So history teaches us that not even the greatest athletes in the world can train everything at once. If that's the case, why are you doing it?
Let's do one thing at a time, shall we? There are four primary phases of periodized training. During each phase, we focus on one of our major goals in our run program. We keep our training tough on that one aspect without overtaxing ourselves, and once we've done enough to make gains, we go to the next phase. Completing all four phases means that you've gone through one period of training. At the end, you should be stronger, faster and have more endurance--meaning you're ready to make further improvements as you begin the next period of training.
More: 8 Tips For Your Next Taper
The best part is that periodized training keeps you from gathering too much fatigue or injuring yourself, so you don't lose training days sick or in a cast. You may not feel like you're making those huge gains you did by running hard and long every day, but you're also not going to have those huge losses due to being tired or hurt. Remember, training is cumulative. Consistency is more important than intensity.
By focusing on one thing at a time during each phase, we accomplish two things that are critical to your success as an athlete: adaptation and rest. Because we focus on only one element of fitness during a particular phase, we're resting all the other elements.
We're also enhancing our adaptation in the focus area because we continually expose ourselves to stress. After a while that ability area begins to improve. A while after that, it needs some rest. We achieve that by going on to the next phase and focusing on something new.
There are different philosophies of periodized training, but to get started, we'll go with the oldest and most familiar model created by Bompa and a few others, known as classic periodization.
The four phases of this model are base, strength, speed and taper/competition.
Starting in the base phase, we run for long distances and times at a very low intensity (about 50 percent of your max or comfortable jogging). Base builds aerobic endurance without blowing your legs apart. Your goal here is to gradually increase the amount of time and distance you run, but not the speed.
In the strength and speed phases, we add resistance training to strengthen the leg muscles and begin sprint workouts to improve coordination and speed. However, these workouts are much shorter and don't go as far. Your goal during this phase is to lift a heavier weight or run the 400m faster, but not to do more reps or extra laps around the track.
More: Lessons Learned From My Worst Race Ever
In the taper/competition phase, we trade off almost everything in favor of rest. We reduce time and mileage, don't attempt to increase intensity and gradually add in more breaks for recovery leading up to race day. We'll discuss why we don't try to make any "last-minute gains" before the race in our next installment.
It's important to understand that there's a tradeoff in each phase, as it prevents you from falling into the trap of doing everything at once.
We answered why it's important to know how far and long you're running, as well as the importance of having a goal for your run. Now that we know we need a goal for our runs, we need to figure out how to decide what goals to pick and when. The answers to those questions are based on when your next race is, where you are in your current fitness and the principles of the four phases we've outlined here. Join us next month as we detail the phases of periodization and how we incorporate it into your triathlon training.
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