Warm Weather Training Camps - Essential for Good Performance?
The photos, the Instagram stories! Groups of riders stopped on the side of empty roads, blue skies , bluer open air pools and everyone in mirrored sunglasses. It’s that time UK athletes flock to the Canaries (other destinations are available) for warm weather training camps. But, are they essential for good performance?
Warm Weather Training Camps
Pretty much the Ronseal to the UK’s winter months, arriving with a particular focus for a set period of time in the calendar and aimed at offering: training, eating and recovering. In warmer weather than the UK can typically offer. What is not to like?
For most the opportunity to train consistently is a luxury itself in a busy lifestyle. So the idea of setting aside a week, maybe two, to jet off to warm conditions to swim, bike and run is something that only happens during sleep.
Obvious attractiveness aside, what are the benefits?
Vitamin D boost. If there’s a supplement recommendation we should also listen to and follow, it’s a Vitamin D supplement during the winter months. First and foremost there’s a huge amount of research on the benefits of Vitamin D, such as XXXXX making this a top benefit of any warm weather camp.
Focus. Most athletes are operating their triathlon gig as a hobby on the side of an already busy desk. Taking that time out of your schedule to swim, bike, run, eat and sleep alongside like-minded individuals will give you a welcome level of focus you’ll unlikely find elsewhere.
Foundation. If there’s one thing a warm weather (or any weather) training camp definitely has in abundance, it’s training volume. You cannot argue with the potential to kick-start or rejuvenate an off-season with camp volume, but this comes with the caveat: avoid going into the camp itself under cooked. Communicating early with your coach to ensure the camp is built into your plan for maximum benefits.
Community. Probably an overlooked/ lesser discussed benefit from training camps. Growing your community within the sport is a great way to not only learn and identify training pals, it’ll help in those tougher times when you need a third-party voice of reason to flick the chimp off your shoulder.
Looking good you might say, but what if I can’t access a warm weather camp. Will my performance suffer?
What can I do instead?
Be consistent. Number one rule regardless of ambient temperature. I’ve seen many athletes rock up to warm weather camps off the back of next to no training, only to train half of the week then return home to a period of no training. Nice tan, little benefits!
Mix things up. Variety is the spice of life, but changes to training routine is my definitely my Saffron. Part of the camp buzz is the novelty, so why not recreate that with a weekend walking and mountain biking up in Scotland? Or a cycling tour across the North York Moors? With the right planning and structure you can have that variety and still progress nicely towards your ‘A’ race.
Nail all departments. Upping the volume of training is a common feature of any winter period in an attempt to ‘increase that weekly TSS’. This might look impressive on Strava but it’s potentially regressive outside of a holistic plan. Losing weight or reducing body fat is often an undisclosed desire of many endurance athletes, but it risks compromising performance if not appropriately balanced. As with diet, the same can be said for said for sleep too (a couple of things I’ll discuss in future blogs I’m sure). One thing I encourage my coached athletes to do is to track their habits - we do a fine job of it for our training - but what about food, sleep, resting HR or general mood? Only when we no what we’re dealing with can changes be made.
While the benefits are obvious, a warm weather camp is not essential for good performance. Yes, it will provide physical and psychological stimulus to convert into good performance but a single camp will never determine the full story, only a chapter.
Having a winter base and then a build phase into ‘peak’ thereafter is a series of chapters. Some will be good, some more challenging and some might just be warm. Not all good performances are underpinned by warmer climate, but they’ll definitely put you in good stead if you can make them a feature!