Welcome to week 1 of the 2024 training year which starts with week 1 of the Off-Season Program. This program is for those in warm climates with regular access to open water for paddling through the winter months. If you have just finished your major fall race I strongly suggest taking a week or two of active rest – different than normal activities in which the “work” is unstructured and you can do “as you feel”. If you feel ready to begin training, then please paddle up to 3x/week as indicated. The rest of the non-strength work will be land-based cardio until mid January. This land-based work will allow you to begin developing the highest level of general, non-specific, fitness possible which will serve as the base upon which you can build superior paddle specific fitness in the spring. To avoid overuse injuries when the volume of land-based work begins to increase you should consider varying the training activities you chose. The most effective activity options are those that use the most muscle mass and require you to support the greatest amount of your body weight. So, activities like running, xc skiing, cycling should ideally make up the bulk of your cardio work. Swimming, though the water supports your wieght, is also an excellent option.

This week’s objective is to introduce you to the off-season work while letting your body continue to recover from last season’s work. Sessions are relatively short, low-level activity (easy paddles and/or cardio). Additionally, we are establishing baselines for your fitness through land-based strength and cardio testing. Training for the next three weeks will follow this format and be comparatively light as we set a foundation and prepare for much harder work to come. We will build the training load slowly so we have room to keep increasing the load into the new year. There is little to be gained by rushing to do high load work now and trying maintain that level throughout the winter except for the likelihood of burnout or overtraining.

As testing may be a new element to your training and many of you may need to rearrange the order of the workouts in this program to meet your personal schedules, please contact me in the program discussion if you have questions or need guidance with the rearranging the order of the workouts. 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.

Please join me for a Zoom discussion on this year’s off season training on Monday, Nov 6 at 7:00 p.m. You can contact me in the coach’s convo for the link.

Larry