Your Offseason Starts Before You Ever Touch a Weight

A lot of athletes think the offseason begins when the rodeos stop. I’ve never really looked at it that way.

To me, the offseason starts the moment you decide what kind of athlete you want to be next year. Once you make that decision, everything you do from that point forward matters. Every training session, meal, night of sleep, and decision about how you spend your time is either helping you become that athlete or pulling you in the other direction.

That’s also why I’ve never been a huge fan of athletes finishing their season and immediately burying themselves in hard training. There’s nothing wrong with working hard. Obviously, you’re going to have to work if you want to get better. The problem is that it’s really easy to confuse being busy with actually making progress.

Over the years, some of the best offseasons I’ve watched athletes put together didn’t start with a new workout program. They started with an honest look at the season they just finished.

What went well? What didn’t? Where did things start to fall apart? And, maybe most importantly, what kept showing up over and over again?

Usually, when I sit down with an athlete after a season and we start talking through those questions, the answer becomes pretty obvious.

Maybe they spent another year fighting the same shoulder, hip, knee, or back issue they swore they were going to take care of last offseason. Maybe they felt unbelievable in May and June, but by August they were exhausted and just trying to hang on. Maybe physically they felt fine, but their nutrition completely fell apart every time the schedule got busy.

Sometimes the biggest problem isn’t even physical. It’s organization. Preparation. Discipline. Or simply not having a system that works when life gets chaotic.

Those conversations matter because every athlete has weaknesses, but not every weakness deserves the same amount of attention.

If injuries derailed your season, adding another conditioning session probably isn’t your biggest priority. If you lost twenty pounds over the summer because you couldn’t consistently eat enough while traveling, adding fifty pounds to your squat might not solve your biggest problem either.

You have to figure out what is actually holding you back.

That’s what the offseason should be about: identifying the few things that can create the biggest return on the work you’re about to put in.

Rebuild Before You Try to Level Up

I’ve always believed the first part of an athlete’s offseason should be about rebuilding.

A rodeo season beats you up in ways that can be difficult to recognize while you’re in the middle of it. You spend so much time traveling, competing, driving through the night, sleeping in different places, eating whenever you get a chance, and dealing with the aches and pains that come with rodeo that eventually you just get used to feeling bad.

Being tired becomes normal.

Waking up sore becomes normal.

That shoulder that hurts every morning becomes normal.

But just because something has become normal doesn’t mean it should be ignored.

There needs to be a point in the year where you give your body a chance to come back around. That might mean spending more time restoring movement and mobility. It might mean finally addressing the injury you’ve been putting off since June. It might mean getting your sleep schedule back under control or simply getting back into a routine where you’re consistently eating enough quality food.

None of that is very exciting.

Nobody is posting a highlight reel because they slept eight hours for three weeks straight. Nobody gets a bunch of attention for finally taking care of the shoulder they’ve complained about for six months.

But I’ve been around this long enough to know that those boring decisions are often the ones that make the biggest difference six months later.

Once you’ve rebuilt that foundation, then you can start building on top of it.

Train for the Season, Not Next Weekend

This is another place where I see athletes get the offseason wrong.

They train like they need to be ready next weekend.

They want to feel stronger immediately. They want to gain muscle right now. They want the scale to change next month. They want to see proof that the work is paying off as quickly as possible.

I understand it. We all want to see progress.

But the athletes who make the biggest jumps tend to look further down the road.

They understand that the goal isn’t to become the best version of themselves in November or December. The goal is to build an athlete who can handle what’s coming when the rodeo season gets rolling again.

You’re building a body that needs to perform through July, August, and September—not just one that looks and feels good coming out of the offseason.

When you start looking at training that way, your decisions change.

You stop chasing every new workout you see online. You stop feeling like you need to completely change your program because somebody else is doing something different. You start understanding that progress isn’t always about doing more. Sometimes it’s about doing the same important things consistently enough for them to actually work.

That requires patience, which isn’t always easy for competitive athletes.

But you’re not training for next weekend.

You’re building for next season.

Become a More Complete Athlete

The offseason gives you something you rarely have once rodeo gets busy: time.

That time is valuable.

It gives you a chance to work on things that are difficult to address when you’re traveling every week. You can build strength. Add muscle. Improve conditioning. Restore mobility. Fix your nutrition. Create better recovery habits.

But I also think it gives you an opportunity to become a more complete professional.

Maybe you need a better system for planning meals on the road. Maybe you need to learn how to train when you don’t have access to a full gym. Maybe you need to become more disciplined with your sleep. Maybe you need to organize your schedule better so training doesn’t disappear the second life gets busy.

Those things might not feel like training, but they have a massive impact on your ability to perform.

What I’ve noticed over the years is that the athletes who make the biggest jumps usually aren’t the athletes who can brag about having the hardest offseason.

They’re the ones who had the most intentional offseason.

They knew what they needed to improve, and they built their plan around it.

Because of that, they didn’t get distracted every time a new workout, challenge, diet, or training trend showed up on their phone. They had a plan, they understood why they were doing it, and they stayed with it long enough to see what it could actually do for them.

That’s what I want you to think about before you start preparing for another season.

Don’t start with the question, “What workout should I be doing?”

Start with a better question:

What does the athlete I want to become need from me this offseason?

Look back at your season. Be honest about what held you back. Figure out what needs to change, and then put your energy into fixing those things.

Not what everybody else is doing.

Not what looks impressive on social media.

Not what makes you feel like you’re working hard.

What you need to do.

Because after years of coaching athletes, I’ve learned that the athletes who improve the most aren’t always the ones willing to work the hardest.

They’re the ones who learn how to work on the right things.

Take the Next Step

If you’re ready to take the next step in the Champion Living Athlete Pathway, let’s get you on a call with one of our coaches.

We’ll talk about where you are as an athlete, where you want to go, and whether Champion Living Individualized Coaching is the right fit to help you get there.

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Your Coach,

Doug Champion