Reverse Periodization?
Frankly I had never heard the term until two weeks when I was lecturing at the English Institute of Sport. I am not sure if this is reverse periodization but here is a model of the way I do it and many people today who are producing results are doing it:
Get them Strong
Build Foundational and Basic Strength
Get them Fast
This is the application of the strength, more plyo’s and explosive work
Get them Fit
Use the strength and speed as a base to develop fitness that is appropriate for the sport or event
It is obviously a bit more complicated than this, but this is the substance of it.
The antiquated concept of building a huge aerobic base and then gradually getting more intense is very flawed. It worked in the days when competitions were few and concentrated in a “competition” phase.
posted by Vern Gambetta @ 8/09/2006 08:10:00 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Sometimes periodization talk feels soooo like "guru" speak to me. Inteligent plan + sensible adjustments/observation = positive outcomes. Call it whatever you want!
In a nut shell the "strong first" approach is awesome. My colleauge and I have used this for several years and have found that this is the true foundation of performance.
An issue that occurs is that most folks (at least in endurance sport) want to race to much or to soon. OR want to do to much volume to soon. So they can never step back and do the things they need to which allow the specific adaptations they want to have happen.
That part comes down to solid communication between coach/advisor and athlete regarding the why's and how's so expectations mesh with outcomes.
In endurance sports you wont really get stronger or faster after doing years of endurance development unless you really change and become strong/fast. This requires big changes and potentially a slow down before a speed up occurs... Then you can lay the specific fitness down on top of this platform and see substantial performance changes.
It is to simple for it to work in many peoples eyes and it takes time. But long term, performance is way better!
I always wonder about how the training cycles differ from sport to sport and how periodization needs to be adjusted for each.
For example -- high school track and field the primary goal is peaking for the district and state championships. You have an easily defined target date to work everything back from. The dual meets are more just workout days and marks, while interesting, are of little importance during the season.
But take basketball -- you have preseason to prepare but how do you manage peak conditioning during the season? How do you adapt your training to two game a week schedules and not over train or under train.
Same with football. Football has terrific preseason conditioning but the last half of the season is spent primarily standing around running plays at half speed. Our football players are in terrible shape come basketball season because they haven't done anything for a couple of months.
Some say that you get in shape for basketball by playing basketball. I have yet to confince the basketball player to take the same dynamic type warmups and other drills and incorporate those into the basketball season.
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