Hello!
This blog post is the 4th instalment in our Periodisation series where we’re talking about how to plan out your year to suit your training schedule. We’ve covered how to set up your year here and already talked about the off seaon (or the R season) and the base/prep phase. Today we will cover the building phase which is 4-8 weeks long.
Just to quickly recap, the Base/Prep phase was mostly about aerobic fitness and starting to build up that strength off skates. For the weeks following this phase, we get more sport specific. This phase is for building up your strength and power on and off skates and tailoring your off skate workouts specifically to improve your anaerobic capacity.
Building phase is the most mentally and physically challenging part of the year. It is highest in volume, high frequency and high intensity. This includes a combination of longer workouts at a low-moderate intensity and shorter more intense workouts. It is the time of the year where you have to get brutally honest about rest and recovery times. Making sure you’re not forgetting the “rest” part of the growth equation to optimise your success (stress + rest = growth).
Off skate
Goal: Improve anaerobic capacity and power
How:
- 1 full body resistance training session per week concentrating on proper mobility exercises as a warm up and compound exercises.
- 1 full body circuit training session including plyometrics, explosive compound movements to develop power and anaerobic capacity (sport specific)
- 1-2 30-45min aerobic exercise
- 3-4 full body stretch/yoga sessions per week. Also foam rolling and balance work comes into these yoga sessions as well as any physio prescribed exercises you should be doing
On skate
Goal: finish and polish routines. Develop on skate fitness
How:
- 1 session that includes back to back programmes
- 1 session developing programmes
- 1-2 sessions content practise by yourself
Mental Training
Goal: Learn to relax when needed
How:
- Use visualisation to memorise and perfect programmes
- Practise positive mantras during hard workouts to build mental resilience
- Focus on positive self talk
- Meditate to allow body and mind to recover (body scan meditation, tense-relax meditation, self esteem meditations)
- Visualise yourself achieving that goal and focus on the feeling that brings you.
Because this phase is quite high volume, I would alternate between a heavy training week and a recovery week. If you wanna get fancy, you can add in a medium volume week so you cycle between those 3 weeks twice to complete your building phase. This will allow for appropriate recovery time in between heavier training weeks.
For example, during the heavy week, you should be trying to increase the intensity by increasing weight or amount of back to back routines. If you do an intermediate week, this week should maintain the same weight and reps as the heavy week and then for you recovery week, you would drop the weight or duration of the workout to get ready for the following week where you increase again.
As always, if you have any questions or want to let me know if you disagree or agree with me, send me an email and I’ll get back to you.
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Lots of love,
Mac