You might have heard coaches talk about periodisation, but what is is it?
Periodisation: "is the systematic planning of athletic or physical training. The aim is to reach the best possible performance in the most important competition of the year. It involves a progressive cycling of various aspects of a training program during a specific period".
No athlete who wants to be at their peak for a particular race can train continuously and to the typically high intensities that we see during the peak or race phase, all year round without picking up injuries, at the very least. Or, in the worst case scenario, developing overtraining syndrome (something I'll cover at a later date).
Therefore it's essential that we break down our training into "cycles" or timescales that we can use to develop our fitness and gradually increase the amount of intensity and volume that we put into each session. These phases are called the Macro, Micro and Meso cycles.
In a nutshell, the Macro cycle can be viewed as your long term goal, ie. if you say that you want to complete a particular distance race in two years, your build up to that point could be deemed to be the Macro phase and will consist of varied, structured and progressive training and recovery until that point.
The Meso cycle is a much shorter period of time, usually up to a couple of months in length and may form the build phase of the training plan and could consist of two or three training "blocks".
The Micro cycle is shorter still and can be anything from a few days, up to a couple of weeks and I would say that, at the most, this would form a single block of training, but can be even less than that.
At the club where I'm currently coaching we use these different phases in the plans that we deliver to our members. Most of our members will have a specific "A race" that they're working towards. eg. For the members that are doing Ironman UK in July, their Macro phase will be from the time that they signed up, to the day of the race or from the time that they make the decision that they want to complete an iron distance race within a certain time frame. The Meso cycles will be each of the 6 week blocks of training that we currently do, followed by a seventh week of testing and recovery to see their progression and to allow their bodies to recover from the stresses that it's been exposed to during the training block. Their Micro phase will be the weekly sessions that gradually progress as we move towards their goal.
If you've signed up to a particular race, or you've got ambitions to get to a level of fitness on or before a certain date, it's important that you think about periodisation and break down your training into manageable chunks. If you went out and looked at what training for an Ironman entails or if you're a novice and want to get to a standard that you can compete in your first race at, it can often be very overwhelming. But if you break it down into bitesize pieces, it's much less daunting and is easier to manage your training plans, as well as much more manageable physically and will help prevent overtraining, reduce the risk of injury and should help you get the best possible results.
Another, probably more common, way that you might have heard of these phases referred to is the base, build, race and recovery phases. Normally I will typically plan these phases over the course of a 12 month plan.
So, in the most basic of terms, we prepare, then we build, then peak for a particular race / series of races, then recover properly, before building again.
If we look at a typical macro cycle over the course of a 12 month period, it would probably look something like this:
In the graph above you can see how there is a gradual build throughout the year, until we get past the race / peak phase and then we taper off again and recover. Obviously, if you're going to be doing an endurance event in March, for example if you were thinking of racing abroad, then you'd adapt the plan so that your peak / race phase of training coincides with the race.
As with all training plans, consistency is key and if you don't train consistently you're not going to get all the benefits of a structured and progressive plan.
If you'd like to speak more about your goals and ambitions and how I can help you on your triathlon journey, click on the link below which will take you to my coaching Facebook page, where I can be contacted through
Certa Cito Tri Coaching
No comments:
Post a Comment