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Back from my rest week: Where did Periodization come from?

March 6th, 2007

Hurray, I’m back to working out again! Well, I didn’t really take a break, but I’ll admit that rest and recover weeks feel like an ordeal to me. I love getting out there and being active and so I literally have to force myself to slow down for my recovery weeks. Taper is even harder, since I’m so mentally prepared for the race, but I don’t have to worry about that for several months.

Some of you may wonder what all my talk of recover weeks, prep, base 1, and base 2 are all about. Of course I’m sure you’ve heard of the concept of periodization, and you may even be using a training plan or schedule that has some form of periodization built in to it. But where does the concept come from, and why do so many athletes utilize it in their training program? Or you may just be wondering who this old guy is in the picture… if so, keep reading.

Periodization was first utilized by athletes in the late 1950s, but didn’t become widely understood and refined until the 1960s thanks to the work of Leo Metveyev and Tudor Bompa. Bompa who was instrumental in leading the Eastern Bloc countries to dominate the Olympic and world games throughout the 60s and 70s documented his research and technique in his Theory and Methodology of Training. Tudor Bompa is also the guy in the picture… what’s that he’s showing us? A periodization diagram! Cool!

The roots of periodization are actually based on early research by Hans De Solye in the 1920s and eventually Psychologist Hans Selye’s work from 1930-1950 into general biological systems and how they respond to stresses in their environment. A model know as the General Adaptation syndrome describes three stages of stress response: Alarm, Resistance, and Exhaustion. The basic concept is that when biological systems are exposed to new stressors, they will initially respond with increased adaptation to counteract those stressors. If the stress remains at these high levels the biological system will eventually be unable to produce the higher load required for counteracting the stress, and eventually failure, fatigue, and injury will set in.

What Bompa and other coaches realized is that by constantly training at a “high level” athletes are unable to improve. They may maintain a high level of fitness, but consistent adaptations and improvements can no longer occur. However, but allowing the body to recover and rest, the systems will be able to reset to a pre-resistance stage and ultimately be prepared for larger gains from the next cycle of high intensity training. The developed training programs that allowed periods of high intensity training followed by periods of recover and eventually followed by periods of even greater intensity training. Athletes using these training techniques were able to break through strength and endurance levels that other athletes were unable to reach or exceed.

There are several ways that this basic concept of “recovery” has been applied to athletic training. The simplest form would be to have a rest and recovery week spaced between “work” periods. In my program I have a cycle of 3 weeks of “work” and then 1 week of “recovery”. My annual plan takes this concept a step further and changes the types of work that occur in each period, with the specific goal of building up to a peak race performance level timed for my A races. For example, during my base period I am doing mostly higher volume and lower intensity training. As the year progresses I will move to lower volume and higher intensity.

Periodization doesn’t always have to build toward a particular race goal. You may use this technique to simply allow your body to adapt more quickly. For example, I’ve seen a trend lately for programs described as “muscle confusion” based training programs. I would argue that these programs are successful insofar as they take advantage of General Adaptation syndrome. The basic concept of “mixing up your routine” at different times throughout the year should help give your body this adaptation advantage.

There is a great deal of information available about developing a training program based on periodization. Here are just a few links that you might find helpful.

- References -

On Periodization:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sports_periodization
http://www.trifuel.com/triathlon/triathlon-training/what-does-periodization-mean-and-how-does-it-work-000625.php
Theory and Methodology of Training

On Strength Training and Periodization:

http://www.ontri.com/weighttraining.html

Cool geeky science stuff on General Adaptation syndrome:
Selye, Hans (1946). The general adaptation syndrome and the diseases of adaptation. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology 6:117-230
Selye, Hans (1952). The Story of the Adaptation Syndrome. Montreal, Quebec, Canada: Acta Inc

Entry Filed under: Fitness, Triathlon, Ironman, Running, Cycling, Strength Training, exercise, sports medicine, science