What Should Athletes Do in the Off-Season to Prepare for Pre-Season?
Finishing your season doesn’t necessarily mean stopping training completely. An appropriate off-season can give your body time to recover while maintaining enough
strength, fitness and running capacity to be ready when pre-season begins.
When the final game of the season is over, taking some time to recover makes sense.
After months of training and competition, you may be carrying soreness, fatigue or an injury that needs attention. Physically and mentally, having a break from the demands of competition can also be valuable.
But there is an important difference between recovering from the season and doing nothing for the entire off-season.
If you significantly reduce your training for an extended period and then suddenly return to multiple high-intensity pre-season sessions, you are asking your body to tolerate demands it may no longer be accustomed to.
The objective of a good off-season isn't to arrive at pre-season at peak fitness. It is to arrive with an appropriate base of physical capacity from which you can build.
Why does off-season training matter?
One of the challenges with pre-season is that coaches have a lot they want to achieve in a relatively short period.
Depending on the sport and level of competition, training may quickly involve combinations of:
running volume and higher-speed running
repeated accelerations and changes of direction
strength and power work
skills training
conditioning
practice games and match simulation.
The problem is that your body adapts to what you regularly ask it to do.
If your training exposure drops substantially during the off-season, your capacity to tolerate your normal sporting demands can also change.
Research supports a relationship between training load and both physical adaptation and injury, although it is much more complex than simply saying that a particular increase in load will cause an injury.
This is an important distinction.
We shouldn't be trying to identify a magical "safe" workload or acute-to-chronic workload ratio. More recent evidence continues to highlight limitations in using simple workload ratios to predict injuries, and injury risk is influenced by many factors.
From a practical perspective, however, being appropriately prepared for the physical demands you're about to encounter makes sense.
You don't need to be at peak fitness before pre-season
This is where athletes can make the opposite mistake.
Preparing for pre-season does not mean completing your own intensive pre-season before team pre-season starts.
Your coach needs room to progress your training.
The off-season should instead balance two objectives:
1. Recovery: Allowing time for physical and psychological recovery from the previous season and addressing injuries or persistent problems.
2. Maintaining capacity: Retaining an appropriate amount of strength, aerobic conditioning, running and other sport-specific physical qualities.
How much you should maintain will depend on your sport, position, injury history, previous training and what your upcoming pre-season will require.
An amateur footballer, competitive runner, soccer player and field hockey player will therefore have very different off-season requirements.
What should you work on during the off-season?
Rather than simply asking, "How fit should I be?", it can be more useful to ask:
"What will my body need to be able to tolerate when I return?"
For many field-sport athletes, there are several areas worth considering.
1. Maintain some running and conditioning
If running is a major part of your sport, completely removing it for an extended period may leave a large gap between your current capacity and the demands of pre-season.
That doesn't mean maintaining your in-season running volume.
After an initial recovery period, an appropriate amount of running or conditioning can maintain a foundation that can later be progressed.
The exact amount depends on the individual.
2. Maintain or develop strength
The off-season can be a useful opportunity to work on strength without having to fit training around matches every weekend.
Depending on the athlete, this might include lower-limb strength, calf capacity, hamstring strength, hip strength, upper-body strength and trunk training.
Importantly, the program should reflect the demands of the athlete and their sport rather than simply consisting of a generic collection of "injury prevention exercises".
3. Address problems you carried through the season
That hamstring that never quite settled.
The knee that became sore after every game.
The Achilles that was manageable but continually irritated.
The off-season may provide an opportunity to assess and appropriately rehabilitate these problems rather than waiting until pre-season increases the demands again.
This doesn't necessarily mean stopping training until everything is completely symptom-free.
In many situations, rehabilitation involves appropriately modifying and progressively rebuilding load.
4. Gradually reintroduce higher-intensity demands
Being able to jog comfortably is not necessarily the same as being prepared for sport.
Depending on your sport, eventually you may need to tolerate sprinting, acceleration, deceleration, jumping, landing, kicking, repeated efforts and changes of direction.
These demands usually need to be developed progressively rather than suddenly introduced in the first week of team training.
5. Give yourself genuine recovery
Maintaining training doesn't mean there is no place for rest.
Recovery should be part of the plan.
The International Olympic Committee's consensus work on training load specifically recognises the importance of individualised training alongside appropriate post-event recovery, including sleep, nutrition and psychological recovery.
For some athletes, particularly after a long competitive season, reducing structured training for a period may be entirely appropriate.
The important question is what happens after that initial recovery period.
Why can the first few weeks of pre-season feel so difficult?
Athletes will often tell us:
"I'm sore after every training session."
Sometimes that is simply part of returning to harder training. Muscle soreness after an unfamiliar or increased training stimulus isn't automatically a sign that something is wrong.
But there is a practical difference between experiencing some expected post-training soreness and spending the entire pre-season struggling to tolerate each session.
Pre-season itself can contain some of the highest training loads of the sporting year. Research in rugby league, for example, has found that training loads are typically highest during pre-season, although the relationship between workload, performance and injury remains complex.
Research involving elite European football teams has also found an association between completing more pre-season training sessions and several favourable in-season injury-related measures. This does not prove that simply doing more pre-season sessions prevents injuries, but it reinforces the potential value of being physically available to complete your preparation.
That is one reason we want athletes arriving at pre-season ready to train, rather than needing the first several weeks simply to rebuild basic capacity.
How much training should you do in the off-season?
There isn't one program that is appropriate for every athlete.
Your off-season training should take into account:
Your sport and position: What running, sprinting, strength and power demands will you face?
Your previous training: Someone who has trained consistently for years starts from a different position from someone with a limited training history.
Your injuries: Are there issues from the previous season that need to be rehabilitated?
The length of your off-season: Six weeks and four months require different approaches.
Your upcoming pre-season: When does it begin, how frequently will you train and how quickly are the demands likely to increase?
This is why simply prescribing a fixed number of kilometres or gym sessions per week isn't particularly useful without knowing the athlete.
A simple way to think about your off-season
Your season doesn't need to look like this:
Season → stop everything → pre-season → suddenly train hard
A better progression for many athletes is:
Season → recover → rebuild/maintain → progressively prepare → team pre-season
Exactly what sits within each stage will vary.
The aim isn't to eliminate every possibility of soreness or injury. No training program can guarantee that.
Instead, the aim is to give you an appropriate physical foundation for the demands you're about to encounter.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I completely rest after my season finishes?
Some reduction in training may be appropriate, particularly after a demanding season or if you're carrying injuries or significant fatigue. However, an entire off-season with very little activity may not be the best preparation for returning to demanding pre-season training. Your recovery period and subsequent training should reflect your individual circumstances.
How fit should I be before pre-season?
You don't necessarily need to be at peak fitness. Ideally, you want enough underlying strength, conditioning and sport-specific capacity that you can participate in pre-season and progressively build from there.
When should I start running before pre-season?
There isn't a universal timeframe. It depends on how much running you've maintained, your sport, injury history and when pre-season starts. If you've had a significant break from running, allowing time to progressively rebuild before team training begins is generally more sensible than trying to regain everything in the final week.
Should I go to the gym during the off-season?
Strength training can form a useful part of an athlete's off-season. The program should reflect your sporting demands, current capacity, goals and any injuries rather than simply following a generic sports program.
What if I'm injured at the end of the season?
The off-season can be an excellent opportunity to properly assess and rehabilitate an injury you've been managing through the season. The appropriate approach depends on the injury, and complete rest isn't always necessary.
Preparing for your next season
A good off-season isn't about training as hard as possible.
It also isn't necessarily about doing nothing.
For many athletes, it is an opportunity to recover from the previous season, address problems, maintain important physical qualities and progressively prepare for what comes next.
You don't need to arrive at pre-season flying.
You want to arrive ready to build.
At Body Fit Physiotherapy in North Adelaide, our physiotherapists work with athletes across rehabilitation, strength and conditioning, running and return-to-sport preparation. If an injury or lack of preparation is limiting your ability to return to training, an individual assessment can help determine what you need to work on before your season begins.
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