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Are you ready to make your sport dreams come true but don’t know where to start? Off course it starts with training, but heading is just the start. It not only involves training, it requires a structured plan with well designed workouts in which strength, endurance and recovery are combined. We will walk you through the essentials with which it become possible to achieve your potential by providing you with the tools to create a balanced routine for long-term succes.
You might think training is heading to the gym, riding your bike or going out for a run. This is actually only a part of what it is all about. More is needed to improve over time. Whether your goal is to get fast, stay fit or run your first 5K, a well designed training plan ensures you are training in a way that maximizes your time and effort. It offers you a strategic and structured process aimed at developing skills and abilities, stay away from injuries and stay focussed. Where each workout serves a purpose in the bigger picture of your personal goals
From big to small
Without going into too much detail you can look at training in general. In order to know what you want you need to set a goal. Once a goals is set you need to determine how long you have or want to spend achieving this goal, this is the macrocycle. The macrocycle can reach up to 4 years for an Olympic athlete. This period is sliced into smaller part, called mesocycle. It is build by 3 weeks of training, followed by a week of active recovery. In this mesocycle you will find microcycles where 3-5 workouts are combined.
As for the workout we can even dive deeper. A workout is designed with sets like a warm up, core and cooldown. In each set there is at least one block or it might be a combination of blocks. Each blok is built with three basic ingredients: activity, duration and intensity.
This sound overwhelming, so that is why you can dig deeper by reading our workout and training plan explainers with a more detailed explanation. For this blog we will stick to a training plan and it’s workouts and advice on how to get started with both.
To make a training plan as effective as possible, several key components are required. Each of these components is designed to enhance different aspects of your athletic performance. We can break them down in the following.
In order to get to your desired goal a combination of all the above is needed. In each plan this combination is fine tuned to get the desired effect, prevent injuries and over training and to keep it manageable.
One of the most effective ways to optimize your training program is through periodization. Periodization refers to the process of dividing training into phases, each with a specific focus. These phases ensure your body continues to progress without hitting a plateau. Here’s how periodization typically works.
One of the most common mistakes athletes make is pushing too hard for too long. This means they don’t allow their body to fully recover, which can lead to overtraining or worse. This is where the body becomes fatigued and performance (can sharply) declines. Signs of overtraining include persistent soreness, mood changes, lack of motivation to hear out, and decreased performance. All plan we design incorporate recovery days or even days off without training at all. However, it is up to you to stick to the plan, follow its variation in intensity and sit still if there is a recovery/rest day planned.
Let’s address some of the most frequently asked questions about training for athletes:
Every athlete has personal goals. These can diver for all of us, however when you start working out a plan should reflect those goals. Setting clear, measurable and manageable goals gives your training plan and it’s workouts purpose and direction.
With this set you can find yourself a suitable plan.
Required gear
To get more out of your plan a compatible device is a must for every athlete. It will help you to track your daily activities, and when the device is compatible with Trainingpeaks (our analysis tool) you can synchronise the workouts with your device. So once you start your deivce it will ask if you want to do the training which is set for that day in the plan or the workout you upload to it. This can be either a watch or (cycling) computer.
Besides this you need a measuring tool to see what you are doing.
For different sports there are different units. It is up to you to
