“Training Season” is the follow-up single to “Houdini”, taken from Dua Lipa’s third studio album. The rumour about the song appeared right before the first single’s release. It was speculated that “Training Season” would be Dua’s comeback single and kickstart of the new era, along with one of her most expensive music videos to date sponsored by Porsche. However, the song’s music video was scrapped due to the Palestine-Israel conflict, as it was thought to be too controversial at the moment — featuring themes of chaos including car crashes, demolition, explosions, fireworks and crowds fighting. Although the music video was filmed before the conflict, it was decided the video should be saved for later release, as reported by The Sun.

On January 22, 2024, Dua posted a picture from rehearsals for the 2024 BRIT awards and was seen wearing a hoodie with the song’s title on it. A few days later, on January 24, the singer sent out a short snippet of the single through her community text channel. Shortly after, The Sun revealed that the song would be released the following month and gave a short description of the song, mentioning it was about “playing the field as a single woman.”

The song was officially announced on January 25, and a 30-second snippet was released alongside the announcement. On February 4, 2024, Lipa performed the single live for the first time at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards.