 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Designing a Training Program For The Upcoming Season
By
Dr Grant Wilkinson D.C, B.Sc. M.Sc
One of the most difficult tasks a coach can undertake is to try and write a program for a series of races or events that are scheduled over a short period of time, each requiring that the athlete be in peak physical condition.
A perfect example is this season’s new look Kellogg’s surf league, with the final event of the series to be incorporated into the national titles at Kurrawa, QLD in March. This type of competition scheduling, places the athlete at serious risk of overuse and stress related injuries. It also predisposes them to both physical and mental burn out due to the residual fatigue accumulated from constant training and racing.
Being able to prevent this build up of fatigue is the key to any program that you write. During any time where there are multiple major competitions within a short period, the most important part of the whole programming cycle is the rest and recovery periods both within each session and within the training block.
A successful program or training cycle is one that will enable the athlete to train all energy systems, have recovery sessions implemented between specific race preparation sessions and still have enough time to recuperate and peak for the upcoming competition.
The time frames between each of the surf league competitions is more than enough to have each athlete fully recovered and ready to perform to the best of their ability at the next competition. However for many, individual club commitments will mean that they rarely have a weekend off from racing to recover fully. Although this means that athletes will run a greater risk of burn out it also presents an opportunity to use these weekly carnivals as a launch pad for the major surf league events.
One of the easiest ways to make sure that you incorporate enough recovery into your program is to draw up a periodised cycle that you want to follow over each week and over a larger block. The classic periodised training cycle is a four (4) week block that includes three (3) weeks loading and one (1) week unloading or recovery. An illustration of this basic cycle is shown in figure 1.
Figure 1:
 |
Once you have determined what sort of periodised program you want to follow you can then put this or a similar modified version into practice within each week. To help enure that you schedule enough rest and recovery you should also have specific ratios of hard sessions to easy sessions within the weekly programs or sessions ON to sessions OFF. For ease of reference we will call these micro-ratios. Therefore, an overall training week is one that will incorporate these micro-ratios into an overall periodised four, six or eight week block.
An example of this is shown in figure 2 where the micro-ratios are further broken into one (1) hard session to two (2) aerobic to one (1) recovery sessions (i.e. 2:1:1). Therefore, the weekly ratio of sessions ON to sessions OFF is four (4) sessions ON to one (1) session OFF (i.e. 4:1). As the example diagram bellow illustrates, the overall program uses a cycle that has two (2) sessions per day starting on Monday morning and has at least one full day rest per week and for the most part, still implements the original micro-ratio of 4:1. The advantage of doing a ratio of sessions ON to sessions OFF is that you can start the program anywhere in the week in order to accommodate work, school or social commitments.
Figure 2:
 |
A very basic example of this type of programming can be seen below with the sample layout for a ski paddler of average ability and paddling background. It should be remembered that this type of systematic approach to programming a training cycle can be used for any discipline, for all levels of athletes and can also be used throughout the entire year.
Example: Weekly Layout For Ski Paddler (Pre-Season Preparation Phase Only)
|
Using the example program given above, the paddler easily has more than enough sessions to work on endurance, speed, power and fitness whilst still being able to recover from the hard sessions so that he or she is then able to back up and train again the following day. One of the biggest mistakes that any coach can make is to schedule in too many hard sessions during the week and not realise that it is the workload completed over consecutive days, weeks, months and years that will ultimately leave their athlete with the best preparation possible for the major competitions.
As previously mentioned, many athletes will not have the luxury of competing at the major competitions only and will ultimately have to compete in many smaller “local” carnivals due to club commitments. Again, using the micro-ratio’s of sessions ON to sessions OFF means that this can be easily applied to any situation. Each of these smaller competitions can be treated as a training session and the events entered in by the athlete used to serve a specific purpose.
For example, if an ironman had a weak board leg and his performance was suffering due to it, the weekly local surf carnivals can be used to improve and sharpen his board paddling. When you consider that he can enter the individual board race, board relay and be the paddler in both a board rescue and taplin relay race there are more than enough opportunities to hone his skills in a particular discipline. If the same competitor needed to improve his fitness and endurance then the events entered can reflect that purpose by entering him in all possible races over the day.
As previously mentioned, the key to preventing the build up of residual fatigue is being able to implement rest and recovery periods during each training week as well as each training session. Within a session, try to break up harder efforts by using sub-threshold intervals of between 2 and 4 minutes duration. Using a swimmer as an example this time, this would mean completing a set of
3 – 5 x 200m at 60 – 70% Maximum Heart Rate (MHR) with 30 – 60secs rest. Using the basic formula for determining MHR of 220 – age, these intervals would have the swimmers heart rate around 120 – 140bpm. By using intervals of this lower intensity the aerobic pathways are facilitated, as too is the removal of lactic acid from the muscles that has accumulated from harder, anaerobic work.
On a weekly basis you can place recovery sessions after race pace or anaerobic type sessions. These recovery sessions however still need to be of long enough duration to get some benefit from whilst not adding to the fatigue levels of the athlete. Again, using a ski paddler as an example, a useful session would be to do 40mins – 1hr continuous at a heart rate of 120 – 130bpm. Whilst many coaches would rather break this type of session up into 2 x 20 – 30mins, it is widely regarded that there is a change in metabolic activity within the muscles after approximately 40minutes of continuous activity and at this lower heart rate.
In summary, the structure of a training program should be one where the rest and recovery periods are as firmly set as the harder anaerobic and race pace type sessions. By having a systematic approach to the way the program is set out, utilising both an overall periodised cycle as well as ratios of sessions ON to sessions OFF the likelihood and risk of an athlete burning out or becoming injured through overuse is greatly reduced.
