discussion post 13

Sports Conditioning Plan Instructions

What I’m looking for in these Sports Conditioning Plans:

I want to know that you are capable of planning the conditioning for your team throughout the phases

or seasons of the year (12-month period) that encompasses all the components (i.e. agility,

coordination, endurance, etc.) of training that we covered in the last half of the class, not just strength

training (as is too often the case). I need to know that you are conceptually thinking through your

various position players needing more emphasis in one component compared to another. Particularly,

for those of you who have many positions, each with different focus such as track & field or football, you

might even consider using the table to plan which positions will have the various components as a focus

for their training and when. You do not have to give me a week by week run-down of the workout of

every position player, but I want to see the “focus” or “goals” you have for your athletes for each of the

components as well as when you will cover what component and perhaps what drills from the

supplemental readings/book chapters/other credible sources you would incorporate into your team’s

training. As a sample I need to see one week’s plan including frequency, intensity, & duration of the

workouts.

Here are more detailed steps for completing the Conditioning Plan:

You need to research your sport, if you don’t already know the answer to this, to determine if it has 1

season, 2 seasons, or multiple seasons (or “peaks”) throughout the year. Think about when

championships or key competitions are, whether you have individual and team versions of the sport

(individual vs team tennis), or variations of the sport that go throughout the year (ice hockey vs roller

hockey). Does your sport even have an off-season?

Use the training phase row of the table that I provided you in the Table of Contents to plot when the

“big games” are for your sport as this will help you plan conditioning to peak when your players need to

peak. NC stands for National Championship, but it could be your district or regional matches/games, etc.

You could have many NCs or big games throughout the year….leading to the bicyclic or tricyclic training

program. Do not try to break this down further than tricyclic as this could increase the likelihood of

stress-related or repetitive stress injuries. Just prioritize the “biggest” 3 games for the purpose of your

training plan. This helps your athletes keep things in perspective too, to prevent every game from

seeming like the big game (leading to increased anxiety and reduced performance)…look at this a little

more globally (big picture).

Speaking of the big picture, use this table to keep the big picture in mind for the whole year so that you

can plan what the focus of that component’s training is at that time of year. This table will help you plan

when will you cover what with your athletes just like a training calendar. This is your game plan for

training with the entire year-at-a-glance. Provide a more detailed narrative of what drills you might

incorporate and more specifics with regard to frequency, intensity, duration below the table. Use the

table to show when you will focus on what aspects (i.e. goals for that component for that subphase of

the year), then provide more details of the conditioning plan below the table.

Use Figure 12.6 and 12.9 from the textbook to help you plan out your components below the row that

has subphases, general, specific, etc. This table merges the layout of the periodized trainings to include

all the components we discussed this semester. This table simply incorporates both views. Figure 13.13

& 13.14 are good examples of how the periodized training is applied to those sports. The table will be

filled out with what the focus or goals of that aspect of training are for that subphase of the year. Note:

the timing of training phases and subphases will vary depending on your sport—feel free to move these

as appropriate for your annual schedule. This is where you have to plan based on when your big games

are using the readings from particularly Modules 12 & 13. Everything you need to complete this plan is

scattered throughout the supplemental materials of the second half of this course.

Remember to include the snapshot of one week’s training so I can see that not only can you create the

annual periodized training, but how a specific week might look.

For example from your notes (early in this conditioning unit (p. 14-15 of your text)), you were given

periodized and non-periodized examples of training for strength that might look something like this:

–Monday: 4 sets of 12 to 15 RM (or replace this with a power workout of 30% of 1RM)

–Wednesday: 4 sets of 8 to 10 RM

–Friday: 3 to 4 sets of 4 to 6 RM

–Monday: 4 to 5 sets of 1 to 3 RM

For aerobic capacity, it might look more like running at 65% HR max (intensity) x days/wk (frequency) for

45 minutes (duration), for example. For some of the agility and speed drills, you might include some of

the sports-specific drills suggested in the readings. You don’t have to describe the instructions of the

entire drill for the plan, but just put the name of it down as to how you’ll train for speed or agility. Then

later, you might have the full description of the drill located in another section of your coaches

notebook, or after this class, you might come back to this plan and then flesh out the details of every

drill you want them to run within the plan itself. The purpose of this plan is to start your binder (with

some basic drills, and beginning details) that you can use to guide the training for your athletes. Each

season, update this binder with new drills and modified timing based on successes or struggles.

Mental/Psychological is not a component we talked about much, but I want you to plan when you might

focus on this with your athletes throughout the year. These could be stress management techniques,

exercises in visualization of successful execution of skills, or even quotes and empowering/inspirational

anecdotes that you might use to motivate your athletes in practice or in a game.

The coaches notebook for the conditioning section of the course is going to be again an outline of things

you (as the coach) need to consider, topics to cover with your team (perhaps later you could add talking

points), and then potentially consider adding a section that is an appendix of handouts for you to give

your players. This notebook will not be graded or even turned in, I just want you to be compiling all the

resources from this class into a usable binder of information on training for your athletes so you leave

with a resource guide at the end of the semester. All I ask you to do for this part of the conditioning

plan assignment is to create a table of contents with some parts fleshed out as described above that

will remind you later of what details to add to this notebook.

FAQs:

What are we suppose to put in the blank "month of fitness testing of athletes (pre-test/annual testing)"?

Answer: This is the month/date when you will do your initial testing on your athletes as described in the

first chapter of the conditioning unit. When is your pre-test going to be? For most, it may be August or

September as they are coming back to school. For others not related to school, it may be different.

How are we suppose to come up with the information that goes in the blanks for the outline/table?

Where do I find an example in the book of how to create a workout plan using duration, intensity, and

frequency?

Answer: See ch. 12, particularly Figure 12. 6 and 12.9 plus ch. 13 for several examples of periodized

training plans for different sports. Feel free to look at sports other than yours to get ideas. For the

frequency, intensity, duration examples see ch. 1 of Foran. Remember this is a culminating project so

you should be able to go back through the supplemental material and glean from it what applies to your

sport to create a nice Sports Conditioning Plan.

Some helpful pages here might be pgs.53, 75, 175, 275, and 282.

Sport-specific skills are found pgs 215-325 where you will want to find your own specific sport.

If you have a 2-sport athlete, what is the strategy for periodized training? Do you overlap 2 plans, treat it like a 2 peak cycle, or just pick a primary sport and not worry about the 2nd sport? How about blending club sports with school sports. I coach a travel softball team (freshman) and the high school cycle runs at different times than the club team cycle. I'm guessing I should treat this as a 2 peak cycle plan, 1 for the high school championship and 1 for the Nationals. Since the athletes are being coached by the high school coach part of the year, how can I make sure the plans are not contradictory? Answer: This seems appropriate for the 2 peak cycle. There is no controlling what the other teams’ coaches have their teams doing, but if you can have your athletes share what they are doing in their other training and other sports played as part of their assessment for you and keep up-to-date with changes, you can complement it as best you can unless you have many athletes from many different teams. In that case, you may have to make individual adaptations based on individual assessments of an athlete’s other activities. Is the fact they are freshman change anything? I noticed the reading recommended mono-cycle training for younger athletes. Answer: Yes, the younger the athlete, the more you should gravitate toward mono-cycle training. If a

two-peak cycle cannot be avoided, increase the rest/recovery periods and lower the overall intensity to

prevent injury.