The Transition Phase: How to Plan the Break Between Seasons

The last match is played on a Saturday. By Monday the pitch is empty and the squad has gone home. The coach has a plan for every week of the season. There is no plan for the week after it.

This is the transition phase. It is the planned break between one season and the next. Many coaches treat it as time off. It works better when it has a plan too.

---

What the Transition Phase Is

The transition phase is the last part of a season plan. It has three goals:

1. Remove the fatigue of the season.
2. Refill the body’s energy stores.
3. Rest the mind.

It is often called the off-season. That name suggests nothing happens. A better way to see it is as the link between two plans. What athletes do here shapes how the next season starts.

It is a break from the demands of the season, not a break from all movement. The difference is covered below.

---

What Happens When Training Stops

Not everything is lost at the same speed. This matters when you choose how long the break should be.

Strength holds for a while. A meta-analysis of 103 studies found that maximal strength was mostly unaffected for up to about four weeks without training (Bosquet et al., 2013). Losses sped up after that.

Muscular endurance slips sooner. The same analysis found that strength endurance declined earlier than maximal strength.

Aerobic fitness drops sooner. In highly trained athletes, under four weeks is enough to lower peak oxygen use and blood volume (Mujika and Padilla, 2000). Strength losses in that period were limited.

So a short break costs aerobic fitness first. A long break starts to cost strength too.

---

---

How Long Should It Be?

A common guideline is no more than four weeks for serious athletes. That fits the research above. Strength holds for about that long, and after it the losses speed up.

In practice, many team calendars give only two to four weeks anyway. Pick a length that suits your calendar, and treat four weeks as the upper end.

A longer break is not ruled out. It needs some training kept in. That way the next preparation phase does not start from a low point.

---

What to Do Each Week

Think of the break in three parts: rest, light activity, and getting ready.

Rest. The first week has no structured training. Sleep, eat well and see people outside the sport.

Light activity. The middle weeks bring easy movement back. Walks, swimming, cycling or another sport the athlete enjoys all work. It should feel like a change, not like training.

Getting ready. The last week moves toward the next plan. Add easy general work, a short strength session and baseline tests.

A four-week break might look like this. The widget below shows shorter ones.

1. Week 1: full rest from structured training.
2. Week 2: easy activity the athlete enjoys.
3. Week 3: easy activity plus one or two short strength sessions.
4. Week 4: light general work, then baseline tests.

---

---

Cut the Load, Do Not Stop

The transition phase usually cuts activity by about half to 60 percent compared with the season. It does not cut it to zero.

Strength work can stay in at a low level. Two things make it useful. First, it keeps some of the strength gained during the season. Second, it can target what the sport leaves out. Muscles that are not used much in the sport, and the weaker side of the body, are good choices.

Keep these sessions short and easy. The aim is to maintain, not to build.

---

Rest the Mind

A season is hard on the mind as well as the body. Travel, selection, results and pressure all add up.

The transition phase is the time to step away. Athletes can spend time on things they enjoy. This is part of the plan. A rested athlete often starts the next season with more energy and focus.

---

Starting the Next Season

The end of the break leads into the first phase of the next plan, usually general preparation.

Start easy. Training load should rise step by step, not jump back to where it was at the end of the season.

Test at the start, so loads match where the athlete is now. Testing is covered in a separate article.

There is some good news. One estimate suggests that regaining lost strength takes about half as long as the time off. A six-week break might need roughly three weeks to recover. This is an estimate, and individuals differ.

---

What the Evidence Covers

Most detraining studies looked at athletes who stopped training completely. Real transition phases include light activity, so the losses may be smaller.

There is little direct research on which transition plan works best. The week-by-week example in this article is a working convention. It is not a tested protocol.

Athletes returning from injury, or who finished the season in poor health, need an individual plan. Check with their medical staff first.

---

Where to Start

1. Look at your calendar and decide how many weeks you have.
2. Split them into rest, light activity and getting ready.
3. Write the plan down and share it with the athletes before the season ends.
4. Add one or two short strength sessions for the middle and last weeks.
5. Book baseline tests for the end of the break.

Athletes follow a plan more easily when they have it before the last match.

---

References

Bosquet L, Berryman N, Dupuy O, Mekary S, Arvisais D, Bherer L, Mujika I. Effect of training cessation on muscular performance: a meta-analysis. Scand J Med Sci Sports. 2013;23(3). DOI: 10.1111/sms.12047. PMID: 23347054

Mujika I, Padilla S. Detraining: loss of training-induced physiological and performance adaptations. Part I: short term insufficient training stimulus. Sports Med. 2000;30(2):79-87. DOI: 10.2165/00007256-200030020-00002. PMID: 10966148