Off-Season Cold Climate week of Feb 12 – 18
Week 16 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 considerably reduced training load consistent with that necessary for recovery of muscles, connective tissue and the nervous system after two consecutive higher load weeks. As usual, please resist the urge to do more, understanding that there will be vastly increased load in the next two weeks and the introduction of some new work that you will want to be physically ready for.
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
