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: Juerg, an interesting way to phrase your question, “why don’t we have resting plans?”. This may be a better way to look at it, since it is through recovery that physical adaptation occurs. It isn’t one or the other though, any training plan has rest included as well as the training stimulus. If you want to call a plan a “resting” plan you could, but it wouldn’t make any difference. Maybe we should define “Training” as including appropriate work and rest periods together. I will say though that much of the poor training I see has too much emphasis on work and not nearly enough emphasis on recovery. Bompa’s description of Periodization is often implemented haphazardly in that a person ends up reading the charts in Bompa’s books, then assumes that a training plan should be implemented exactly as the chart depicts. The end result is the coach or athlete assuming that a training period ends because a certain day has passed, without regard to training response. Bompa is very particular about pressing the fact that it is durring recovery that training adaptation occurs. : In fact all throughout Bompa’s work it is very clearly stipulated that all training must be individually modeled, and that the length each phase of training should be continually remodeled to suit the current degree of training of the athlete. Bompa states very clearly that all examples of training plans/ progressions in his books serve merely as typical examples, and that to be productive the actual plan for an individual must be created from normative data as well as daily measuring of training response. : For instance although a strength phase may be commonly referred to as about 6 to 8 weeks in length, the actually time for your athlete may be shorter or longer, or strength may added to an overall constant mix of training and not completely separated as a phase. As a certainty though, it is known that an athlete cannot maintain maximally intensive training all year, nor minimum intensity training all year, and expect to have any results. It is only logical that training intensity be gradually increased as the athlete shows ability to adapt. So the concept of Periodization is only a way of explaining the logical and natural physiological progression of training that is basically progressing from low to high intensity while at the same time volume progresses from high to low. : In general we know that as training intensity reaches submaximal levels, that training time decreases. So to use this concept in a plan a coach can predict that when intensity picks up in the spring, that at the same training volume will decrease. This trend continues through the competition phase. A typical error in training is to increase or maintain training volume as intensity increases, and as the competitive season gets under way. This is why many athletes experience lower performance levels part way through the season. This training error results in the irony of the athlete being at their lowest performance level when they are training the hardest. : To fix this problem we simply follow what experience and research tells us; The harder we train, the longer it takes to recover from the training. So logically we can predict less training and more rest when harder training is implemented. Of course the precise amount of training and rest is determined at the time of training based on heart rate, lactate, wattage, and how the athlete feels. : Every good coach uses Periodization whether they call it Periodization or not. If you look back on training logs for the past several years you will see a clear pattern of periods of training and adaptation that are repeated each year. Ultimately “periods” of training are dictated by biology and not by a detailed written plan. For instance if a coach wrote a periodized plan that said in three weeks on Monday the athlete must train for 60 minutes at lactate threshold, who’s to say that the training on that day should be what the “plan” calls for? What if when the time comes the athlete is fatigued? What if they happened to catch a cold? What if they had to work overtime on that day? What if 46 minutes turned out to be a more appropriate training time? Clearly any plan that is in writing is an attempt to predict the future. Any good coach will know that nobody can predict the future with accuracy. : So we use a planning concept only as a guideline and implement training on a daily basis depending on what we are measuring in the athlete’s response to training. : If a coach were to implement power training before any strength training was completed, they would not get as good results when compared to doing a strength phase of training preceding the power training. So Periodization and similar training concepts allow us to understand the correct path to follow in training based on the known physiological responses to training. Of course training procedures are continually remodeled as our understanding of training increases. This results in “Periodization” being remodeled, but for sure there will always be phases (periods) of training, always with easy training preceding harder training, and always with rest following hard training. Periodization will always be there, no matter what. Who cares that the phrase “Periodization” is connected to “Bompa”? Bompa did do a lot of work to describe Periodization, but now the concept is ubiquitous. I have seen other researchers claim Periodization is a poor theory, then present their own theory as a replacement, but the replacement is actually Periodization with another name! There is no other way to do it. : We can’t escape the fact that periods of training occur. It is an absolute fact that an athlete could not progress by doing exactly the same intensity and duration of training every day for their whole life. At some point they must increase speed, must increase time, must include power training, must include competitive training, must reduce training after the major competitive season ends. These are all “periods” of training. Periodization simply offers an explanation for these phases, and suggests that we use science and our own new thoughts to continually improve how we implement training. That is why Bompa has four editions of his Periodization book; he continually adapts his theory as he learns more through experience and research. : I will strongly defend Bompa because of the following: When I was writing the exam for his certificate, I noticed that in my opinion the exam did not reflect what I though was how Periodization should be implemented. Bompa asked me to rewrite the exam and submit my ideas. I re-created 60% of the exam and included new questions and an answer key. I challenged that Periodization is ultimately governed by daily observations in training response, and not a predictive plan. : Bompa commended me for “original thinking” and granted me certification even though I challenged the application of the theory. What I did not challenge is that Periodization and all training must be based on both scientific measurement and our own continual original thinking to improve training. So Periodization still progresses in the same way, but the progressions are determined by daily measurement, and not by a written plan, but we still use a plan as a guideline. : Bompa had an opportunity to cut me out, but instead accepted my challenge. In my opinion Bompa is one of many people with good ideas, but is perhaps one of the best with the best combination of original thinking and scientific scrutiny. : I have seen Juerg, that you are on the right track with implementing training theory. I believe that where the problem lies with implementation is that the examples set fourth in Periodization are taken too literally. It is assumed that a phase of training must take a specific allotment of time that is dictated by the textbook example of the theory. In fact the implementation of training must follow individual modeling, as Periodization suggests. : I have never found any predictive formula that actually works. So I never use them, and if someone suggests a new one to me I ignore it. All training must be implemented according to how the athlete adapts. At the same time we should know, based on the science of physiology, that a certain progression of training is dictated by biology: ie, you must walk before you can run. So we don’t make a running session for a person when they are not prepared to run. : In a personal example, I am now exiting my base aerobic phase and moving gradually into another level of base training. I know that I can do sprint training right now if I attempted to do it, and I know that my sprint would improve. I also know that my power would peak in the winter instead of the summer, so I won’t do this because it doesn’t follow correct planning (Periodization). I also know that in order for me to experience maximal aerobic efficiency by the summer that I must allow for structural changes to occur. These changes are dictated by time and I cannot speed up how fast my cells replicate. So I must go through a “period” of training before moving to the next “period” of training. If I jump to the next period too soon, my adaptation will be hindered because I will not have completed enough structural changes to allow me to tolerate the next level of training stimulus. No matter how we look at it, there will allways be periods of training that logically follow each other, and that are dictated by our biology. : We implement Periodized training theory through daily measurement of the response to training while understanding that we cannot put the cart before the horse. : whew! another long one, hope it is usefull for readers

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