As the New Year starts thoughts turn to races and planning for the year, races if not already entered, get entered and we start to take our triathlon coaching seriously.
So how have you decided what events to enter this year? Perhaps ones you enjoyed previously? Perhaps ones that friends are doing or as a challenge?
Now comes the difficult part, planning your triathlon training round life, round these races. It is at this point you need to consider your whole year. What is your main race, what are your goals and when and what type of triathlon training do you do?
For clients with MaximumTraining we compile a periodisation plan. This plan sets out the year, the type of triathlon training, the intensity and duration of this training. There are many different ways to plan this, if you look at the picture that accompanies this article you will see how we break the year down, how the intensity changes and how the volume of training changes.
These changes are designed to help prevent injury and to ensure that all our athletes are in a position to meet their goals. We work with our clients on a three / four week build with the third / fourth week as a recovery week. This week is the most important, it allows all the physiological adaptations that we have designed into our coaching plans to start to be implemented, that is our bodies are allowed to change and get stronger. So that the next block builds on this.
Now, this can’t happen every week so we design periods that focus on different aspects, hence the difference in intensity and volume changes on a weekly basis. So that over the course of our planned coaching period the athletes are stronger and better.
We also consider the taper, not just reducing the volume but also changing and increasing the intensity to prepare you even further for your event. Consider the timing of your events, when do you recover, when do you build and what impact will these have on your training?
So next time you get passed in an event, think about how you recovered from your training and allowed your body to improve.
If you want help designing your periodisation plan for the year get in touch with us max@maximumtraining.co.uk