THE OFF-SEASON: WHY YOU NEED ONE

Podcast Episode #123 🎙

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All of the best athletes in the world take an off-season. We should be taking off-seasons too! But what exactly is an “off-season” and how do you take one? 👇

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⭐️ WHAT IS THE OFF-SEASON?

The off-season looks different for everyone! For one person it might be not running at all for a month or two, and for another athlete it might be taking a full week off and then running unstructured without workouts for a month or two. It really depends on your experience level, how you’re feeling at the end of your training cycle, when you took your last period of time off, etc. It doesn’t necessarily mean not running at all!

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⭐️ WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU DON’T TAKE AN OFF-SEASON?

You may see an increase in performance for a while by continuing to train without taking time off. Then, BOOM! You start to feel like crap, injuries start cropping up, or you don’t even feel like running anymore. You’ve hit burn out or injury and it could have been prevented by taking a planned off-season

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⭐️ WHAT SHOULD YOU FOCUS ON IN THE OFF-SEASON?

The off-season is a great time to focus on things you couldn’t focus on during a big marathon build up, like strength training and nutrition. It’s hard to build strength when you’re in an intense period of running training. It can be challenging to focus on nutrition when you’re running a lot of miles. Time to make good habits again so these things become second nature!

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⭐️ SHOULD YOU DO OTHER TRAINING OTHER THAN RUNNING? Absolutely. You can use your off-season to do some other forms of aerobic training that are fun for you! Swimming, cycling, elliptical, etc. It’s a great way to maintain some aerobic fitness while giving your body and mind that break from running

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⭐️ SHOULD YOU WORK WITH A COACH DURING THE OFF-SEASON? Oftentimes when a runner is left to their own devices, they either do too much or too little and they don’t have a plan for what to focus on during their off-season. A coach can help you set the tone for your off-season with certain focus points like strength or cross training and to make sure you’re doing just the right amount of mileage

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👉 Do you need a coach for your off-season? We have openings for seven day free trials right now! Head over to the link in our bio. www.run4prs.com

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👉 Follow us for more training tips @run4prs