Off season training, finally!
Off season training, finally!
I love this part of the year because I can get back into the weights and rekindle my first passion… smashing the weights! Well, as much as I can these days anymore, that is. Dropping from 195lbs to 165 lbs over the last few years has really taken a toll on my strength and lifting stats. I’d be lucky to move a bar with two stacks of high society on them nowadays (225lbs.)…. but that’s okay. The rational is that mass - whether that’s from muscle or fat - gets in the way of speed when it comes to triathlon. Not so much the swim or the bike, but on the run, every single extra pound you carry impacts your performance. And when you’re non elite, like me, you don’t have a whole lot of performance to sacrifice before you just start embarrassing yourself out there.
My off season consists of mid August to mid November, which means, yes, my season is actually 9-10 months long. That’s one of the longest "seasons" of any sport. Anyway, for the next few months, I’ve sworn away my volume intense brick workouts and instead will focus on core conditioning, speed work, and building some lean mass. Towards the end of this and into the beginning of the season I will attempt to rapidly reduce my fat composition to come in sitting at around 160 lbs for my first race. Hopefully I can maintain that without putting myself into a nutritional deficit.
Numbering your split days is always much more optimal than going by a day of the week. E.g. Day 1, 2, 3, etc, v. calling Monday "back day", Tuesday "Chest day", and so on. A 5 day rotational split yields over 30% more training without over-training being an issue.
My basic splits begin like this for several weeks, to re-grease the neuromuscular groove:
