The Seasons of Sports

Seasons are part of the reason why it is so much fun being an athlete.

I love that sport comes with consistent changes. On one hand athletes know what to focus on during different seasons and on the other end it changes frequently enough so it doesn't get boring. Of course, this needs a periodized training plan, which makes seasons obvious.

In “Taking a Break” I was talking about the Off-season. It is the shortest one of all seasons, but this is totally fine, since our intention as athletes is not taking off forever. This is the season to recharge mentally and physically and all the activities done in this season should aim for that. That's the time to hang with friends, get school work or other academics in focus, travel for other reasons than training or competing, or just stay at home since this can feel like vacation after traveling a lot otherwise.

When “the break” is over athletes start the training session with setting the foundation with basic training. Usually this includes endurance and general strength, not just for endurance athletes. For me the key in this season is not to do much specific training yet. Getting too specific too early may increase mental and physical challenges later in the training year. With this I mean, that it is not necessary to do in May the same thing as in August. As a Biathlete I was focusing the first 2 months on a lot of different things. Running, biking, classic skiing, and other things have been very present on my training plan, but skate skiing not so much.

This changed in Summer a lot. Running, biking, and everything else was still present, but made some space to have skate skiing as the core of the plan. Also intensity sessions increased, compared to the season before, where distance was a bigger focus.

Competing needs to be trained as well and late Summer or Fall is a time for winter athletes to include some races as part of the plan.

After that it is time for a mini off-season, like a week, to then start again from the beginning with foundation. Unlike in May, this time training sessions are more in the specific sports, which was lots of skiing in my case. I like to see the Fall season up until the race season starts, as going through all the seasons again, but in less time and more specifically. 

What May is for Winter athletes, is October or November for Summer athletes, and what is happening in Summer for Winter athletes is happening in Winter for Summer athletes and so on.

Of course, there are also specifics to different sports. Alpine athletes i.e. are looking for snow in Spring to run lots of equipment tests for the upcoming season. But what I want to say is, that it is a good idea, when a training plan is looking different in May, than it is looking in August or November. If this is not the case for you, I would consider changing up the plan a bit. 

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