Cycling and Endurance Sport Training Information

Periodization: The Art and Science of Planning a Successful Season Part 1

By Chris Harnish, M.S., Coach

   For most of us, racing from year to year brings both highs and lows; big wins, dismal abandons, and anything in between. Usually we’ll say, “I sure wish I did that differently”, or, “I need a new plan next season”, or something close. However, as the season winds down and the off-season approaches, our focus changes to relaxing, recharging, or maybe even more racing, for those heading into cyclocross, and that’s usually where talk of change halts. Unfortunately, most riders fail to take advantage of the off-season for what it’s best for: PLANNING.

For many years, I, like many riders, failed to take advantage of the off-season for what it’s best for: PLANNING. Rarely did I employ a solid yearly plan, or evaluate why one year was good and another was not. Sure I jotted down some goals, drew up some plans and laid out my ideas, but the immense (perceived) time allotment slowed my planning and before I knew it I was hammering away with training again, before getting completely frustrated by weather, outside responsibilities and my own unrealistic early season goals. Yes, I was guilty of believing I could be competitive in March living in upstate NY. Had I real plan, based on realistic goals and objectives, I could have saved myself a lot of frustration. This is part of the foundation of a good yearly plan.

No matter how grand the goal, one needs a realistic approach to your season, and that’s where Periodization comes in. Periodizing your season is like taking time to drawing up good blue prints for a new house; take short cuts and you’ll spend more time trying figure things out while building, than you will be hammering nails. But just like your house plans, the Periodization of your season is an ever changing plan, so don’t be afraid to do so. The following article is the first of a three part series on making the most of the principles of periodization. Rather than spending a great of time focusing on terminology, I will emphasize the process of designing your plan by applying applying the basic principles of periodization.

Periodization 101

Planning your season involves breaking the year down into various periods where you focus on important training, competitions, or even rest. Hence, the term Periodization refers to the organizing, arranging and assigning the timing and duration of training; testing and other important details for each season based on an athletes race objectives, and should have gotten you thinking of where to start.

Step 1 Evaluate your season: be honest and thorough regarding which goals were met and which were not, what went wrong last season (e.g., injuries/illness, or school/family distractions) and why, and how well did your training seem to work. Add it all up and grade it!

Step 2 Evaluate yourself: honestly rate your strengths and weakness in general and during the past season; don’t be afraid to ask others what they think. Once you’ve done the question part, now add the physiological evaluation. In a later article, I’ll discuss the merits and methods of various fitness and performance tests, but for now you should assess:

· Aerobic/Endurance Capacity or Power: Lactate threshold testing might be good, or a 45+ min TT on the trainer. Record HR, distance, and power (if you can)

· Anaerobic Capacity: Again, lactate testing is very useful here, but an alternative is to measure power over 3-4, 1-minute sprints up a short hill or on a trainer.

· Body fat and flexibility are other useful measures

Step 3 Set your goals: Now that you know where you have been and where you are now, its time to start looking to where you are going; i.e., you need to set some goals. Don’t sell yourself short, but at the same time, don’t try to sell yourself a bridge either. The most important thing is to be specific and set long-term (2-3 years), seasonal, and intermediate goals. Below are a few of one my client’s (adapted for this article) goals:

· Long term: Turn Pro, Ride Worlds

· Season: Reduce weight another 10 lbs., top 10 Stage finish FBD Milk Rás, win Isreali Road Championships

· Intermediate (next 2 months): Reduce weight 5 lbs, increase L4 power 10%, increase Anaerobic capacity power 5%

Step 4 Design your plan: This is where you convert all the above information into a detailed and precise plan. How you go about this is up to you, but I have found MS Excel to be useful in this process, but it’s nothing a piece of graph paper can’t do. Start with dates and run your schedule up to your first seasonal goal (i.e., PEAK 1). It is best to plan a build up of 16 or more weeks to reach both a high level AND stable conditioning level; a shorter build-up is possible, but ‘form’ is less durable. Fill in additional race dates, training camps, testing sessions, planned training volumes and other notes. Remember, this is an ideal plan under realistic conditions, but flexible to accommodate the unexpected. For example, if you have a full-time job and live in New England year round, plan your training accordingly and consider that it may be best to target races in late May on. Figure 1 outlines the written plan for my previously mentioned client.

Once all your data are entered, you can also add notes on what type of training will be done during each period of training (not indicated above), and then create a nice looking graphic plan (Figure 2).

The above schedule outlines just the first half of the racing season, which is far easier to digest and plan for, than an entire 12 months. However, it is wise to outline your goals and basic plans (periods) for the year, but leave the volumes blank until you’re recovering from the first peak and planning your training for you’re second peak.

The outlay of this plan takes into account several underlying principles, not the least of which are:
1. an optimal relation between training and recovery

2. a progressive build-up AND variation in training load (volume & intensity)
3. timing of appropriate training during your build up (i.e., the right training at the right time) accounting for your individual fitness and strengths and weaknesses.

4. durability of form; a longer build up ensures a longer, more stable peak

Figure 1. Periodization plan for an elite rider with an early season goal of riding a UCI stage race. The rider has an extended training period in Italy, followed by a 3-week racing block in Ireland in May. Listed are the weeks, tentative volumes, arbitrary loads & notes. GP = General Prep, SP = Specific Prep, CMP = Competition period, & P = Peak. Volume is described both in time and distance, while an arbitrary load is applied to represent how strenuous each week will be.

Figure 2. Graphic representation of periodization plan for an elite rider with an early season goal of riding a UCI stage race. A nice looking print out can help you visualize your goals and plan better as you begin a training season. When devised on a computer, it is easy to adjust and reprint your plan throughout the season.

Chris Harnish has a Master’s degree in Exercise Physiology, is a USAC Expert and Peaks Coaching Group Master level coach. Chris has a long history of racing and coaching at a high level and has done extensive work as a researcher and as a junior development coach. Chris is well versed in coaching with power and is an expert on many topics related to sports training. To find out more about Chris, please check out his bio here.

Cycling and Endurance Sport Training Information by Chris Harnish