Elements of a successful training program
by Martin Marinov
How many coaches are happy to reveal their secret successful formula? I know few but most of the coaches keep their “secret” only for themselves. They do not share the “secrets” even to their athletes. Those coaches do not explain to the athletes why they do the sessions and what they should achieve from the sessions.
I do not have secrets and I am happy to help everyone who asks for my help.
It is a different story do you really want to learn about the training program or just want to follow whatever says on your workout board. It is totally OK if you just follow written program. You don’t have to know everything on the World. You are professional in your area, I am professional in the paddling sports. You can trust my training programs 100%. You just have to follow them.
Even so, there are few things you should know about successful training program.
You are the active and the most important part of the training process. You can make same training program successful or not that successful.
Here I will give you some tips how to make one training program more successful.
I am sure you know the slogan “One size doesn’t fit all”. The first essential element of the successful training program is to be individualised as much as possible. That why you have to provide as much as possible information about yourself, your achievements, your level, etc. to my training generator. It is very simple — More accurate and detailed information you provide for yourself — more accurate and individualised program you will get.
If during the season there are some changes, like injury, bad weather conditions, change of the priorities, school/work/family commitments, etc — you should put all of them in the generator as soon as they appear in your life. Training generator is very smart but not that smart to know your problems and changes unless you tell it.
Once you have the generated Training program (individualised for you and for that particular season), you have to implement it day by day, hour by hour! Depend of your implementation you can achieve great results but also you can destroy everything and achieve nothing… It is in your hands how you are going tom implement the program.
First thing you should know — do it with a belief. If you believe that the training program will help you — you will achieve a progress. If you don’t believe in it and you always have something on the back of your mind during the training sessions — the failure is 100% guarantee!
If you are positive — the results earlier or later will come. If you are negative — the results will never come. The key point is to keep the positive mood not only when you are fresh, not only when you are achieving great results but also when you are very tired, when you are not close to your goals. Everyone can stay positive when everything is going great. Only Real Champions can stay positive and follow their dreams during hard time, during days with bad results and bad feeling…
Another important thing you should know about the training program — it is designed to make you better/fitter person in general. BUT you will be in your top shape only once or twice per season. Do not expect great results every day!!! Most of the days you will be tired, you will be smashed, and you will be far from your expected results. Don’t worry — just keep positive thinking and continue following the program and you will achieve your best during the important competitions (which you have entered in the Generator).
A key element of the Training program is the alternation of work and rest (workload and recovery). During the work face you will have fatigue, you will feel tired. It is clear in such situation you can’t perform at your Personal Best (PB). After a recovery period your PBs will be achievable.
As I said, a key element is the alternation of work and rest. If for one or two days, you missed the training sessions for whatever reason — please do not do missed sessions in the following days!!! It is a big mistake when you missed some sessions because of the bad weather conditions or sickness, or something else to feel guilty and to try to do the missed sessions later in the following days. Doing that you break the planned alternation, you break the planned workload. It is much better if you forget for them and just continue with the program for next day. Of course, if the reason stopping you from training is a something very serious and the destruction can continue for longer period — enter the new data into the Generator and you will have adjusted training program.
Another important element of the training program is the periodisation. Periodisation is not necessary linked with the seasons. It depends when are your main competitions. There are main competitions around which we will build your periodisation and also non-important competitions which will be just a stepping stone in the preparation for the main competition/s.
Old school periodisation is a one or two peak periodisation. It means athletes can peak just once or maximum twice per year. The new way which many sports are using is a multipeak season. With commercialisation of the sport there are much more competitions per year than 20–30 years ago. Everyone likes to be at good enough level at any competition, so it is important to create the training program in a such way that will allow you to be at a good shape at most of the competitions during the season and not to sacrifice your main long or short terms goals.
It is called — Block Periodisation. Actually, it is an old research — I was part of it during 1982–83. It is interesting that even now — 35 years later still it is not very popular in canoeing. The research was done in canoeing. It is well adopted from other sports but not too much from canoeing…
Sometimes between important competitions you will have 3 weeks, sometimes 3 months, sometimes more. Block periodisation recommends using same skeleton of preparation, just to be adjusted the length to fit into required period/s.
I will give you one more essential element of the Successful training program — Taper. It is a specific terminology, which is not translatable for some languages. It means training sessions before the competitions — how much to reduce the training volume to allow athletes to be in a good shape for the competition.
It is a very tricky point. A little too much training can lead to tired athlete, if it is a little not enough also is not good. The right taper brings athletes in their best shape — fit, fast, sharp but not tired. To able to get to the right training load I would ask you to follow the training program 100% during last 3 weeks before main competitions. After, please write to me a feedback. Every person is different, and I may re-adjust the training program specifically for you after your feedback.
