PLANNING AND PERIODISATION

Periodisation

Last week I talked about what training is and what principles there are when we start creating a training plan. 

❔you plan for a race or you want to climb a  mountain, maybe you are planning an expedition? 

🤷‍♂️ Where do you start? What do you focus on first? How do you structure your training plan?

👉 In order for the training plan to be successful it needs to be systematic, logical, detailed and precise. That sounds easier said than done, right? 

That is where a coach comes in. He should be able to adapt the plan to short and long term goals. 

And keep in mind that you as an athlete will have hard days and easy days. This should be monitored because your physical and emotional state will be changing. The plan can’t be rigid, it will need to be updated.

🟢 Training plan needs to be individual - fitting to you with your current fitness and training history. It also must be specific to your sport or project.

Long weeks and months of training can get BORING, so training should be varied to avoid this.

There are two main types:

1️⃣TRADITIONAL PERIODIZATION

In this old model you first go through a phase of large volumes of less specific training. This is followed by the project-specific block and ‘taper’ before the race/project.

This method has its merits and its more suitable for beginners or less experienced athletes. However, it has its limits:

The long phases are usually focused on one skill, so this usually leads to burnout and decline in fitness. As one of the key principles - variation, is important for eliciting new adaptations, this method can lead to plateaus - the body won’t respond to same workouts. 

The boredom of a long training cycle with similar workouts every week can be a real challenge.

2️⃣BLOCK PERIODIZATION

What if you want to race several times per year? Or you want to perform at your best but more times in one year?

This method uses shorter training blocks. These blocks can prepare you for a specific event or they can be used to train a specific ability (endurance, power, speed). 

This complex method can be of many benefits to athletes with busy seasons and multiple targets. 

However, it requires a very careful planning. Each phase trains a specific skill in your body. And each of these skills has its residuals: set amount of tile before this ability is lost when not trained. It provides enough variation in training to keep the body stimulated and prevent plateaus.

After a phase of training a specific ability, the body has time to restore itself and adapt whilst you already train for a different ability. That way you continually improve while preventing overtraining.

Again, this method requires a careful planning and perfect timing to elicit optimal performance.

🔰Which method should you use? Check the blog on my website. I will talk about these in more detail. 

You should know that block periodization is not suitable for beginners and needs very careful planning. 

🌀Get in touch if you are planning for your new summer project. 

#trainingtips #coaching

📸 @emmasvessonphoto