If you’re a competitive adult athlete in a collision sport – like ultimate, rugby, or hockey – you should approach off-season like your career depends on it.
…because it does.
So what should an adult athlete do after their sport season ends? Let’s dive in.
Why do you need an off-season?
First, a definition: off-season starts the day after your most important competition and it ends 6-12 weeks before the regular season begins.
Off-season follows your regular/championship season and comes before your preseason.
For a Masters track athlete, the indoor season is your preseason, so it spans that 12 week period. Thus, a typical off-season for Masters track lasts from August to mid-November.
For club ultimate players, off-season lasts from November to March. If you also play semipro, yet club Nats is your primary aim for the year, then the pro season is your preseason. (League doesn’t count for much!)
Second, why you need an off-season as an adult athlete: to fix what’s broken, to heal what’s hurting, to address your weaknesses, and to remember how to be a normal, social human.
The First Phase Of Off-season
The first task when your season ends is to STOP playing and training. Off-season Phase 1 is *total* rest.
How long you take completely off from all intentional exercise depends – the younger you are, the more elite you are, the more hurt you are, and/or the more burned out you are, the longer you need. There’s nothing wrong with 8 weeks in your couch cave when you competed at Worlds, performed better than you ever have, but have also been ice + ibuprofen-ing a tweaked hamstring and sprained ankle for a month.
But, at a minimum, take 2 weeks. During those 2 weeks completely off from sport and training, don’t look at your sport. Certainly don’t play it. Don’t journal all the things you hated about the season. Don’t make a list of goals.
Just be a normal person who doesn’t play a sport for 14 days. Go to dinner with your (non-teammate/competitor) friends. Clean your house. Read a book or binge watch a Netflix series.
I don’t even advocate all that much exercise for your general health. I can get behind walking your dog, riding your bike on a beautiful day, hiking in the fall leaves, or joining a community Turkey Trot (if you just INSIST on jogging), but your health won’t decline because of a short vacation. Do comfortable, enjoyable, relaxing stuff if you feel like it, but accept that doing nothing is okay, too.
This period is critical for your mental health, enthusiasm for sport, and longevity in the game. Take it seriously – and seriously do as little as possible. The ONE sport thing you’re allowed to do during this period is schedule time with your care providers…you’re going to need their guidance in Off-season Phase 2.
The Second Phase Of Off-season
The second task after your season ends and you take time to rest is to get treatment for your aches and pains. As my PT reminds me, in-season is ice-and-duct tape time, but off-season is when you get yourself together. Off-season Phase 2, for any serious athlete, is rehab & rebuild.
Go see your doctors. (You put off that annual physical with blood work until after champs, didn’t you? Don’t lie.)
Go see your therapists.
Do what they tell you (to an extent).
A related element of Off-season Phase 2: replace your gear. This is when you inventory your training apparel, especially socks, cleats/spikes, and implements. Order your new stuff. Go try on new brands. Throw away that 10-year-old, permanently funky, “really can’t wear this in public” jersey that you love to sweat through on the indoor bike. Buy yourself something new and not-smelly.
Depending on how busted up you are, this phase could last a day or it could last a month. It could be a matter of easy check-ins with the care team you’ve stayed close to and ordering fresh socks…or it could be weekly PT sessions, all the massages you can get, and a massive shopping trip.
Once it’s over, though, you can get on to the fun stuff: mining your training journal (it’s the secret to progress as an athlete; surely you kept one…right?), identifying your strengths and weaknesses from the season, and plotting your training to be more awesome next year!
The Third Phase Of Off-season
Off-season Phase 3 is becoming a better athlete.
There will be a variety of things on your list. Your real task is to put them in order from most to least impact on your play, decide how to make the Top 2 way better before preseason, then get to work. This is generally the longest phase of off-season and it’s where nearly all of next season’s gains are made.
Off-season Phase 3 is the right time to hire a coach. It’s the right time to watch back game film on your rivals. And it’s the only time to lose or gain weight, if either applies to your performance.
However, off-season is NOT the time to play your sport “just because”. It’s the time to play SOME OTHER sport or, at minimum, to build up your general athleticism in training.
This is so hard for a lot of athletes. When I lived in Texas, track was available year-round. I never had to stop if I didn’t want to. Which means I could be marooned on the most epic performance plateau for YEARS (which I was) because I never carved out time to actually become more mobile or powerful, choosing to keep entering meets instead.
The weaknesses you have as an athlete will not be solved by playing your sport more. And time spent playing your sport is time taken away from recovering from and adapting to the high-quality, weakness-specific training you need to do. Olympians talk about going Monk Mode in the months before trials – that’s exactly what you’re supposed to do during off-season.
How To Manage The Hardest Part Of Off-season
I get the desire – the NEED – to be social and competitive. I know how awful it feels to imagine giving up PLAYING for months, to be only TRAINING. On one hand, I have to tell you to grow up – if you’re competitive in a sport, you have to make some sacrifices, so own them for your long-term development.
On the other hand, I have to remind you that this is exactly why you should play multiple sports. As a hurdler, the fundamental qualities I need are speed, flexibility, and aggression. In my off-season, I compete in weightlifting and Highland Games in addition to training speed. This way, I have outlets for fun with other athletes and regular competition. But I go months without a track meet, so I don’t wear in the same old patterns or limit myself with the same old training schedule every week.
This is the compromise. Let go of your sport for a while so you can actually get better.
And that’s the point of off-season!
The purpose of off-season for an adult athlete is to fix what’s broken, heal what’s hurting, and address your weaknesses.
The intent of off-season has to be sowing seeds of performance that you’ll reap next year.
The opportunity of off-season is to get away from your sport so you can be a better athlete when you come back.
When you look at it that way, hopefully a few weeks doing nothing at all feels just right. Call your doctor, crack open that book you’ve been eager to read, and sit back for a bit – then get to the real work of leveling up next year.
Email me any time if you’d like help with that.