Offseason Planning: Athlete & Parents
Offseason Planning for Rodeo Athletes: The Athlete Version and the Parent Version
Before you begin: Sit down with a notebook, your athlete, and one honest question. What does this offseason need to accomplish? Then write the answer down.
PROBLEM
Is your offseason actually planned, or is everybody just hoping it works out?
The offseason is where young rodeo athletes either progress or quietly plateau.
Most families never write a real plan. The athlete drifts because nobody has clearly decided what needs to improve. The parent fills the gap by booking more practices, entering more rodeos, spending more money, and pushing harder.
Neither person is doing something wrong. Both are guessing.
> A busy offseason is not automatically a productive offseason.
Six weeks of focused work can be worth more than six months of random riding, random workouts, and last-minute decisions. But the plan only works when the athlete owns their development and the parent supports the environment around it.
DIAGNOSIS
The offseason is the highest-leverage part of the year
During the rodeo season, your main job is often to maintain your physical capacity and stay healthy enough to perform.
The offseason gives you room to build.
You can improve strength, conditioning, mobility, movement quality, confidence, nutrition habits, and recovery routines without trying to peak every weekend. That is why the offseason is not just time away from competition. It is the time when capacity gets built.
The same principle applies to your event work. More practice is not always better practice. If the athlete is tired, underslept, or mentally checked out, adding volume may only reinforce poor habits.
Know who owns what
The athlete owns:
The work
The effort
The honesty
The decisions
The willingness to ask for help
The parent owns:
The environment
Transportation
Food in the house
Sleep routines
Access to qualified coaching
The family budget
The problem starts when those responsibilities get confused.
When the parent owns the athlete’s work, the athlete never learns to own development. When the parent provides no structure and calls it “letting them be a kid,” that is not freedom. That is abandonment.
Young athletes need structure. They also need that structure to become theirs.
SOLUTION
Build two plans, not one
Your family needs an athlete plan and a parent plan.
The athlete plan explains what the athlete is working on and how they will do it. The parent plan explains how the parent will support that work without taking it over.
That division creates accountability without turning every training session into a family argument.
> The athlete answers first.
If a coach, parent, or performance professional asks the athlete a question, the athlete answers first. A parent can read a question aloud, help explain it, or discuss it afterward. But the answer needs to come from the athlete.
If the parent answers for them, the purpose is defeated. The value comes from the athlete being willing to look honestly at their own performance.
METHOD: THE ATHLETE’S PLAN
1. Choose one priority limitation
Do not start with ten goals. Choose the one limitation that most affected your season.
Use these questions:
What kept showing up when I struggled?
What did I avoid working on?
What felt “off” even when the result looked good?
What limited my ability to train, compete, or recover?
What would create the biggest improvement by March?
Your answer might be strength, conditioning, mobility, event skill, nutrition, sleep, confidence, or consistency.
Write it this way:
> My priority limitation this offseason is __________ because __________.
Do not choose the most impressive goal. Choose the weakest link.
2. Write three process goals
Process goals describe what you will do. They are not results you hope will happen.
Examples:
Complete two planned strength sessions every week.
Perform ten minutes of mobility before training and after long travel.
Review my week every Sunday and adjust the next week before Monday.
“Win more” is not a process goal. “Train three times each week with honest effort and record the sessions” is.
3. Write your weekly structure
Start with a schedule you can actually repeat.
A reasonable offseason structure for many high school and junior high athletes might include:
Two strength sessions
Two conditioning sessions
Mobility most days
One event practice session
One full rest day
Your horse work, riding, event practice, school sports, ranch work, travel, and other training all count toward total workload.
Sample athlete week
Monday, Strength A: lower body and trunk control
Begin with a short RAMP warm-up:
Raise: Easy bike, jog, or jump rope for three to five minutes to raise body temperature.
Activate: Glute bridges and dead bugs to wake up the hips and trunk.
Mobilise: Ankle rocks, 90/90 hip switches, and controlled thoracic rotations to prepare the positions you need.
Potentiate: Three low-volume jumps or medicine-ball throws so the first explosive effort happens in training, not when the gate opens.
Then complete:
Goblet squat: 3 sets of 6–8. This builds leg strength while teaching the athlete to own a strong, balanced position.
Dumbbell Romanian deadlift: 3 sets of 8. This trains the hamstrings and hips to control force, which matters when bracing, riding, landing, and changing position.
Rear-foot-elevated split squat: 3 sets of 6 each side. Rodeo rarely gives you a perfectly even stance, so single-leg strength and balance matter.
Suitcase carry: 3 sets of 20–30 yards each side. This challenges grip and anti-lateral-flexion strength so the trunk can resist being pulled out of position.
Dead bug: 2 sets of 8 each side. This teaches the athlete to control the ribs and pelvis while the limbs move.
Use loads that allow clean technique. Heavy competition is not the time to prove fitness levels. The goal is to remain capable of performing.
Tuesday, Conditioning and mobility
Six to eight short intervals: Work hard for 15–20 seconds, then recover easily for 60–90 seconds.
Use a bike, hill, sled, or short sprint depending on your space and coaching.
This trains repeat-effort conditioning without turning the session into junk fatigue. Rodeo requires brief, high-output efforts followed by the ability to recover and stay composed.
Finish with:
Hip 90/90 switches: Own controlled hip rotation.
Ankle rocks: Improve the ability to reach a stable athletic position.
Open-book rotations: Maintain upper-back movement without forcing the low back to do all the work.
Wednesday, Mobility and recovery
Take 10–15 minutes for controlled mobility. Mobility is not a contest to see how far you can stretch. The goal is to own the positions you need.
Use this day to walk, perform light movement, and restore your routine. If the athlete is carrying nagging pain, unusual fatigue, or reduced motivation, adjust the plan and seek appropriate professional guidance.
Thursday, Strength B: upper body, pulling, and rotation control
Warm up with the same RAMP structure, then complete:
Trap-bar deadlift: 3 sets of 5. This builds total-body force through the feet, hips, and trunk without turning every session into a max-out.
Push-up or dumbbell press: 3 sets of 8. This develops pressing strength while requiring the athlete to control the trunk.
One-arm dumbbell row: 3 sets of 8 each side. Strong upper-back muscles support pulling, rope work, posture, and shoulder control.
Half-kneeling landmine press: 3 sets of 6 each side. This combines shoulder strength with hip and trunk control in a position that limits unnecessary compensation.
Pallof press: 3 sets of 8 each side. This trains anti-rotation, helping the athlete resist unwanted twisting while producing force.
Friday, Conditioning and mobility
Complete a low-impact conditioning session such as:
Four rounds of three minutes at a steady pace
One minute of easy recovery between rounds
Use a bike, rower, brisk incline walk, or similar option. This builds the aerobic base that helps the athlete recover between efforts and tolerate a long day around the arena.
Add ten minutes of mobility, especially if you have been sitting in a truck or trailer.
Saturday, Event practice
Complete one purposeful event practice session. Decide the objective before you start.
Examples:
Pattern quality
Start position
Rope timing
Grip and release
Horse communication
Decision-making under pressure
Do not turn every practice into a full competition simulation. Train the specific quality you identified in your plan.
Sunday: Full rest
Take one full day away from organized training. Rest is not falling behind.
> You cannot consistently out-train poor recovery.
4. Set three non-negotiables
Choose three things that happen every week, even when motivation is low.
Examples:
Complete both strength sessions.
Get mobility before training, before competition, after travel, and on recovery days.
Review the plan every Sunday.
Keep the list short enough that you can honor it.
METHOD: THE PARENT’S PLAN
What you are responsible for
Your job is to create the environment where the athlete can do the work.
That means:
Get them there.
Keep useful food available.
Protect sleep.
Pay for qualified coaching and assessment before more entries.
Coordinate the schedule.
Be the person who does not need the athlete to win for you to be okay.
Two good training sessions each week with a real plan will beat four rodeos the family cannot afford, recover from, or learn from.
Ask these three questions
Instead of giving a lecture, ask:
“What do you want this offseason to look like?”
“What do you need from me?”
“What is the one thing you want to be better at by March?”
Then ask, be quiet, and let the athlete answer.
The one thing you do not do
Do not break down the season in the truck on the way home.
Do not turn a bad result into a family discussion about effort before everyone has had time to come down from the day. That conversation usually costs more than it teaches because the athlete hears disappointment instead of instruction.
Wait until the drive is over. Let the athlete recover emotionally. Then ask what they noticed and what they want to do next.
Support without taking over
Hold the schedule, not the outcome.
Do not stand over the training session. Do not text the coach on the athlete’s behalf when the athlete can make the call. Do not solve every uncomfortable conversation before the athlete has a chance to practice handling it.
Your support should gradually create independence.
JOINT WORKSHEET: THE CONVERSATION
Sit down together once and do this properly.
The athlete brings:
Their priority limitation
Three process goals
Their weekly structure
Their non-negotiables
The parent brings:
The transportation plan
The household recovery plan
The coaching and budget plan
The boundaries around communication and competition
Agree on the athlete’s plan and the parent’s role. Put both somewhere visible.
Review them every Sunday.
A plan nobody checks is a wish.
IMPLEMENTATION INTENTIONS
Write these down before the offseason gets difficult:
If my athlete does not want to train, then I ask what is going on before I ask why they are not training.
If I find myself wanting to call the coach, then I ask my athlete to make the call instead.
If we miss a week because of life, then I do not add sessions to make it up.
If a result does not go our way, then I wait until the drive home is over and ask what they want to do next.
If I feel like we need to spend more money to get better, then I check whether the last thing we paid for was actually finished.
PROVE: HOW YOU WILL KNOW IT IS WORKING
The plan is working when:
The athlete can tell you what they are working on without checking the plan.
The athlete starts the session without being told.
You are being asked fewer questions and giving fewer instructions.
The athlete can explain why the work matters.
Nobody is fighting about training every week.
Missed sessions are handled calmly instead of “made up” with extra volume.
Recovery is treated as part of performance, not an obstacle to it.
The goal is not to create a perfect offseason. The goal is to help the athlete become the kind of person who can build the next plan.
COACHING INTRODUCTION
If you need help turning this into a real schedule, get on a call with Champion Living Fitness. We can look at where your athlete is now, what the offseason needs to accomplish, and how to build a plan the athlete can own.
The athlete answers first. The parent creates the environment. That is how development becomes ownership.
Keep Building
The Rodeo Athlete Performance Audit is also available as a resource for anyone who has not picked it up.
Educational disclaimer: This material is an educational resource and is not a substitute for professional medical, physiotherapy, nutrition, or mental-health advice. Consult an appropriately qualified professional for individual guidance.
Australian athlete notice: If you compete in Australia, you are responsible for understanding the anti-doping rules that apply to you, checking medications and supplements through Sport Integrity Australia, and using independently tested products.
