Maintaining Your Base
Don't let a long layoff reverse your hard-earned gains

By David and Derek Downing
April 25, 2008

Your base is what you carry over — and build on — from last season. It's your foundation of technique, endurance and mental toughness.

It's your springboard to success. But unfortunately, it's highly perishable.

When you stop training, even briefly, it shrinks and shrivels. And if you take too much time off, it disappears, along with all your hard-earned gains from last season.

Generally, if you miss one training session, you lose one week of base; if you miss one week of training, you lose one month of base; and if you miss one month of training, you lose an entire season of base.

So How Do I Get It Back?

You recover your base the same way you built it — with hard work. You may also find it necessary to rebuild your self confidence, which can be badly shaken by finding that you are no longer as fast as the skaters you beat last year.

How to Take a Break

So is it a bad idea to take a break? No, in fact, taking a break can help restore you, physically and mentally, at the end of a long season.

But you shouldn't overdo it.

If you take a break, don't quit skating (or training) completely. Instead, just cut back. If you were training twice a day, cut back to once a day. If you were training five times a week, cut back to three.

Or you can simply reduce the intensity of your workouts; train the same number of times a week, but don't work as hard.

Whatever you do, don't lose the habit of training. Once that's lost, your base is sure to follow.

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Derek and David Downing are two of the top figures in U.S. inline speed skating. David has served multiple stints as a coach for the U.S. national speed skating team and in 2004 was inducted into the USA Roller Sports Coaches Hall of Fame. Derek (David's son) was one of the world's top inline speed skaters in the late-1990s, winning 10 gold medals at the World Championships between 1995 and 2000. This tip is condensed from an article David and Derek wrote for the GT Speed Training Manual.