062 Why You Need an Offseason and How to Take One

The Paul Weber Podcast

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What an offseason is not:
Competing
Simulated competing
Training with no consideration for longevity
Taking fatigue to the limit of your tolerance
That is in season training, when all of those things are necessary
So what is the offseason then?
During the offseason, you train to address your weaknesses
You identify, separate and pursue your training priorities
You consider longevity
And fatigue is tolerable
Why is this necessary to do for most athletes?
1. Most athletes have an obvious weakness

They have a discipline that is what we call the lowest hanging fruit.
Lowest hanging fruit – the greatest performance improvement per unit of effort
This is usually the discipline where you have the lowest training age.
Our sport dictates that even very elite athletes often have an area of highest priority.
For Mat Fraser, it was running.

As your training age in a particular discipline becomes more advanced, it becomes a game of diminishing returns.

In weightlifting, where Fraser was already elite, he might get 1-2% improvement per unit of effort.

In running, where Fraser was intermediate, he might get 5-10% improvement per unit of effort.
By training to eliminate his weakness, he was able to make huge performance gains for significantly less training effort.
2. For most athletes, competitive CrossFit is an enormous amount of stress.
Orthopedically, hormonally, psychologically – CrossFit is hard.
The offseason is when we allow accumulated fatigue to dissipate.
We consider pain, and give those areas the doses they need to desensitize and heal.
We consider desire to train, and give it time to recover if it’s low.
Rich famously said, “In training, you listen to your body. In competition, you tell your body to shut up.”
This doesn’t mean that offseason training is easy.
It just means that the fatigue is tolerable, so that we can accumulate enough training.
Intensity limits volume – by definition.
If you can do a lot of it, it isn’t intensity.
Intensity is the in season period. By definition. Intensity is competition.
Training extensively to intensively is a best practice from every other sport.
If you want to train a lot, you have to reduce the intensity.
How to take an offseason
245-275 days per year
Identify your weakness.
Bias your programming toward your weakness.
Train in 3-6 week mesocycles.
Take a deload week every 3-6 weeks, during which you do half the volume of the final week of the mesocycle.
Every 3 mesocycles is a macrocycle. Retest every macrocycle. Then reevaluate.
If you want more, be sure to join me at my live event, The Base Training Blueprint, this Thursday, May 16th at 2pm MT.
This is a free training where we’ll cover:
• The differences between offseason and in season training
• How to periodize your training year for maximum competition performance
• How to interpret your competition results and identify your training priorities
• How to eliminate your biggest weakness with strength, gymnastics or conditioning-biased programming
At the end of this training, you’ll know exactly how to plan and execute a productive offseason.
Join here: https://www.paulbweber.com/base-training-blueprint
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