The format for this generally is to take a week away (2 weeks if you’re extremely) to go somewhere warm to live like a professional athlete.
In general these training camps are usually planned in the early part of the season, between March, April, May and early June to kick start people and get them going for events later in the year.
Some people tailor their training camps around larger or specific events and some people organize bespoke training camps for themselves.
For me, I dipped into this for the very first time in January this year when I designed my own training camp in Tenerife with my coach Simon for 5 days. We specifically set out to ride up to the top of the volcano on mount Teide at 2500m.
The reason for that training camp was to ride the mountain because I had never rode up a mountain before and that was in advance of the race that I was doing in the Alps in July, ensuring it was possible for me to manage the altitude. The interesting thing about training camps though when you speak to coaches regarding them is that many people loose fitness in the 3 weeks around the training camp. The reason for that generally is life. In the week before the camp before they go away they can’t get much training in because they’re getting organised for the camp and also front loading things like family activities and work. Another scenario is that they’re training for the training camp (madness) and therefore increasing their training load too much. Then there is the training camp, there is a day of travelling each end and a rest day in the middle followed by training activities that will definitely, almost certainly be greater than normal. Then there is the return home and the back loading of family affairs, work, or worst still the illness because you have over trained. If you look at every ones training plans over a three week period, many have trained less and gained less fitness than they would if they trained regularly at home.
Next January for me I don’t need a training camp abroad because I worked out I didn’t need another after I went this year. It was essential for me to go to Tenerife this year to find out if I could ride at altitude, now I know that I can I don’t have to do that again.
I can spend the time and the money being at home and consistently training each day with no negative impact on the family having saved quite a lot of money from not travelling. The likelihood is I will increase my fitness more over the three week period than I would have if I had gone to Tenerife. This also relates to my work and the opportunities to go and work abroad or to conferences. A conference is a training camp and a course is a training camp. It is only effective and useful if it changes behaviour or confirms a skill set.
If you decide to go on a course in the USA for example you have to be pretty sure you are going to bring home what you learned there and practice it in the UK, otherwise you are just going on holiday.
It’s fine to go on holiday and it’s fine to use it as a holiday if you think you can get away with the tax break, but don’t convince yourself you’re going to come back as a better clinician unless you can change your habits, your culture and bring the skills back to your work.
More and more now I relate this to what happens before and after you go on a course, the contact you have, the recourses you get and the support you receive.
I used to convince myself and also my wife that it was essential that ‘a person working at my level of work’ had to go away to conferences abroad to see things and be inspired; I’m not sure that is the case in the world that we live in now and I think to serve the time at home is often far more valuable than a pretend holiday.
Blog post number: 1402
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