Run, run, run

Pre-season is under way for 2019 winter sport.  The focus, at this time of the year, is running.  The off-season is an important time to recharge mentally but it’s often also catastrophic for many young people as all the strength and fitness built up over the season degrades to nothing with months off their feet.  The two big conditioning targets in the off-season are fitness and run skills or speed work. 

Fitness tends to be misunderstood.  I am applying the non-specific or general meaning, which is cardiovascular or aerobic capacity.  Cardio takes months and years to grow to a high level, but the good news is that once we are fit it also takes months to degrade.  Fitness reflects time on task, and longevity.  The first conditioning lesson for young sports people is this: you can’t do without simple fitness, and it takes years to grow.  Start now.  Tip: don’t have an off-season.  Play another run sport over summer or run for its own sake.

Most of us have experienced what we interpret as a drop in fitness after a short break but, assuming we were truly fit to begin with, that’s not what’s really occurred.  Work output is a measure of supply (e.g. cardiovascular fitness) and demand.  Whereas ‘fitness’ takes months to degrade significantly, strength and anaerobic capacity degrades rapidly.  A drop in anaerobic capacity causes an elevation in heart rate because what we can’t supply in one system, we must provide for with the other.  The ‘drop off’ in work capacity after a short break is not a reduction in supply (fitness) so much as an increase in demand.  Strength makes movement efficient and less efficiency (via reduced strength/ high intensity work capacity) means a higher movement ‘cost’.

This interaction between supply and demand or fitness and strength provides us with not one but two essential conditioning targets during the off-season: fitness and strength.  Strength can be targeted in two ways: in the gym to make muscles and critical joints stronger or on the field with high intensity running.  The advantage of high intensity running, or speed work, is its specificity; it enhances the very tools we need in the coming season.  Gym work is important, however, as it permits us to deconstruct the engine and rebuild from common denominators upwards.

The effect we can expect from high intensity running is an improvement in running at lower intensities.  As we become stronger, we become more efficient and that means being able to work at high power outputs for the same basic cost.  We find it easier to run!  In so much as how we ‘feel’ when we run is the greatest predictor of the likelihood that we will do it, becoming a stronger runner is a good strategy to support running for fitness.

All the best for the off-season but don’t kid yourself.  Season 2019 starts now.