by Erich Sachs

This week we’ve been discussing the appropriate rest intervals for our lives and our training. We’ve already talked about daily and weekly forms of rest, but one that comes up more rarely is the mid-season break.

I’ve started to take breaks between training and climbing cycles for up to two weeks at a time, three times per year. The breaks mark the official end (or beginning) of an intense 12- or 16-week training and climbing cycle.

I never use to rest this much. As soon as the season started, usually around the time change in March, we’d go outside until the time change in October. And for those eight months we’d try like hell to send as many routes as we could. In the winter we’d boulder in the gym to get more power.

That approach worked pretty well for a while, but after 15 years it started to get too hard to predict my own performance peaks and dips over such a long season. When the routes were easier, this wasn’t such an issue, but with increased difficulty it got to be too hard to gauge when I was ready for the redpoint attempt. In late 2015 I decided to try linear periodization, and I was blown away by the results.

The most difficult part of the program has been learning to rest—to trust the process and let myself take a week or two off. I was hesitant at first. I didn’t want to stop. I wanted to stretch the season out as long as possible. But I took a break and, after several months of going hard, it turns out that my body really does want to restTo be honest, by the end of most seasons I was usually on the verge of disaster and nursing borderline injuries, so it was a little silly that I hadn’t considered taking scheduled time off earlier.

Now that I trust the process, I’ll tell you, I have no problem shutting down the season and taking two weeks off. The routes will be there. The key is to play the long game and to make sure my body is healthy and rested so I can do it again.

No one wants to stop when they’re close to sending a long-standing project. I struggle with this too. But don’t get sucked into this trap. Rest so you can repeat.

A mid-season break is so many things: It’s a transition, a moment to pause and reflect and evaluate your goals. It’s a time to reward yourself, watch Netflix and binge eat. An opportunity to really rest your joints and aching body, your fingers, your skin. A chance to recharge your psyche and catch up with family and friends.

This is a time for whatever restores you and helps you to recharge for the next big push. The mid-season break is a deeply beneficial quarterly resting interval that we could and should all be taking advantage of.