Tips for athletes over Thanksgiving break
November 21, 2017
The UHS Sports Performance team put together useful tips for athletes to follow while they are on Thanksgiving break. These tips can help maximize your Thanksgiving break without abandoning your fitness.
Training
- Stay active over break but cut back on volume and intensity
- Example, train 2 days instead of 4, workout for 30 minutes instead of 60
- This will help maintain skills and strength levels while enabling active recovery
- Throw in a small cardio session for 20-30 minutes to maintain conditioning and get blood pumping to muscles.
- Try not to add anything new in to your workout routine to help prevent soreness
Sleep
- Try to maintain your normal sleep schedule and pattern
- Staying up and extra hour or adding some additional sleep will be fine, changing too much will change how your body reacts to training when you return from break
- Try to avoid electric screens and hour before bed, blue light can negatively effect sleep cycles and slow down the recovery process
- The point of a break is to have extra recovery from the season so you can perform at the highest level when you return
Nutrition
- Try to maintain your same eating times and cycles
- Adding a few extra calories is not a bad idea and can help your body recover
- Since you are not as active, make sure you are still hydrating throughout the day
- Its easy to forget about hydration over break because of the decrease activity levels
- Enjoy some additional calories over Thanksgiving, just don’t over do it
- Try to maintain your weight during the break
Mental health
- Sport season can be long and mentally taxing, use this time to relax and refresh your mind
- This is a great time to get away from the pressures and stresses form a completive game
- This is also a great opportunity to reflect on the season and focus on how to finish the last few games
- Returning from break with a fresh prospective can increase drive, motivation and renew the passion you have for your sport