More on Periodization

The following comment was sent in regard to my post on periodization. “While this certainly *sounds* right, I'm wondering if this comment is a research-based fact or personal impression and, if the former, the sources of it. Although I am certainly not an expert, I wonder if it perpetuates a characterization and/or stereotype of the former "Iron Curtain" countries.”

It is both research based and personal impression based on extensive observation, study and conversation of the training and planning methodologies of the former Eastern European countries.

See on of my previous posts in the archives from the Journal of Clinical Chemistry. Read the work of Franke and Berendok, without extensive doping support the East German sport machine would have been a show of what it was. I am not sure what you mean by the stereotype of the former Eastern European countries. I try to stay away from stereotypes, but for those countries sport was part of national policy. Success in sport was closely tied to the communist ideology. One only has to read their coaching manuals and see the opening chapters on Marxist- Leninist dialectics. This is not meant to denigrate the progress and innovations they made in sport, but we must always put their writing in the context of the social/cultural milieu that existed at the time.