Hello coaches,
I was wondering how you apply the basic principles of overload and adaptation with your athletes. Here are a few points, and I would love to hear people’s thoughts:
-
When you prescribe a training element should you always be looking to beat the previous session? Charlie has said on Vanc I believe to always prescribe a task if you think the athlete is going to deliver a better performance. But at the same time high level athletes are not going to be PR’ing all the time relative to their best times. So I’m guessing when Charlie is referring to PB’ing every session, he is talking about bettering your performance with respect to the previous training session in a cycle based on training maximum’s, NOT competitive maximum’s?
-
If you look in theoretical books by Hartmann, Schmolinsky and others, there typically is a graph representing the usual supercompensation graph where you drive down the organism and then supercompensate; however if you look at the link below:
http://www.sportbookspub.com/samplePages/track/track/interior01.jpg
On the bottom left of the image, there is a graph where the same load is repeated in the next session even though you have supercompensated. Why is this the case? Is it simply to consolidate the adaptation to that load before progressing onwards?
- Keeping strict records-with respect to the S-L graph, there are details of many variables such as reps/sets and rest periods. Now obviously the athlete has a given finite amount of energy which they can expend on any given day and this is going to dictate what they can do but do you actually time these rest periods and monitor the number of reps and sets completed in order to see if the athlete is doing more work in the next session or is this not necessary?
Sorry for all the questions, and I guess I am asking about the art of coaching which is something I don’t have experience with yet, but I am just trying to form some ideas at present.
Thank you,
Rob.