How HR coach approach your program.

The goal for a coach is to identify the work to be carried out to achieve agreed objectives. The plan the coach puts together should be drawn up to identify long-term (2-4 years) objectives as well as to create short-term plans or annual plan for the forthcoming season.  In its simplest form, the annual plan should identify the overall plan for the year, and more detailed weekly plans identifying for the specific activities the athlete is to carry out.

The Training Year

The start of the training year will depend upon the athlete’s circumstances and objectives, but this would generally be around October November for most triathletes.

Information Gathering:

The first stage of preparing a plan is to gather background information about the athlete and the objectives for the forthcoming season. The information I collect is as follows:

• Personal details
• Name, address, date of birth, telephone numbers…etc
• Objectives for the season
• Technical (How time has been spent on development of technique)
• Indoor and/or outdoor training
• Experience (physical and mental)
• Personal best (PB’s)
• Competition experience (local, prov., national, international)
• Equipment (Have or Need)
• Competition
  • Date of main competition
  • Required qualification for competitions
• Competitors
  • Who are the competition and what are their PB’s?
• Recent competition results
• Competition behaviour
• Athlete’s other Commitments
  • School, work, part-time jobs
  • Family, partner, kids
  • Hobbies and other sports
• Time available for training
• Planned holidays
• Medical History
  • Previous injuries or illness
  • Current problems (diabetes, asthma etc.)
  • Access to medical support
  • Physiotherapy support
  • On any medication?
  • Using asthma inhaler
• Training facilities
  • Pools
  • Trainer type
  • Type of Roads
  • Track
  • Trails
  • Climate
• Last season
  • What can be learnt from last season – good and bad aspects
• Key questions for the athlete
  • How serious are you about your sport?
  • What do expect from your coach?

Analysis of the last program

If I have worked with a client for more then an year, then an important activity to conduct is a SWOT analysis of the last training program:

• Strengths
  • What were the best aspects of the program and why?
  • What did we do well and why?
• Weaknesses
  • Are there gaps in the program?
  • What did we not do very well and why?
• Opportunities
  • How can we enhance the program for the benefit of the athlete?
• Threats
  • What may prevent us from achieving the short- and long-term objectives?

Athlete Assessment

Before I can start to create a training program I need to analyze the athlete to determine their strengths and weaknesses. The first step is to identify the ideal attributes (e.g. strength, endurance, speed, flexibility etc) that will allow the athlete to achieve their agreed goals. The next step is to assess the athlete against our ideal athlete to identify their strengths and weaknesses (gap analysis). Addressing the gaps may require me to think in terms of long-term planning (2-4 years) but for this macrocycle, we can set realistic but challenging goals to start to address the gaps.

Periodization

Periodization is the method of organizing the training year into phases where each phase has its specific aims for the development of the athlete.  These phase don’t always go in the same order if specific goals need to be met and extra times is needed on one phase more then another.

The phases of a training year

The training year is divided into 6 phases as follows:

• Phase 1 – 16 weeks
• Phase 2 – 8 weeks
• Phase 3 – 8 weeks
• Phase 4 – 8 weeks
• Phase 5 – 4-8 weeks
• Phase 6 – 4-8 weeks

Objectives of each phase

The objectives of each phase is as follows:

• Phase 1 – General development of strength, mobility, endurance and basic technique
• Phase 2 – Development of specific fitness and advanced technical skills
• Phase 3 – Race experience – achievement of objectives
• Phase 4 – Adjustment of the technical model, preparation for the main competition
• Phase 5 – Race experience and achievement of  objectives
• Phase 6 – Active recovery – planning preparation for next season

Activities of each Phase

The athlete’s physical needs that require development are:

• Basic body Conditioning
• General and Specific Strength
• General and Specific Technique
• General and Specific Mobility
• General and Specific Endurance
• Speed

Each of these needs should be seen as a building block, where specific blocks need to be in place before you progress to the next. Failure to do this may result in injury. How you allocate the blocks to each phase depends upon the athlete’s weaknesses and strengths and is for you as the coach to decide with the athlete.

One approach is to progress the building blocks as follows:

• basic body conditioning
• general strength, endurance, mobility and technique
• specific strength, endurance, mobility and technique
• speed

When progressing from one block to the next, remember to fade one out as the other comes in and not to switch from one block to the next overnight. Some blocks once started may continue to the end of the season but at a less intense level e.g. mobility. Other blocks to consider are relaxation, visualization and psychology (mental attitude).

Preparing a plan

The steps in producing a Training Plan are as follows:

Goal Setting

Goal setting is a simple, yet often misused motivational technique that can provide some structure for your training and competition program. Goals give a focus, and there are two acronyms to guide goal setting.

 SMARTER

• S – goals must be Specific
• M – training targets should be Measurable
• A – goals should be Adjustable
• R – goals must be Realistic
• T – training targets should be Time based
• E – goals should be challenging and Exciting
• R – goals should be Recorded

SCCAMP

• S – goals must be Specific
• C – within the Control of the athlete
• C – goals are Challenging
• A – goals must be Attainable
• M – training targets should be Measurable
• P – goals are Personal

FITT Principles

The basic principles of fitness training can be summed up in the acronym FITT

• F – Frequency – how often
• I – Intensity – how hard
• T – Time – how long
• T – Type – the type of training (strength, endurance etc.)

RAMP

The basic principles of a warm-up can be summed up in the acronym RAMP

• R – Raise the body’s temperature and heart rate
• A – Activate key muscle groups
• M – Mobilise joints
• P – Potentiate/prepare the body for the maximal intensities it will be required to produce in the session/competition

SORAR

The basic principles of fitness training can be summed up in the acronym SORAR

• S – Specificity
• O – Overload
• R – Rest
• A – Adaption
• R – Reversibility