Phases of training

Periodisation

“Greatness is a lot of small things done well.”

Ray Lewis

A Training Plan aims to identify the work to be carried out in order to achieve agreed objectives, as identified in the previously conducted needs analysis. In doing so, an effective plan will bring about optimal and targeted performance improvements with a peak in performance for identified primary competitions. Training plans are created with long-term goals in mind, which are commonly set over 4 or 8 year periods to coincide with Olympic cycles. 

This is then broken down further into short-term yearly plans, known as macrocycles, which define the available preparation time culminating with the major event. 

The year plan is subsequently divided into smaller periods of 4-8 weeks, known as mesocycles, which have their own specific focus and objectives. This process of dividing and organising the year into specific training phases is known as periodisation

Finally, these are broken down into shorter training periods of 7-10 days, known as microcycles, which include more detailed information on the load, intensity, frequency, duration and sequencing of the training sessions.