Monday, February 27, 2012

THE RACE: Periodization - The Building Blocks You Need for A Successful Year

Do you train the same way all year long?  Did you know that you need to alter your training routine throughout the year, as well as your eating habits?  Have you heard the term "periodization?"  Period-what?  Well, little grasshopper, grab a pen and paper...

If you're an athlete of any kind, you'd better tattoo periodization on your brain.  It's not just for elite athletes, and the concept of periodization has been around since the early 1900's when Russian sports scientists developed it. 

What is Periodization?

"Periodization is a training concept in which the year is divided into periods; in each period the athlete focuses on improving a specific aspect of fitness while maintaining the gains made in previous periods."  Joe Friel, The Triathlete's Training Bible, at 36.  It means that your training should progress from the general to the specific and emphasis your unique needs.  Id. at 37.  It means arranging your training schedule for the year so that elements of fitness achieved in an earlier phase are maintained and new ones are added.  Id.  Think of it like building blocks:  You can't raise a building without the appropriate building blocks at each level.  Likewise, you can't achieve your peak fitness for the year without the appropriate building blocks along the way.  

Famed triathlon coach Joe Friel, describes on his website that periodization incorporates four guiding principles: 
  1. The closer in time you get to the race, the more like the race your training will become.  This is called "specificity." 
  2. Success depends on race-specific intensity, not volume. This is where the technology comes in because heart rate monitors, GPS units, and power meters will help determine your training intensity.  
  3. There is a purpose behind every training session.  
  4. Training follows a planned pattern alternating stress with periods of recovery to avoid overtraining.  This is done on weekly, monthly, and annual levels.  

How Do I Establish a Periodized Training Plan?

The Training Bible includes an Annual Training ("ATP") form; but, if you don't have that book, Friel provides free templates for annual training plans on the Training Bible website.  Under "Forms," if you're a triathlete, use the Triathlon Annual Training Plan Form, and for any other athlete, use the Cycling Annual Training Plan form. If you need help setting up your ATP, Friel recommends using Training Peaks, where a "virtual coach" will set up a periodized training plan for you.  (You'll need to become a member of Training Peaks). 
  
If you don't want to use Training Peaks, here's run-down on how the Training Bible describes setting up your year according to foundational periods:  

STEP ONE:  Determine Season Goals.  What race goals do you want to accomplish this year? Run a 10k? Marathon? First triathlon? Ironman?  Be realistic in setting these goals.  If you had trouble finishing a 10k last year, you may not want to jump into a marathon this year.  Also, make sure your goal is measurable - don't just say you want to "get fit" or "be healthier."  Training Bible at 109-110.  

STEP TWO:  Establish Training Objectives.  The Training Bible provides a Triathlete Assessment form (at 103) to determine your strengths and weaknesses.  This form could be used for any athlete, not just triathletes.  Different strengths are required for different races.  So looking at your goal(s) from Step One, determine whether you have any weaknesses that will limit your ability to reach that goal, then establish your training objectives to improve those weaknesses.  

STEP THREE:  Set Annual Training Hours.  The Training Bible focuses on training hours rather than distance.  Determining your training workload will help ensure that you're not over- or under-training.  You should use the table provided at page 119 in The Bible to determine what you want your workload and training volume to be.  Determining this annual total will give you breakdown of weekly training hours.  Look back at your training over the past to get an idea of what your training volume may have been.  You may not have kept track of this before, but you should be able to come up with some estimate.  For example, if you worked out for 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week, that's 2.5 hours of training a week, and 130 hours per year.  Therefore you may not want to jump this year to training 500 hours for the year; instead, add about 10-15% onto that number.  See Joe Friel's Training Bible website.  

Here's the annual hours chart that  Joe Friel's Training Bible website provides: 
   
STEP FOUR:  Prioritize Races.  Come up with a list of your planned races.  On your ATP list your races in the "Races" column.  On Friel's ATP (from the book or website), the date you indicate on the first column is the Monday of a given week, and the week includes the following Saturday and Sunday.  So, for example, I'm doing the Marine Corps Irish Sprint 10k on Saturday March 17, so I'd include this race for the week of Monday March 12.  You should include all races that you may do... you can exclude them later if you decide not to do them.  

Once you list your races, categorize them according to A, B, or C-priority races.  

A-Priority Races:  Pick no more than two or three races that are the most important ones to you.  Ideally, these races should be clumped together in two- or three-week blocks, or separated by eight or more weeks.  

B-Priority Races:  You can have as many as six B-priority races, which are important, but not as important as the A-priority races.  

C-Priority Races:  These are races you do for experience or hard workouts. 

STEP FIVE:  Divide Your Year Into Periods.  Friel provides the best description of the periods in the Training Bible and on his blog.  Here's a table he provides on his blog to show each period:


The purpose and length or training periods
Period
Purpose
Typical Length
Prep
Prepare to train
2-4 weeks
Base
Establish basic abilities
12 weeks
Build
Build race-specific fitness
8-9 weeks
Peak
Increase rest and race specificity
1-2 weeks
Race
Rest and prepare to race
1 week
Transition
Recover both physically and mentally
1-8 weeks


To build in these periods, go to your first A-priority race and count back in time two weeks before the race.  That will be the start of your "peak" period.  Then, depending on the length of your event, count back four weeks.  That four weeks will be your "Build 2" period.  If you're doing a shorter distance like a sprint or olympic distance triathlon, you could stick with just the "Build 2" period; but, if there's a longer distance event, like a half-Ironman, include two build periods of 3-4 weeks each.  Using the weekly durations in the table above, keep counting backwards to establish periods for Build 1, Base 3, Base 2, Base 1, Prep, and Transition.  You've now established your first peak.  See Training Bible at 116-117 for further description.  Use this same process if you have a second A-priority race, and include a transition period for recovery after the first A-priority race.  You may not get the weeks to work out exactly, so you may need to go with three-week rather than four-week lengths.

STEP SIX:  Assign Weekly Hours.  Finally, you'll establish weekly training hours (based on the annual training hours you chose) to develop a "stair-step pattern of increasing and decreasing volume and intensity as you build to a peak."  Training Bible at 117. You can either use the Weekly Training Hours table on page 119 of the Training Bible, or the following table on Joe Friel's Training Bible website:


Take your annual training hours and multiple them by the multiplier in the right column to get your weekly training hours for each build period.

You're done!!  That wasn't so bad, and kinda fun, right?

Last year I had my coach at the Dominion Cycling and Triathlon Club design my annual training plan for the Ironman.  Now that we're in the off-season, we all take a break.  Unfortunately, I don't function well without a schedule, so to get my butt off the couch, I developed my own ATP.  My race calendar is pretty light right now, and I'm sure that my coach will do his own ATP for me once we get back on track. But for now, this gives me some goals.

So I thought I'd share my ATP with you and each week, send along my Workouts for the Week.

This year I plan to do the following races:

  • Marine Corps Irish Sprint 10k (March 17)
  • National Harbor Half Ironman (Aug. 5)
  • Marine Corps Marathon (Oct. 28)
Based on those races, here's my crack at an ATP: 
Week #
Date
Strength Phase
Period
Race
Hours (550 annual)[i]
1
2/13
AA[ii]
Prep

9
2
2/20
AA
Base 1

11
3
2/27
AA
Base 1

13
4
3/5
AA
Base 1

14.5
5
3/12
None
Base 1 (R&R)
3/17 MCM 10k
8 (incld 10k)
6
3/19
Base 2

12.5
7
3/26
MT
Base 2

14
8
4/2
MS[iv]
Base 2

15.5
9
4/9
MS
Base 2 (R&R)

8
10
4/16
MS
Base 3

12.5
11
4/23
MS
Base 3

14.5
12
4/30
MS
Base 3

16.5
13
5/7
MS
Base 3 (R&R)

8
14
5/14
SM[v]
Build 1

14
15
5/21
SM
Build 1

14
16
5/28
SM
Build 1

14
17
6/4
SM
Build 1 (R&R)

8
18
6/11
SM
Build 2

13
19
6/18
SM
Build 2

13
20
6/25
SM
Build 2

13
21
7/2
SM
Build 2 (R&R)

8
22
7/9
SM
Peak

11.5
23
7/16
SM
Peak

9.5
24
7/23
SM
Peak

8
25
7/30
None
Peak
8/5 Half Iron
8
26
8/6
SM
Trans

7
27
8/13
SM
Trans

7.5
28
8/20
SM
Build 1

14
29
8/27
SM
Build 1

14
30
9/3
SM
Build 1

14
31
9/10
SM
Build 1 (R&R)

8
32
9/17
SM
Build 2

13
33
9/24
SM
Build 2

13
34
10/1
SM
Build 2

13
35
10/8
SM
Build 2 (R&R)

8
36
10/15
SM
Peak

8
37
10/22
None
Peak
10/23 MCM
8


[i] Hours from p 119 of Triathletes Training Bible
[ii] AA = Anatomical Adaptation Phase (4-6 wks if it’s been more than 4 weeks since you’ve done strength training)
[iii] MT = Maximum Transition Phase (2 wks)
[iv] MS = Maximum Strength Phase (4-6 wks; do 6 wks if bike is weakness)
[v] SM = Strength Maintenance Phase
** No strength training during race week. 

And here are the workouts for Week #4 (I've left out the details of the workouts, i.e., intervals, etc.):   

Monday:  
--  Core and stability with weights
--  Swim 2000m
Tuesday:
-- Bike 1 hr 15
-- Run 45 min
Wednesday:
-- Leg blast day (weights)
-- Swim 2000m
Thursday: 
--  Bike 1 hr 15 min
--  Run 45 min
Friday: 
--  Strength training for swimmers
--  Swim 2500m
Saturday: 
--  Bike 2 hr
--  Run 1 hr
Sunday: REST!

Have you planned a periodized training year before?  Want to give it a try? 

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