Season Finished? What Should You Do Before Pre-Season?
The final game is done. Training stops. Weekends suddenly open up.
It can be tempting to put the feet up and do very little until pre-season starts again.
And while some recovery after a long season can certainly be appropriate, particularly if you’ve been managing soreness or niggles, the off-season doesn’t necessarily need to mean stopping training altogether.
For footballers, soccer players and other field-sport athletes, the off-season can be an opportunity to recover while maintaining enough strength, running and conditioning to be ready for the demands of the next pre-season.
You don't need to be at peak fitness
One of the important points we make with athletes at Body Fit Physiotherapy is that you don't need to arrive at the first night of pre-season at peak fitness.
That's what pre-season is partly there to develop.
But there is a significant difference between arriving at pre-season at your peak and arriving having done virtually nothing for several months.
The goal during the off-season is to maintain an appropriate base from which you can build.
That might include:
maintaining some regular running
continuing strength training
maintaining exposure to faster running where appropriate
working on individual physical qualities relevant to your sport
addressing issues that affected you during the previous season.
What this looks like will vary considerably between athletes.
Why does maintaining some training matter?
Physical capacity is specific to what we regularly expose our bodies to.
Periods of substantially reduced or ceased training can lead to reductions in physical qualities developed through training. Research examining detraining in athletes has demonstrated reductions in aerobic fitness and other physiological adaptations when the usual training stimulus is removed.
That doesn't mean an athlete shouldn't rest.
It means there's a difference between reducing your training to recover and removing your training stimulus for an extended period.
The off-season can provide room for both recovery and continued physical preparation.
The challenge of a short pre-season
One of the practical problems we see is that club pre-seasons aren't always particularly long.
Your coach and conditioning staff may have a limited number of weeks to prepare the team for the demands of competition.
If you've maintained a reasonable level of training during the off-season, there's already a foundation to build upon.
If you've done very little, the difference between your recent training and what you're suddenly being asked to do at pre-season can be substantial.
Research examining training load and injury in sporting populations suggests the relationship is complex. Injuries cannot simply be attributed to one workload measure, and factors including previous injury, physical capacity, training exposure and the nature of the sport all matter.
However, rapid increases in training demand relative to what an athlete has recently been prepared for have been associated with injury in several sporting populations.
The practical message is relatively simple:
Prepare your body progressively for what you're going to ask it to do.
Don't spend pre-season just trying to survive pre-season
We commonly see a noticeable difference between athletes who have prepared for pre-season and those who haven't.
An athlete who has maintained a reasonable training base may be better positioned to tolerate the progression in running, football drills and conditioning.
An athlete who has done very little may find that the first few weeks create significant soreness and fatigue simply because the change in training is so large.
Rather than using those first few weeks simply trying to catch up, the aim should be to arrive ready to build on the work you've already done.
What about injuries and niggles from the season?
The off-season is also an excellent opportunity to deal with problems you've been carrying.
Maybe your hamstring has repeatedly tightened up.
Perhaps you've been managing an adductor problem.
Your knee has been sore after games.
Or you've had an injury that you've managed well enough to keep playing but never properly rehabilitated.
Simply resting until the pain settles doesn't necessarily address the physical requirements that contributed to the problem or prepare you for the demands you'll face next season.
The off-season gives you something that can be difficult to find during competition:
time.
There is time to assess the problem, progressively rebuild capacity and then integrate that work back into running and sport-specific training.
What should off-season training actually look like?
There isn't one off-season program that suits every athlete.
A 35-year-old amateur footballer with a history of hamstring injuries doesn't necessarily need the same program as an 18-year-old soccer player trying to improve speed.
Your program should reflect:
your sport and position
your current training level
your injury history
the physical demands you struggled with last season
your strength and conditioning needs
how long you have before pre-season
what your club's pre-season is likely to involve.
For some athletes, the priority might be strength.
For another, it might be maintaining running volume.
For someone with recurrent hamstring problems, appropriate strength work combined with
progressive exposure to higher-speed running may be particularly important.
That's why off-season preparation should be individual rather than simply doing more exercise for the sake of it.
Recover — but stay prepared
Taking a break after a long season is reasonable.
You don't have to maintain the same volume or intensity you were doing during competition, and you certainly don't need to arrive at pre-season already at your peak.
But spending the entire off-season doing very little can leave a lot of work to squeeze into a relatively short pre-season.
A better goal is to find the balance between recovery and maintaining enough physical capacity to be ready for what comes next.
Enjoy the break.
Let the body recover.
Then progressively prepare yourself so that when pre-season arrives, you're ready to train — rather than simply trying to hang on.
Need help preparing for your next pre-season?
At Body Fit Physiotherapy in North Adelaide, we work with athletes to assess their current capacity, previous injuries and sporting demands before developing an individualised rehabilitation or strength and conditioning program.
The aim isn't simply to make you train harder. It's to work out what you need to be prepared for your sport and build towards it appropriately.
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