Far to often when a season ends an athlete is disappointed that all their training hours did not achieve their major goals. While bad luck occasionally is the reason, far to often the athlete has not planned out their season properly.

Personal Best head coach Barrie Shepley did his physiology research at McMaster University in the area of "Peaking and Tapering". In essence, how do you ensure that you get that one or two big performances at the most important races of your season.

Unlike machines in a factory, human performance cannot be at top levels for months on end. One of the primary problems with professional sport (hockey, basketball, football, baseball) is that there are far too many games and athlete's simply cannot recover fast enough to compete on a high level all season long. Many of us have watched the performance of our favourite professional athletes "tail-off" as the season drags on. While they are still motivated to perform, their bodies have simply run out of gas and they often hit the playoffs tired and under-performing. Periodization is essentially planning out your season(s) so that you are in great shape, healthy and motivated when your one or two big races happen each year. When an athlete presents me with a list of 4,5 or 6 "big races" that they want to do extremely well in, I know that they are headed for disaster and disappointment. It doesn't mean they won't have many "good" performances in a year, but I know they can only have one or two "great" performances each season. In essence, periodization asks the question. Am I happier with 4-5 average performances in a year, or, 1 or 2 great performances. This is a question you have to ask yourself?

Olympic athletes often plan for one great performances every four years. Michael Phelps focused exclusively on Beijing for 4 years and while he rarely missed a day of swimming in four years, he didn't care about most of the meets in between Athens and Beijing. Michal's focus was having an unbelievable swim meet in Beijing (where he set a record of 8 Gold Medals). Simon Whitfield knew that an Olympic year is very stressful and made sure that he had a low-key year in 2007 so that he could focus his energy on one great race in 2008 (where he got the Olympic silver medal). Because our bodies need recovery and we can only be at a very high-intense level for a modest amount of time each year, its optimal that we actively plan out our training to "PEAK" for the 1 or 2 big important races on our schedule.

SEAN BECHTEL'S 2009 SEASON:

One of my top athletes is Sean Bechtel. In 2009, Sean had 2 key races (Muskoka Long Course in June and Muskoka 70.3 in September). While Sean won other races in between those two events, he used those other minor events as "training" races. Sean won the June Muskoka Triathlon and was Canada's top athlete in the 70.3 race won by Hawaii Ironman Champion Craig Alexander. The day before Sean's training races, he would do his regular 3-5 hours of swim-bike-run training. The event would simply be a fun, motivational training session where he could catch up with friends, be visible for his sponsors and help motivate some of the clients we collectively coach. Anyone who has too many "A" races in a season are guaranteed to have multiple average races (in my opinion).

THE TIME TO PLAN IS NOW:

This is the current time to do your 2010 planning. Optimally over the next 1-4 weeks, a game plan to make sure you are building fitness during your non-important races and getting rid of fatigue (during your peak key events). While everybody is different, everyone needs to have some recovery put into each week, month, season and year. Recovery doesn't have to mean doing nothing, but it does mean getting
rid of excessive fatigue and allowing tendons and muscles to adapt and recover. Often overly motivated people will try to do too much training and get injured prior to their big event. My observation is that about 1/3 to 1⁄2 of all people in a marathon are injured and not in good health (or even fitness) by the time the big race comes around.

TRY THE PERSONAL BEST APPROACH:

The Personal Best approach to training ensures that your training program has the right mix of fatigue, adaptation, and intensity. Two programs can do the very same amount of work, but if the workload happens at the wrong time it can mean too much fatigue and a poor performance. Understanding the right indicators that show your body is over-extending and approaching injury and sickness is key to a successful year. If you are interested in finding out more about a 2010 Personal Best Training Plan (with periodization, tapering and peaking all built into your year) please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it for more details.