Fundamentals of Periodization: Structuring Your Annual Training Plan

hi everyone Peter here from flow high performance and this presentation is going to be the introduction to a new

video series called the fundamentals of periodization so basically this video is going to establish a complete big

picture of the total training plan so that you can make sure you understand in the future videos of each specific topic

what we're talking about and how it fits into the entire plan so we're going to look now at the big picture of the

training plan which starts with the annual plan the annual plan is basically going to help us determine what

direction we need to headed head toward so where do we have our competitive games or our competitive season and all

our competitions if it's an individual sport and which ones are most important and where in the year do we therefore

need to be to perform at our best so that's what the annual plan is going to help us determine it's nothing specific

it's just basically giving us a general direction to head towards we can then break that the entire year up into

phases so just for example done four evenly spaced out phases here which is probably not going to happen in

realistically but the phases are going to basically give us different objectives for each phase and we may

need to be around here at phase three maybe that's where we need to sort of be around our best and perform at our peak

so maybe this phase is going to be a very specific phase where as these phases here may be more general or maybe

even potentially just an active rest period so we're not going to go into any specifics here but basically these are

going to the breaking their year down into phases is going to help us basically get more specific on that

direction that we need to head towards and sort of pinpoint where exactly we need to be at our best we can then break

each phase down into mezzo cycles and usually mezzo cycles going to be somewhere between three and six weeks in

length usually starting with usually getting more difficult over the week last weeks usually a unloading or addy

load week and the mesocycle is basically planning the more specific training so it's going to be where we apply factors

like progressive overload which are going to actually sort of make sure we're progressing in the short-term so

this is basically getting more specific in each phase we're carrying out the same goals that we've outlined in each

phase but this time we're stringing together mezzo cycles to ensure we have appropriate progressive overload and

then lastly the most detailed of the big picture plan is going to be the micro cycles and usually that's that's just a

week a micro cycle is just a week and for the sake of this video series we're just going to refer to them as weeks so

each of these blocks here basically represent a week so I've got 52 here and the week for the micro cycle is where we

plan the minut details so already covered progressive overload so we might know during this mezzo cycle

we want an accumulation of volume for example so we know that's the application of progressive overload but

the micro cycle is where we're going to determine our exercise selection our our frequency of training our exact volumes

and intensities so this is where the real specific work comes in and all of this basically together each microcycle

forms sort of accumulates to form a mezzo cycle and these accumulate to form a phase which accumulates to basically

form the annual plan so what does it all this mean so the annual plan as mentioned before is basically so where

we can plan the general direction that we need to head towards so I've made an analogy that if we were on a long hike

and we didn't know where we're going we're in the jungle the annual plan is going to be the compass so it's going to

tell us it sort of what direction we need to head towards but it's no by no means going to tell us the exact details

of how to so the face potentiation is basically where we stringing together the phases

or establishing a sequence so we can allow peak performance at a specific time of the year so that's where we're

breaking down the annual plan and establishing when exactly we need to be at our peak performance so this can be

analogous to a map when we're on that same same hike this is the map so again it tells us sort of the direction we

need to head towards and the route we need to take but it doesn't it doesn't account for things like terrain and that

sort of stuff or a may but it's not going to be very specific then we have the mezzo cycle so it's gonna be the

next video planning the mezzo cycle and that's where we apply those fundamental principles like progressive overload so

that we make sure we actually have progress in the short term so throughout each mezzo cycle you're going to make

sure we're actually progressing otherwise over the annual plan we may just waste our time so this is where we

basically establish direct routes so we see the map we can see it on paper but then basically we look up from the map

on this hike let's say we're on top of the hill and we look at the next few kilometers exactly where we're going to

head and we sort of start establishing a route and in the last video we're going to go through is planning the micro

cycle and this is where we're going to apply the really specific factors like volume frequency intensity exercise

selection etc and this is where we're basically actually walking and we might have to overcome small barriers along

the journey so for example if we have to cross a river that could be analogous so planning to cross that River is

analogous to basically planning the week and that's it for this video guys thanks for watching and hopefully you got

something out of it make sure you stay tuned to this channel to find all the next videos in this video series

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