Periodisation and why it’s good to follow

26 JANUARY 2021

Hi everyone, this will be a two part blog about periodisation because it is an in-depth subject to talk about. I form this blog on my knowledge of the subject, personal experience, coaching experience, and experience of other coaches and athletes. I have had input from Stephen Pearson, who is a lead tutor for UKA and coached athletes at international level, he is head coach of Horwich RMI Harriers, a mountain leader and has completed LMM and Bob Graham.

Not everyone uses periodisation and it is flexible, and open to interpretation, as all athletes respond differently to training, but as a guide I thought id talk about it. 

Periodisation is a way of forming your training into distinctive blocks so you can get the best from your training and get better results in competition and/or events. 

One of the early exponents of this was a Russian coach Matveyey. He introduced this organised training, in the 1960’s for Eastern Bloc track and field athletes in preparation for the summer track seasons. This is when most of the major championship races take place. So it was vital that the Eastern Bloc athletes were fully prepared for competitions such as the Europeans, Worlds and Olympics. 

As many athletes/runners now do not follow the traditional athletic track season these training blocks can run throughout the year, depending upon the athlete’s major target for the season. 

Many coaches now use a three phase approach of different time blocks, 

the Macrocycle, the Mesocycle and finally the Microcycle. 

The idea of periodisation is to train for a goal that is many months and even years away. Elite athletes will use seasonal and annual periodisation to cater for races, such as the Europeans and potentially Olympic events. This long period is called a macrocycle which is then split into mesocycles. The majority of training plans I provide are set in mesocycles. 

Each mesocycle will have an aim, and the one following will build on the previous. Each mesocycle is split into approx four weeks to eight weeks depending on the athlete. A mesocycle is then split into weekly microcycles. Hopefully you are still with me!!! 

Most macrocycles start with a base/preparation phase, which in our world means we build and develop the foundations of the event we are training for. Ideally we will identify events that will provide us with information to see how are training is progressing. Strength and conditioning movements are also completed during this period too, and I use this to build efficiency, running economy and prevent injury. 

Fitness will be increased, but fatigue should be low. 

Periodisation allows for structure to occur in your training, your fitness to gradually improve and also allow for the body to recover and repair. 

Periodisation has been in sport and mainly running, for decades, the New Zealand Coach Arthur Lydiard had been one of the main pioneers of it, when he coached his athletes to many Olympic medals in the 70’s, it has now been adapted and adopted by most sports as the structure to their training. 

It begins.... 

For the coach they will plan the period up the event (Macrocycle). For this they will subdivide this time into blocks or periods of time approximately 4/8 weeks (mesocycles). Each of these mesocycles can be further subdivided into microcycles. For example in every 4 week mesocycle, we could see 3 weeks (microcycles) of increasing intensity then a 4th week of relative recovery. It is important that each mesocycle has specific goal of either fitness of technique. This will allow the coach to evaluate how training is progressing and do any minor adjustments need to be made. 

The first mesocycle of the plan should begin by developing or improving the athlete’s aerobic base, and this can mean up to 90% of your training in the aerobic zone, where you are running and not out of breath. You can hold a conversation. There is much debate about which zones to be in and how much intensity to use and what your heart rate should be, but a good guideline is to be able to talk in sentences, or if you have a chest strap heart rate monitor, the MAF calculation of 180 minus your age, and keep your heart rate below that. 

The main issue most people new to this sort of training, is, to actually run slow enough. It can be frustrating and you may think ‘I can walk at this pace’, but to build those solid foundations you need to stick at it and trust it, and be disciplined. There is no short cut, no ‘results in 10 days’ marketing, it does take time and patience. But as I say to my athlete’s, this is the time to enjoy their running, and enjoy the views, because the pain train is coming! 

A good way of monitoring your progress is to have a route you can run every 2-3 weeks and check your time over that route, like a time trial but remaining in your aerobic zone. Be prepared to walk uphill gradients if required until your aerobic system conditions enough for you to run them. 

Training this system, I would suggest that runs need to be a minimum of thirty minutes and can last hours, depending upon the event you are training for, however to get to those hours, you build up steadily, by not increasing more than approximately 10% distance each week, as this will allow the body to adapt. 

During this ‘base’ phase, I do allow my athletes to do a HIIT type session once a week or every two weeks, so they can have some fun and stretch those legs, but again it won’t be at full speed. 

Following the “base or preparation” phase we move into the pre competition or event phase, which brings in more specific training. This is where we experience the good and more exciting stuff. This will include more event specific strength training movements. Fatigue should also remain low during this phase. 

Two examples of training in this phase could be 

· if preparing for an uphill race, 8x3min hard effort with walk down recovery 

· If preparing for a 100 mile ultra, back to back 10 hour zone 1&2 runs, 3-4 weeks out. 

· If preparing for a track race, (usually 800m and above) 8x2-3min hard effort with 1min static or active recovery. 

· It is here we can also introduce vVo2 Max sessions 5 x 3 mins 3 mins recovery. These are not flat our but must be completed with the same level of intensity for each ie at a level where you cannot have a conversation but you must finish at the same point for each rep. 

These sessions are designed to improve our aerobic running at a high intensity, without suffering from acedosis (build up of acid, usually referred to as lactic acid) 

We then move into the pre competition/event phase and the fun begins. The athletes main event will possibly be 8/10 weeks away. 

We don’t just get rid of the aerobic training, we build on it. We will still do up to 80% of training in the aerobic zone, again this depends on the event, shorter distance races will such as the 400-800m will have nearly 50% high intensity training. 

Now there are many methods of including the fun training, this can be tempo runs, speed reps, hill reps, hill bounds, and this is where the coach will prescribe what they believe to be the right session for their athlete. 

For our Strength and Conditioning , we would move to more plyometric (hopping, jumping, bounding) movements and run specific exercises (eg drills). 

The ‘reps’ prescribed will depend on the condition of the athlete and also their training age. Training age is the number of years they have spent training in a comparable sport. For example if someone moves from a background of football to running, they will have a well developed aerobic base. This is because footballers need to run fast, in short bursts over a long period of time. Someone that is ‘new’ to speed and hill reps, may only be asked to do 3/4 reps, whereas an elite or conditioned athlete may be asked to do many more reps. 

We then enter the competition phase. At this point the coach should have a good idea about the balancing act of racing and recovery, based on the evidence collected during the previous mesocycles. This is also an opportunity to “fine tune” any training. The issue with having many races, is that it may have a negative effect on your performance, and you could potentially burn out. 

Having at least two weeks between races is ideal for a recovery period for short races, four to six for longer and ultra races. 

If you are able to have two to three weeks between races, it will enable time for some maintenance blocks. For the coach it will provide information and data to judge how well the training is progressing. 

We then enter the Taper phase, anywhere between 1 week and a month before the competition/event. This allows the body to repair and recover. We will still keep the mileage up, and will still do the speed and hill sessions, but are likely to ease off a little on intensity and the number of hard sessions per week. Strength training will now be for injury prevention. 

Once in the competition/event period, it then becomes a balancing act of racing, and maintenance, and listening to your body. 

So there we are, that in a nutshell is a brief outline of what periodisation training is, and when a coach writes a training plan for you, what they will be considering about for each and every athlete. As I said at the start, there is no one size fits all. Every athlete is individual, and there are many ways of building a periodised training plan for an athlete and their event.