Periodisation
The 5th Edition of your favourite weekly running newsletter
Welcome back to your weekly dose of run chat.
Your quick weekly read of insightful tips and thoughts to help you with your running.
Since my last race, I’ve not done much training. Why? Do I not care enough about my running? Am I not a serious athlete? Those things could be true. But, the real reason is that I’ve been in a period of rest and recovery, and am now entering a new phase of training which will focus on Strength.
So, this week, I thought we could talk a bit about Periodisation. We’ll lightly touch on the topic, but I’m also hoping it’ll interest you to go and read more about it.
Something to Think About
One of the coolest things about running is that anyone can apply the same training principles that elite athletes use to their own training. Sometimes, however, we can get the wrong impression. We can copy only a small, glorified part of their training and risk injury. The reality is, these elite athletes periodise their training. They use certain periods to focus on different elements and utilise rest and recovery to avoid overtraining.
Think about how you’re structuring your training. Are you being intentional about what you are focusing on? Whether it’s Strength, Speed, Endurance, or recovery, what is your current focus?
Something to Ask Yourself
How are you measuring your training? Are you always just trying to do more, or are you thinking about the quality of your training and how it contributes to what you’re currently focusing on?
The key to being a productive athlete is to allow the body to adapt to conditioning safely. How are you manipulating volume and intensity to ensure you’re getting the most out of the work you’re putting in?
Article of the Week 📄
This Article "4 Rules of Periodization to Help You Reach Your Peak" on Outside Online outlines key strategies for structuring training to optimise performance. The four rules include planning phases of training, gradually increasing intensity, balancing volume and recovery, and adjusting the training plan based on progress and needs to ensure peak performance at the right time.
Track of the Week 🎶
This week’s Track of the Week is an absolute tune. It’s one I've been known to have on repeat. Maybe one to accompany your Easy runs.
This week’s song of the week is:
People (feat. Ayra Starr & Omah Lay) by Libianca, Ayra Starr, Omah Lay (2023)
Personal Lesson
Creating your own training plan can seem intimidating. You might think you need to buy a plan online or pay hundreds a month for a coach. But, the truth is, it’s not that complicated. If you can grasp a few simple concepts, you’re perfectly capable of planning your own training and reaching goals you thought were only possible with the help of an “expert”.
Most runners don’t have a coach, and the vast majority of people who line up to the start line of a race have created their own plan to get there.
When I started training for marathons, I didn’t know the first thing about how to train properly. So, I started learning as much as I could about how the Elites did it. Something that stood out to me was how seasonal an athlete’s schedule is. We love to focus on the peak of an athlete’s training, but the reality is, this is only sustained for a relatively short period of time.
Once I learned that I didn’t need to have boastful volume or intensity all the time, I started to enjoy the period I was in because it suddenly felt intentional. Lowering my volume and spending more time in the gym, for example, didn’t feel like “losing fitness” or “getting slower”, it felt like a smart way to work on a crucial element of my ability as an athlete.
Running - Life’s Metaphor
There are times in life where the focus changes. To achieve any sort of balance, there will be times when you have to do less of one thing and more of another. Doing everything well, always, is impossible. But knowing what your current focus is, and being intentional about it, can help you to avoid burning out and keep you moving productively to where you want to be.
Final Thoughts
Fancy words like “Periodisation” can make you feel like you need a special level of expertise that only Coaches and “experts” hold the key to. This is false.
A fundamental belief of mine is that all of this stuff is pretty simple and anyone curious enough to learn about it, can grasp the key principles and apply them to their own training. Usually, all it takes is a little bit of time spent reading or watching content online. Periodisation is a perfect example of something that seems complicated, but isn’t.
Apart from anything else, I’ve found that Periodising my training over the years, and knowing where I am in a macrocycle, helps me to enjoy the overall process. For example, after a race, I can relax a little, drop my volume, focus on recovery and get into the gym to do some heavy lifting and strengthen my muscles for the next cycle. And that’s what I’m doing now.
On top of that, comparing yourself to anyone else becomes even more ludicrous when you consider the fact we’re all in different periods of our training, focusing on different things.
Thanks again for reading and subscribing.
Run the runnable, and keep showing up for yourself!
Tommy :)
