Part III. What are the types of periods used in the Periodization model?

In Part I I described the nature of cycles. In Part II I detailed why most endurance athletes utilize the Periodization model to get the competitive edge in racing. In this last segment I am going to describe to you the types of cycles most use and how it applies to the exercise/recovery balance.

Types of cycles in a triathlon season:

Macrocycle - entire season
Mesocycle - periods lasting 3-6 weeks each
Microcycle - weekly periods

Macrocycle

The first type of cycle is the macrocycle. The macro- prefix means “large” and that is exactly what it is. The macrocycle typically refers to an entire racing season. For most, this cycle will be about a year long, although in special cases it could be longer or shorter. Olympic athletes might have a macrocycle of 4 years as they train for optimal performance from one Olympiad to another.

In this example, I will draw the macrocycle as a 1 year season:


The green segment is your recovery period in the macrocycle, which is about 2-3 months for the typical training regimen. After many months of rigorous training and peaking for your big races, you need to give your body and mind a complete rest from the sport altogether, for a period of time (likely about 2 months) during the offseason. After their big race, I've seen a lot of people "burnt out" after months of training. They definitely need to shift gears to other pursuits for 2-3 months. Once the recovery is over, athletes like you should approach their next season (macrocycle) with renewed vigor and a completely healthy body.

Mesocycle

The next cycle is called the mesocycle. Each mesocycle varies from typically 4-8 weeks, depending on the training plan. Every macrocycle will contain a number of mesocycles. Each mesocycle has a distinct theme and intermediate goals. Mesocycles should fit nicely into your macrocycle. I now add the mesocycle to the sample above:


Again, there is a green section in each of the mesocycles. Again these are recovery periods that need to be built into these time periods, just as we did with the macrocycle. Notice how the 5th Mesocycle in the sample is all green compared to the others. This mesocycle falls completely under the macrocycle recovery period (the offseason). This means that every week in that Mesocycle is a recovery week.By placing easy recovery weeks properly with your heavy training weeks, you provide your body a partially sustained recovery in each mesocycle. This enables you to be “fired up” and healed enough to put the most of your energy into your harder weeks, thereby optimizing your training.

Microcycle

The last cycle that I will describe will be the microcycle. This is usually a week in length and is a day-by-day planning aid to get you to your immediate goals of your mesocycle and hopefully your long term goals defined by the macrocycle. Each mesocycle will contain a number of microcycles. In the sample chart, I will draw in 4 microcycles (weeks) into each mesocycle:


The resulting chart shows three hard weeks and an easier recovery week for each mesocycle.

Let's take a look at a sample microcycle:

And how does the training/recovery balance fit into this cycle? In day-to-day planning, you place 3-4 “key workouts” into your week and try to maximize them. Because a lot of effort is typically required of these “key workouts”, recovery is needed on certain days so that you are amply recovered for your next “key workout” in the week. For example, you pushed hard a 30 mile bike ride on Monday. The intensity of this workout warrants a necessary 24 hour recovery on Tuesday so that you are recovered and full of energy for that tough 10 mile run on Wednesday.

To put it all together, here is how a sample periodization plan looks like:

With these cycles in mind, next week's blog will put it all together by developing a sample training plan from the ground up.

Periodization Defined - Part II

Part I: What are cycles?
Part II: How is Periodization Related To Cycles?
Part III: What are the Periods Associated with Periodization?

How is Periodization Related To Cycles?

The first part of this article describes the basis for Periodization and why cycles occur in nature. In this second part, we describe Periodization and its relation to natural cycles.

So we established that cycles are needed to achieve balance and strength in nature. If that is true, then wouldn't it make sense to apply Periodization to your training? You do want to do well in your key races this year, right? And in endurance racing one needs to get strong in certain areas to achieve his/her goals, right? So it makes perfect sense to incorporate cycles into your training plan.

The main cycle that you will need to maintain is a balance between the two critical forces of training, exercise and recovery:

PERIODIZATION:    EXERCISE<------------------------->RECOVERY

Exercise tends to break down the body when stresses are applied to it. Recovery is the ability of the body to heal itself to a point where it is much stronger. These two forces must stay in constant balance with one another in order to get stronger, faster, and healthier:


The chart above illustrates a sound Periodization training plan. Exercise puts a load or stress on the body and breaks it down. A good recovery will heal your body to a point better than before (called "supercompensation").

Unfortunately, many competitive athletes abuse exercise and neglect the recovery. This leads to an unbalanced condition where the body is broken down so much that leads to overtraining and injury. Ample recovery MUST be built in to the training plan for the body to rebuild itself stronger.

Periodization supplies the balance every sound training plan needs. As the name suggests, this balance is done through several periods (or cycles) of exercise and recovery. Planning workouts in this way allows the athlete to build in his/her rest and recovery in every period, and to allow the body to fully recover stronger from the stresses you apply through exercise. In the next segment, I will show you the types of periods or cycles that exist in this model.

Part 3 - What are the Cycles or Periods Associated With Periodization?

Periodization Properly Defined - How To Correctly Design Your Triathlon Season

Part I ---------- Part II ---------- Part III

Most athletes have learned about the periodization approach to endurance training. But I have only seen few athletes really utilize them in the best way. This blog is to first define what periodization is, why it is the most important part of training, and how to properly plan your best season with it.

Periodization training involves periods, or cycles. Cycles are aplenty in nature. Can you name a few? Wikipedia surprisingly has an extensive list of natural cycles.

So the whole universe is run in cycles. Even if you just take a look around there are easy cycles to spot. There is the daily cycle where day follows night. There is a seasonal cycle, where we keep going through the natural progression of winter, spring, summer, and fall. You sleep to rejuvenate your body after an active day. Your computer monitor displays this blog by illuminating its pixels thousands of times per second (yes, there is a short amount of time in between where the your monitor is actually "off"). Cycles can even work over eons, as with the cooling and heating phases of the earth.

But why is everything in a cycle? Each and every one of these cycles is necessary to keep everything in a natural state of balance. Without them, we couldn't have balance, and imbalances would be very destructive to us and the environment.

Your body is just teeming with cycles, from biochemical to electrical. If you want to see a detailed list of your body's cycles, just pick up a biology or anatomy book; its very thickness tells you that there are many cycles running through your body right now. As stated before, you have a waking/sleeping cycle. Your body goes through numerous growth phases every day. Women have their menstrual cycle every 28 days. All the natural cycles that occur in your body provide the necessary balance needed to keep your body healthy and strong.

Cycles are constantly moving to keep nature, our environment, and our bodies in perfect balance. No one phase of the cycle can continue indefinitely; everything, especially people, need to shift to another phase of the cycle in order to keep harmonious with nature and to help keep ourselves strong.

The next segment will relate your Periodization training to cycles.

On to Part II