It is said that if you fail to get ready, you must be ready to face failure. Therefore, preparation is one of the critical steps in sports. It is very important to see success in sports, whichever field you are in. Your preparation will be a deciding factor in your performance and also, your season’s length. Repeating injuries are cutting short the season for several professional athletes. But, at the same time, many athletes do not experience any injuries, helping them to offer their best performance.

One thing to remember is that after the end of the season, keep yourself a little break to refresh your body and mind. This period is considered to be an “off-season” for sportspersons and athletes. When you continuously play games and are involved in physical activity continuously, it will exhaust you both physically and mentally. Therefore, you must take time to recover and relax. Take your mind away from your sport for some time to come back stronger. However, your fitness and performance might go down during this time as you do not work out and practice. It will affect you more if you are taking a break due to your injury as you won’t be able to practice for a long time.

During the off-season, players must follow “Active rest” so that they can come back refreshed in the next season. This phase involves light-intensity exercises that allow athletes and sportspersons to recover quickly as there will be more blood flow in the body because there is no or less stress in the body. The most popular activities during Active rest are treadmill running, light resistance training, yoga, swimming, and cycling. After the Active rest phase, you can start your “Pre-season” phase. During this phase, you must prepare your body and mind to deal with the games you have to deal with in the coming season. It will help you to enjoy a long season without any injuries. In this phase, you can also try to improve your game strategies as well as your weak points.

Some points to take care of in the pre-season training are

• Self-assessment

An off-season can be at least 4-6 weeks. You might have been in the Active rest season during your off-season. But before you enter your pre-season, it is important to have a clear idea about your fitness and performance level. If you are already a member of any gym, sports team, or club, they might have some methods to check your fitness level. If not, you may take the help of any mobile app. They will assess your fitness level through the number of squats, pull-ups, and push-ups you can do along with your acceleration and speed tests.

• Have a realistic goal

Before starting your pre-season, you must have a goal to determine what you expect from your pre-season training. You must consider your existing fitness level for deciding your goal. If you chase an unrealistic goal, you will be demotivated easily. Therefore, ensure that you are trying to gain something practical.