Off-season training

WORDS MARK HOMER

Dr Mark Homer is a senior applied sports scientist with over 12 years’ experience in high performance sport, working with the world leading GB Rowing team at the Beijing, London and Rio Olympic Games

If you are reading this article, the chances are you are well into your early-season training block. Those of you in the northern hemisphere have seen the hours of light decrease by the day – and even though they are now increasing again, the temperature is still dropping. A large proportion of your on-water training has been replaced with ergometer work, and all this time the kilometres have been slowly but surely adding up. Early-season training is hard, early-season training can be brutal, but it is a fundamental component of a rower’s annual plan that lays the foundation for the racing season and potential glory.

So why is this? What are the benefits of a long and uninterrupted block of training and how does it contribute to step-changes in performance when the days get longer and warmer? This article will attempt to answer these questions and give some practical advice to help you get through this undeniably tough period.

Like many concepts in coaching and sports science, the formalisation of training periodisation occurred behind the Iron Curtain. Early work by Russian physiologist Leo Matveyev was built on by Romanian Tudor Bompa and contributed to the success of Soviet countries in the Sixties and Seventies. All endurance sport programmes now follow the basic formula (albeit with different nomenclature) of a preparation phase, followed by an intensity phase that leads into the competition phase, and ends with a transition phase.