training post-meet: embracing your off-season
Ah, the high of meet day. It's always an exhilarating feeling: dedicating and applying yourself for a single day, watching all of that hard work pay off before you- it's unlike anything else.
Meets are highly motivating, fun, and change us as individuals. Having the vision of a competition to work toward will light a fire under your ass & push you further than ever before.
Yet, after that whole experience, approaching your training with the same will and excitement can be difficult. Many lifters experience severe downs, drops in consistency, and less productivity after a meet.
However, your off-season is just as crucial as meet prep. By changing your mindset and approaching training with intention, you can keep the momentum (and gains) coming your way.
Navigating Post-Meet Blues
With highs, there will always be lows that follow. It holds every time with meets, too.
Meets give you something to strive for: your emotions heightened, your body peaked, and your team cheering you all the way through. They´re some of the most incredible days in your career.
Coming back after that, you may experience a feeling of, ¨what now?¨
After months and months of hard work,
Overcoming obstacles,
Challenging yourself beyond what you thought was possible,
Fighting nerves and exploding with excitement,
Hitting PRs you´ve been eyeing for a while,
Celebrating with your teammates,
It feels as if it´s over in an instant. You won't get a chance to relive the day, and the next meet may be months away.
This can be a difficult feeling to process, which is 100% valid. Let yourself feel the highs and the lows as they come.
However, don´t let the blues debilitate you.
A) Use this time to reflect on how the day went.
How did you set yourself up for success? How was your preparation ritual?
What was most helpful for you on the day of?
What lift are you the proudest of?
What are ways that you can improve next time?
Debrief everything with a coach, handler, or friend, so you can get the most out of the experience & gain clarity. One of my favorite ways to execute this is to create a vision board. What am I proud of from my meet? What are my goals for the next three months, six months, a year, and two years? How do I plan on getting there?
This way, you can get excited for what's next, rather than feeling hopeless or lost.
B) Post-meet, make sure to take care of yourself. Whether it's laying in bed, spending time with loved ones, getting some good food in, etc., prioritize yourself. You deserve & earned it after such a killer performance.
C) Finally, look back on how far you've come. One of the best ways to get yourself out of your head is to reflect on your improvements. You´ve likely made a lot of growth from the beginning of meet prep. Rewatch old training videos, old notes/texts, and your meet day lifts to remind yourself what it's really about. You showed up as a stronger, improved version, and that was due to countless hours of work. The process led you to the journey. The platform reflects all that came before it. That's pretty damn cool. Allow yourself to be proud. You can never feel discouraged after realizing your growth.
2. Establish your goals & timeline.
One of the easiest ways to burn yourself out and have an unsuccessful off-season is to have no idea what you want to do going forward.
In meet prep, the laser vision is on the days and weeks ahead of you. But there should be an after-plan, too.
The platform experience can help you gain some clarity on what your next goals are. Remember, this is entirely your journey, and there are plenty of different options. The bottom line is to continue improving & gaining strength- and there are many ways to go about that.
Maybe you:
-Qualified for Nationals and want to experience a higher level meet,
-Would like to qualify for Nationals and want to work toward a bigger total,
-Desire more platform experience & want to do another meet in a few months to improve,
-Want to spend more time building- doing additional hypertrophy/bodybuilding work,
-Want to try a new sport, like Weightlifting, or incorporate different styles of training,
Whatever it may be, choose the road that aligns best with you.
Then, talk with your coach, and create a short-term and long-term vision plan for yourself. How will you get to these goals in the next few months? How will those carry over into the next year?
You and your coach are a partnership to get you to your highest possible self. Communicate with them & together, you can build a plan that will propel you forward. Then you can ¨work backward ¨ in the timeframe you have, applying your established journey.
Having no reason or vision with your training leads to inconsistency, frustration, and seemingly lack of progress. When you have something to show up for over time, you continue striving for more- and that's what we want.
Your meet is just another step in the direction toward something better: one victory on your path to success. A meet isn´t the end of your career, it's the beginning of the next chapter.
3. Build strength in variations and develop other qualities.
In that same sentiment, creating non-SBD Single related goals can make for an exciting off-season.
It's hard to motivate yourself for high-volume, grueling training sessions - even if you know they´re good for you.
Additionally, monotony can get boring. We love maxing out and hitting PRs, but it's not sustainable year-round.
Creating new, different goals will make you a more well-rounded athlete while adding enjoyment to training.
A) Use your off-season as a chance to build up secondary lifts and try new variations.
How strong is your opposite stance deadlift?
Your front squat?
Your close grip or Legolas bench press?
Your overhead press?
Your high bar?
How many pull-ups or push-ups can you do?
Each of these lifts are exciting goals to push toward and directly carry over to your SBD in meet prep. Spending some time focused on other variations allows for a sense of novelty,
so you can train more neglected movement patterns,
while still building strength with an adequate level of specificity.
Plus, it's fun to have a fresh program & get a mental break from the same work you´ve been doing. Seeing yourself improve in skills you´re not used to is empowering.
So, first things first, set some goals in your secondary lifts-whether it´s numbers or rep PRs, and build your program around them. Train for your secondary lifts like you would for your main ones.
That way, by the time Meet prep rolls around, you´ll have trained with intention, been productive, feel accomplished, and ready to dive back into your main SBD work.
Off-season is the perfect time to incorporate more variety. This can come from a variety of rep ranges, frequency, or specialty bars.
Maybe you go from back-squatting three times a week to two times- and perform more front squats.
Or you increase your rep counts on bench press for hypertrophy.
Or experiment with Duffalo bars, trap bars, SSBs, etc.
Repeating the same program you do in meet prep won´t help you progress. A new stimulus could be exactly what you need.
B) Additionally, off-season is an opportunity to develop qualities aside from pure, maximal strength. Hypertrophy, technical proficiency, and work capacity all contribute to maximal strength in the long run but don't often get as much attention closer to a meet.
This could mean greater volumes, more accessories, and different exercise selection for hypertrophy.
Possibly, shorter rest periods or cardio for increased work capacity.
Or specific variations and tempo work for more efficient form.
Utilize dedicated volume or technique phases to help you address your unique weaknesses, building the foundation for preps in the future. Better technique and more mass make for a stronger you down the road.
Establishing specific goals post-meet that develop you as an athlete; while providing adequate variation can set you up for success in the following weeks, months, and years of training.
4. Make time for other activities you enjoy, and take a mental break.
During meet prep, many athletes go into ¨dark mode.¨
Everything is dialed.
Nutrition is 100% consistent.
Sleep is non-negotiable.
Training sessions are prioritized over many other areas.
Social life, other activities, meals out, etc., are typically sacrificed.
This mental state helps allow for the best possible performance. When you're an athlete, your entire life reflects that.
However, over time, a lack of balance can lead to burnout. After a meet, it's the perfect time to add back in some pieces that may have been missing.
Maybe that means being a little laxer with your nutrition and enjoying meals out with friends more often.
Or going out for social events on the weekend.
Before prep, maybe you loved rock climbing, dancing, biking, etc.- and haven't been able to do these things in a while.
More balance doesn't mean throwing training and nutrition to the wind- you´re still an athlete, and these are still aspects of your life, but when you're not in prep, things don't have to be as strict.
The bottom line is to incorporate anything you may have deprioritized or missed out on during your prep after the meet is over. That way, you can feel a sense of mental relief & make things more sustainable for yourself in the long run.
Meet day brings out the best of us as athletes and humans- and is always an exhilarating experience. Training for days, weeks, and months up to a single event is grueling yet highly fulfilling.
When all that is over, many lifters feel unsure, lost, with no direction to go in training. Your off-season can either damage you, set you back in your next prep, or be highly productive & develop you as an athlete. With the right mindset, goals, programming, and expectations, the latter rather than the former can be your journey.
