Off-Season Cold Climate week of Jan 29 – Feb 4
Week 14 of the Off-Season Cold Climate Program is for those in cold climates without regular access to open water for paddling through the winter months. This week sees a return to a higher training load which continues to be focused on development of aerobic base. However, this week sees the addition of one higher intensity session. This is intended to help you begin to develop higher level aerobic abilities so that you’ll be better prepared for this work when the program intensifies. Also, if you’re able to do this work on the water it allows you to begin to re-establish comfort with finding connection, a good rhythm and effective paddling technique at higher intensity.
As with the last several weeks, if you have the ability to still get on the water please take advantage of it where you can. Getting water time now will provide you with time to refine technique and make it easier to get restarted on the water in the spring. If you are paddling, please remember that your focus should be on technique and not grinding out work. The idea is to optimize your connection, rhythm and motion and maximize the number of good strokes you take while minimizing the number of poor strokes you take. To this end, if you feel you are paddling poorly, stop, refocus and then start again with better strokes. If you cannot paddle, continue with the land-based work and augment it with 10 min of land-drills at least 3x/week. You should definitely consider spreading your land-based aerobic work across different activities in workouts lasting more than 60 min to avoid risking overuse injuries.
If you have any questions, please contact me in the Coach’s Convo. Also, if you are racing an important event in the coming weeks you should contact me in the coach’s convos for the customized work you will need.
Have a great week!
Larry
