Since my indoor season is not going well and I can do nothing about it I decided to start thinking about my plans for the outdoor season.
I’m training for 200 and 400m. My greatest disadvantage is speed which I was planning to emphasize in the indoor season. However, it hasn’t improved as much as I expected beacause I was forced to change the training system in the 3rd week of SPP.
I’ve been thinking a lot about my plans for the outdoor season. I would like to reach my peak performance on 25th of June in both 400 and 200m. The majority of meets is from the end of May till my nationals in the end of June. Since I’d like to be fast for the whole “spring” (first important meet is on 14th of May) season that leaves me with a bunch of questions.
how should I plan my SPP? How long should it be in order to reach my peak at the end of June and to be competitive from the Mid May?
In order to reach my highest peak on 25th of June should the SPP end just before that (I mean, should the maintenance phase lead right to it)?
Therefore, I did some calculations:
if I start my GPP at the end of February I have exactly 18 weeks till 25th of June when I want to reach my peak:
Therefore, I’d like to know is the combination of 6 weeks GPP+ 12 weeks SPP ok?
Or should I finish my SPP earlier and then take Charlie’s “in competition period training model” (meets serve as special endurance, 2 HI sessions per week, etc. - for example
Mon- tempo
Tues SE
Wed tempo
Thurs- Speed
Fri- off.)
and then do a 5 day taper when I want to reach the top.
Charlie used racing season to set up the peaking process. There would be SPP of some weeks (this would be the 3-1-3 with the last week of it having just 2 HI workouts and the highest intensity), then a 2-3 week taper for racing season. Racing season would follow CF’s in-season model, and at the end of the racing season would be your 5-14 day taper (whatever you are using).
So what most everyone (including me) does is look at your racing season. Look at the first race of your competition period, subtract 2-3 weeks (depends on what your training load is and how much you need to taper) and that is where your SPP ends. Everything before this point is SPP and GPP.
I’ve got another question, hope you don’t mind answering:
Should I be careful not to extend the comp period too much since I’m not an advanced athlete yet? Should I put more emphasise on GPP and SPP and extend them a bit or should I just start racing and improve through races?
The problem is that with 6 weeks of GPP there isn’t much time for SPP (only 7 weeks). However, assuming that I have good general conditioning fundamentals and the fall GPP was 7 weeks long would it be ok to cut the GPP into 4 weeks, just so to raise the tempo volume again? And then how should I structure my SPP? Is a “2 conversion weeks + 2 max weights + 1 recovery + 2 max weights + 2 maintenance” plan ok? Or should I cut one week of conversion and one week of maintenance to increase max weights?
Many people will improve quite a bit through racing. You have to balance how much you taper with how long your racing season is. If you lose too much strength from too much maintenance weights, then you won’t have enough when you try to peak. So I would be careful about extending racing season much over a month before peaking. When you go through the whole process the first time, realize that you will not get everything perfect as you might if you had Charlie running your workouts.
Also, there is a point in the SPP Lecture where Charlie talks about reviewing the results from the previous phase and adjusting the training you do and the performance expectations for the next phase based on the results you have had so far.
Remember that Charlie’s schedules are a sample that we can adjust to our needs, not something you follow exactly. In your case, I think you need to think about what went well and what didn’t go so well in your training to date. Adjust Charlie’s plans accordingly.
Do you think it would be ok to end my SPP for example on 14th of May and then compete and keep weights at maintenance till beggining of June. Then when I have one week without any races (2 weeks from my nationals where I want to peak) I would increase the volume of sprints and do some max weight tests. That would mean that I raise overall volume and therefore intensity in order to get sth to taper off for my nationals.