Periodization and Psychomotor learning

[EIUvltr]

This is my response to the similarly named post in the coachs' forum since I cannot post there.

As far as the citation from Wikipedia, the post talks about Leo Metveyev as being one of the early pioneers of periodization along with Tudor Bompa. Bompa is a much more well-known scientist in the west due to the constant stream of books he still writes, which are good books but do have some contraversial issues as Tim pointed out. A lot of the different phases, and constituents of those phases were based off of studies on athletes with doping backgrounds(doping allows athletes to recover much faster and therefore are able to endure a much higher volume of training). However the theory of periodization still holds true. Even though you may not be able to handle the intensity and volume of Ben Johnson's workout (which Tudor was kind enough to give us in one of his books), you can still write up a similar workout that takes into account your trainability and workload capacity.

The history behind Metveyev is that he is the scientist which is credited with the well-known graph showing volume decreasing and intensity increasing as the training year goes on. This single graph is sometimes (even in university classrooms) tauted as the end-all be-all of periodization models. However if you read Metveyev's original text from the 1950s, it says that this variation of volume and intensity is but one of many possible models athletes can undergo. He talks about how athletes in anaerobic and aerobic sports may differ in the variation of volume and intensity. He also mentions that elite athletes may need a higher stimulus to cause an adaptation to training so while intensity increases, volume may actually increase as well. For some reason, all of this information was lost in translation when his work became available to the western world. We have a tendency to hear what we want to hear, and not take the time to learn everything there is to know about an idea before we begin to apply it.

[VaultMarq26]

He talks about how athletes in anaerobic and aerobic sports may differ in the variation of volume and intensity.

Do you think this has to do with the idea of muscular endurance happening at 12+ reps, Hypertrophy at 8-12, strength at 5-8, and power at 3-5?

[EIUvltr]

He talks about how athletes in anaerobic and aerobic sports may differ in the variation of volume and intensity.

Do you think this has to do with the idea of muscular endurance happening at 12+ reps, Hypertrophy at 8-12, strength at 5-8, and power at 3-5?

Well maybe, but your question is a bit flawed. Muscular Endurance is acheived by using 12+ reps, and hypertrophy is 8-12, but the rep range for strength is arguably 1-5 reps. However, power is not a product of a rep range since power takes into account time, whereas strength does not. Muscular strength is a measurement of your ability to exert maximum force regardless of time. Power is the amount of force you can generate within a given amount of time and it comes in various forms (speed/strength and strength/speed just to name a few)

Power is trained for after strength is developed. The goal of a power phase is to increase the slope of your force/time curve and decrease the length of it. This means being able to create more force in a shorter amount of time. Lifting weight in a quasi-isometric (very slowly) fashion as you would while squatting 95% of your 1RM will make you strong, but not very powerful. To become more powerful you need to incorporate a variety of ballistic movements (I.E. backwards shot throws and medball work), plyometrics (I.E. box jump variations), and several other ways such as an Isotonic method and Max-Ex training which I will not go into. What all these types of training have in common is that the movement itself is very quick, trains the eccentric loading capacity, and capitalize on the elastic properties and myotatic stretch reflexes of your muscles. This trains your body to increase the discharge rate of its motor units, and that is what will make you a better jumper, thrower, etc. Muscular strength by itself is just a base for training for power, power endurance or muscular endurance.

[EIUvltr]

for those of you out there that are savy to the theories and facts about training for a sport. I do realize that I am leaving a lot of information out, such as autogenic inhibition and other big words. I'm not trying to cover every single concept of strength and conditioning but rather just touch on a few of them. If anyone really wants to know more about the subject, there are books out there hundreds of pages long.

[lonestar]

What was/is your major and/or degree(s) in?

[EIUvltr]

Im an exercise science major, but 95% of my knowledge comes from research done outside of school. Getting the degree is really a means to an end for me, I'm literally obsessed with this stuff and spend hours every night just reading books and reading research articles from various journals. Unfortunately, most undergraduate programs are cardio-crazy and you would be damn lucky to find a program that emphasizes anaerobic adaptations to training.

[VaultMarq26]

You are right with all that info you gave. I was generalizing out of the NSCA's Strength and Conditioning book. I guess when I think of power I just automatically assume 1-3 reps of a power lift of some sort. So that is my bad for not being more specific.

I will say though, that here at marquette, resistance training is stressed over aerobic training for many issues including weight loss and increasing in bone mineral density. Anaerobic training is much more beneficial than aerobic training for an average person looking to have overall health.

[EIUvltr]

Um I don't know about that. I think Aerobic training probably has more health benefits for the average person considering Cardiovascular disease is the leading killer of americans, not osteoporosis. I was just alluding to the fact that most of the mainstream sports are at least partly anaerobic if not entirely in the case of the pole vault, and most of what you learn in undergrad will not help you train athletes. It is more geared towards the health components of fitness rather than the skill-related components.

As far as the power lifts thing... Power lifts are bench, deadlift and squat and these would more accurately be termed "strength lifts." One common mistake I see is the use of Olympic lifts as the primary exercise for increasing power. Olympic lifts are great, but they are not as good at making an athlete "powerful" as they are commonly thought to be. Instead of trying to explain myself, I'll quote a Tudor Bompa interview.

"T: Okay, what's another major mistake you see?

TB: The fallacy of Olympic weightlifting exercises! There are several strength coaches with Olympic lifting backgrounds. Unfortunately for them, they can't adjust their knowledge to the needs of strength training for sports. Strength training programs for sports must recognize that almost each sport involves different and specific muscle groups.

These muscles are called "prime movers" or the muscles performing the actual technical moves. Therefore, strength training exercises have to target the prime movers. The Olympic lifting exercises are rigidly targeting only certain muscle groups, often not very important for many sports.

T: Give us an example of what you mean.

TB: Take judo for instance. Once I listened to a presentation regarding strength training for judo. The speaker was your typical Olympic lifting coach. He went over snatches and the clean and jerk! When the organizers asked my opinion, I simply said that the whole idea is wrong because judo involves primarily the flexor muscles of the hips, abdominals, and trunk, not the extensors normally targeted by Olympic lifting moves. The lifting coach became very upset when he heard me say this and left the room!

The exact same thing happened with swimming. An Olympic lifting coach once again suggested (what else?) the clean and jerk and the snatch. I pointed out that he was really missing the actual prime movers used in swimming, the arms flexors. The coach's exercises were targeting exactly the opposite group of muscles, the extensors. How difficult is to understand such a basic concept in sports training?

Personally I'd use power cleans only for few sports such as linebackers in football and Greco-roman wrestling. I'd use clean and jerks for basketball players, performed with a medicine ball or a power ball.

This leads to another problem. The Olympic lifting coaches are using their own periodization, specific to Olympic lifting. Well, how much common sense does one need to have in order to understand that the Olympic lifting coaches have to adapt their training methodology to the periodization of that particular sport and not the other way around?"

[VaultMarq26]

You also have to remember that a 40 minute walk 5 times a week is sufficient for maintaining the cardiovascular system and even improving it in untrained individuals.

I wasn't debating that aerobic wasn't important. I was just stating that there are universities that stress more than just aerobic training.


All that being said...little of this is applipicable to pole vaulters. As you stated before, trained athletes need more of a stimulus during training than an average person. That is why downhill, wind-aided, and pullling an athlete are good ways to train sprinting......you get neural adaptations at a level above maximal. The same can be done with electric stimulation while lifting.

[EIUvltr]

that is true, there have been studies that show the neuromuscular adaptations to electrical stimulation are comparable to doing actual exercises. However, there is controversy over the effectiveness of overspeed training as well, but I don't really wanna get into that here.

[VaultMarq26]

Have you read much research on non-periodizied and HIT training. I have been taught since day one how single sets are inferior to multiple sets, and I fully believe this to be true, but I still have not found quality studies to back it up. They usually have uncontrolled variables or poor randimization.

You said you have done quite a bit of reading on your own. Can you point me to any good articles.

[EIUvltr]

Yes I have and the results are varied. Behm and Sale did a study called Intended Rather than Actual Movement Velocity Determines Velocity-Specific Training Response, Journal of Applied Physiology, Jan 1993; 74: 359-368

This study essentially showed that doing a high intensity isometric created as much explosiveness as moving a limb very quickly through a large range of motion. Interpret the results for yourself though, I had some issues with the fact that they used ankle dorsiflexion as a test movement as opposed to hip extension or some other movement more closely associated with power training.