If you watched the recent World Championships it was hard not to notice the performance levels were down. The competition was exciting, but the winning marks were nothing to write home about. Take the shot put, for example. After a year of amazing performances and talk of the world record, only two of 32 athletes threw a season’s best. Read more
The old saying goes “mixed training yields mixed results.” But is that really the case? On this episode of the GAINcast we take a critical look at the linear sequential approach to training and discuss other methods to structuring training. Read more
John Kiely is one of the leading minds in periodization. By taking a critical look at current approaches to periodization, he is asking how we can move the field forward to keep up with what science and leading coaches have learned. On this episode he joins us to discuss how current models can be problematic, what other factors coaches need to take into account while planning, the role of stress and team culture in adaptation, and how technology can help coaches. Read more
Listening to John Kiely present at our seminar last month was a real eye opener for me. The man is working to reframe our whole discussion about training and it is a real paradigm shift in my opinion. Irish strength coach Robbie Bourke came out to our seminar and yesterday he posted his most recent podcast episode where he interviewed Kiely. In the show Kiely turns his sights back on periodization. While it can help us in many ways, few coaches are aware of how it can hurt us at the same time by blinding us as coaches. You can listen to the podcast below, and read some excerpts of his criticisms. Read more
“In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”
-Dwight Eisenhower
In the coming weeks HMMR Media will welcome Derek Evely as a new author with a series on modern periodization methods (continue reading here). But before we look at the current trends in periodization it is helpful to look at how we got to periodization itself. After all, knowing where you came from can be as helpful as knowing where you are. Read more
Look at the two sporting superpowers of post war era, Germany and the Soviet Union/post-Soviet states, and you find two very different approaches to training. Both have produced amazing results, but interestingly ideas like periodization, the concept of transfer of training, block training, complex training, special strength, etc. came just from one of the two powerhouses. Try to think of the most influential names in training methods and you’ll have to scroll well past luminaries like Leo Matveyev, Yuri Verkhoshansky, Vladimir Issurin, Vladimir Zatsiorsky and of course my coach Anatoliy Bondarchuk before you find many Germans. How come so many revolutionary ideas came from just one of these countries? Read more
Last week I began a training talk with Gary Winckler. The man needs little introduction: he is simply one of the best sprint and hurdle coaches in the world. We may not all be hurdlers, but there some basic rules of training that apply to all events and Gary has coached almost all of them. Part one of our discussion focused on implementing principles of reactivity training talked about by Frans Bosch. This second part moves on to talking about planning and periodization concepts. But we are just getting started, so check back for more later in the week.
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Matveyev was one of many who formalized the concept. Because he was Russian, and the Soviet Union was the dominant geopolitical force in the communist bloc, Soviet ideology tended to prevail even in sport. This explains the dominant influence of the Soviets in the literature of training methodology. Certainly, there were others like Harre in the GDR who made significant contributions. Still, most of what we see in the literature today, including the work of Tudor Bompa, who has done much to popularize the concept in North America, is basically a rehash of the Soviet literature. Not much has been done to modify, study, change or adapt the concept to the contemporary challenges that exist in sport today. Over the years most of the science underlying periodization has been in the form of studies of overtraining. Although today there does seem to be more sports science research directed to studying training adaptation which certainly has the potential to add science to the art of planning. (Rowbottom, 2000) The international sport environment is very different today than it was even twenty years ago. Read more
