Over the last couple of days I’ve found some really cool online resources that I have found really useful and thought provoking.  Most of my reading has been directed to the topic of Periodisation so I thought it would be interesting to share this in a Blog!  In Part 1 I am going to discuss the organisation of the training into phases and talk about how those ‘phases’ should be distributed according to stage of development.

In preparing this blog I have collated articles from coaches with more than 40 years experience in Tennis and who are at the forefront of the sport science research into the periodisation of training programmes.  For more information please check out Issue 36 of the International Tennis Federation (ITF) Coaching & Sport Science Review (CSSR).  I’d also highly recommend taking a look at Tennis iCoach which is the coach education subscription website of the ITF.

I also came across a gem of  a website (CVASPS) Central Virginia Sport Performance which is run by Jay DeMayo who has been the Head Strength and Conditioning Coach for Men’s and Women’s Basketball at the University of Richmond since October 2005.  He is making a lot of the Eastern block research more accessible and it rekindled my fire for further reading into the practises of the Soviet and Eastern European sport scientists and coaches of the 1960s-1980s.  In particular I have been studying the work of Natalia and Yuri Verkhoshansky and reading about their latest book “Special Strength Training: Manual for Coaches.”  We will be looking at the concept of Special Strength Training as it relates to periodisation in more detail in Part 2.

This blog will discuss periodisation for both juniors and professionals, as well as males and females. I hope that it will
generate a great amount of discussion between coaches around the world and I would be happy to receive your feedback on any of the points raised.

Introduction to the APA Periodisation System

Simply put, periodisation can be considered a process of structuring training into phases to maximise athletes’ chances of achieving peak performance, and therefore their competitive goals (Bompa, 1999).

APA provides Strength & Conditioning services to a complete spectrum of athletes from 5 year old children all the way up to professional athletes.  For this reason, I like to think of the process of achievement of ‘peak performance’ as a journey.  In order to truly peak the athlete will need to have first fully optimised their overall physical potential and then spent enough time fine tuning their sports skills to realise this potential in the competitive arena.  This process is thought to take in the region of 10 years and 10,000 hours so our training plans need to reflect the stage of development of our athletes. Therefore at APA we subscribe to a Long Term Athlete Development Model (LTAD) and break the training down into stages.  Puberty (see below) is a key period in a young athlete’s life as it represents the point in time when we can begin to train the athlete with more advanced forms of training.  This usually occurs around 12 years old for girls and 14 years old for boys although it can typically occur up to two years earlier or later.  In my experience it tends to be earlier for girls and later for boys.

Table 1.  APA 6 Stages of Development

As it relates to periodisation we have different approaches to periodisation for each of these Levels.  The Table below shows how at APA we gradually put more emphasis on achievement of a ‘peak’ performance.  A double periodisation phase means that in the Annual cycle there will be two cycles of preparation and two cycles of competition.

Below are a few key points made by Piotr Unierzyski (University School of Physical Education, Poznan, Poland).  These points were in the context of guidelines for young Tennis players aged 12-14 years but I think they are pretty applicable to any young athete’s periodisation.

• Two peaks can be scheduled for 14 year old players (for extremely well-prepared and talented players the plan can be divided into 3 cycles with three peaks), but it remains important to have relatively long training/preparatory periods.
• The younger/less experienced players are, the more time they need to learn/improve particular skills. It therefore follows that these players should practice proportionately more and partake in longer preparatory periods than advanced juniors and professionals.  
•  The quantity and QUALITY of training is important (van Aken, 1999).  
• An annual plan, “doubled” with two preparatory and two competitive phases, is appropriate for 12-14 year olds. (This agrees with APA Periodisation Model).  
• From 15-16 (girls) and 17-18 (boys) years of age, planning and periodisation takes on a philosophy and structure similar to that adopted with professional players.  
• Improvement is still important, but programs should be tailored to elicit peak performance at the most important event(s) and less important tournaments used to optimise preparation.  
• The structure of all cycles should take into account the school calendar (i.e. holidays).

Below is a Table which gives some considerations to the amount of training and competition that would be appropriate for a young athlete (female) moving out of Level 4 and into Level 5 of our APA Training System.  This would probably equate to a girl of 13/14 yrs moving out of 14-unders (double periodisation) and into 16-unders at aged 15 (triple).  For boys the equivalent could be moving out of 16-under and into 18-under.

Periodisation in Tennis

As you will know now APA spends a lot of its time working with the sport of Tennis, which brings a number of specific challenges.  Periodisation is perfectly suited to sports like Weightlifting, Swimming and Track & Field which have long preparation periods and only a few major competitions to prepare for each year.

Tennis is not ideally suited to Periodisation.  Periodisation in tennis can be quite complicated due to a number of factors. First and foremost, tennis does not have an official off-season like many other sports. Tennis players don’t have the luxury of just one major event every four years (the Olympics) or even one or two major events per year. In fact, tennis with its many different ranking systems and different levels of tournaments offers many different opportunities for all levels of players to compete each and every week of the year. As an example top professionals and juniors try to “peak” for the Grand Slam tournaments (the juniors obviously for the junior Grand Slams), but at the same time are cognisant of the need to play well at other tournaments to improve or “protect” their rankings.  For example, we recommend the following training phase lengths for our Level 5 and Level 6 athletes but in Tennis they very rarely meet these guidelines.

For example, research has shown that:

almost 50% of the top 100 ITF ranked junior
girls fail to plan 1 block of 8 weeks and 1
block of 4 weeks (Raabe & Verbeek, 2004).

Now there are some ways around this and I am going to now talk about the Periodisation Model that we use at APA, known as the ‘Concurrent Training Model’.  When training time is pressed this is the most efficient way to organise training so that athletes don’t have to wait for weeks and weeks before they can train at the intensity that will prepare them for their sports.   This is especially important in a sport like Tennis where we only have the athletes for 2-4 weeks at a time!!!

I don’t want to get into the specifics of the different types of models (Linear, Wave, Block, Undulating, Conjugated etc). For me I use the term ‘concurrent’ to be a catch all term to describe the concept that we use which means we train all forms of biomotor ability all the time; it’s just the blend that changes.  But before I get into the specifics of the APA Periodisation model I need to introduce some basic terms to describe the different types of ‘phases’ that are typically in use when planning training.

Training Phases

The process of structuring training in order to achieve a peak is usually built around the concept of training ‘phases.’ Each phase contains different training contents largely reflecting that phase’s generic goal: preparation, peaking, competition, and transition.  These are the phases that are used at APA.  The specific terms used at APA are:

• Preparation– Basic and Advanced Training  
• Pre-Competition
• Taper
• Competition
• Active Rest

Preparation:

For those of you who haven’t come across these terms before the ‘preparation’ phase is fairly self explanatory: it’s typically a period of broad motor development to achieve higher levels of overall athleticism but at the same time it must increasingly target the factors that limit tennis performance.  The focus shifts from coordination, general strength training and aerobic conditioning early in the phase to more specific explosive power work, resisted speed drills and high intensity aerobic/anaerobic work later in the phase. The tennis training load also increases throughout preparation period starting from very low training load and building to a high training load.

Pre-Competition:

Competition is often the most anxious time for players, and pre-competition phases are a must if players are to build their competitive confidence (a quality that reflects how individuals feel about their game and importantly the work they have done). These phases should commence at least two weeks prior to the start of a tour.  Tournament blocks in Tennis typically last for no longer than five weeks, and the event prioritisation and peak performance is typically pitched toward week two or three of the tour.  This means there is usually 1-2 weeks of less important competition planned before the first major tournament (known as pre-competition).  Tennis load is at its highest and S&C load tends to be lower but of a very high intensity.

APA Training Approach- Earn the right to endure a quality

Over the last few years  my approach has changed in a number of ways.  This relates to two aspects: The training model (Linear vs. Concurrent) and the particular focus of Pre-Competition training.

Linear versus Concurrent Training Approaches

I used to follow  Matveyev’s early linear or traditional model (Matveyev, 1964) in my approach to the Preparation and Pre-Competition phases for all athletes. Summarised as the combination of low intensity/high volume training progressing to high intensity/low volume training so as to coincide with one or more competitive peaks during every macrocycle, the model has been widely used across sports. Generally, from a physical perspective, it moves from a hypertrophy phase (General Preparation), to a strength phase (Specific Preparation), to a  power phase (pre-competition).

• Preparation: I now believe Training should become increasingly non linear as athletes mature.

I still think that young athletes need to focus predominantly on ‘loading’ progressively from hypertrophy to strength to power.  However, that doesn’t mean they will not be ‘practising’ or using lighter loads on different aspects of the Force-Velocity curve at each phase.  For example, our young athletes practice Olympic weightlifting all year round.

With my more advanced athletes there will be ‘loading’ of all parts of the Force-Velocity curve from the beginning of the preparation period.  It will be the emphasis that I will shift BUT all forms of training are present from the outset. This means that advanced athletes will be loading up on hypertrophy, strength and power either in the same session or at least in the same week (microcycle).

Basic vs. Advanced

To differentiate between the level of athlete and the most appropriate forms of training I use the term ‘Basic’ and ‘Advanced.’ Taking the example of strength, I would classify hypertrophy as a basic method so that means our young athletes can overload this aspect.  But I would classify Maximal strength training as an advanced method so our coaches know that this shouldn’t be a focus of overload unless the athlete is more advanced.

In APA’s Training System I categorise someone who is in Level 4 as being ready to do more Advanced Loading.  The main thing we have to try and do here is marry the tennis tournament schedule with the physical needs of the athlete.  Often the athlete has a very advanced ‘Tennis age’ and is on a triple or multiple peak tennis plan but their physical develop needs would be better served with longer periods of less interrupted preparation!!!!

Role of Pre-Competition

• Pre-Competition: I now believe this should be a Work Capacity phase, not a Power phase (as it relates to Tennis)  

I may come into criticism from some of the true advocates of the Soviet system but I have to bear in mind two things:

1- that Tennis has an extremely short period of time to prepare physically.  This is typically 2-8 weeks.  Therefore, I typically try to develop the qualities of Maximal Strength and Explosive power concurrently during the Preparation phase.  If an athlete is weak then obviously they will spend more time on developing strength.   If I waited until the pre-comp phase to develop power capabilities I would have about 1 or 2 weeks maximum to do this.

2- that Tennis is a power-endurance sport.  Yes the energy demands for each sprint come predominantly from anaerobic-Alactic pathways but these bouts of high intensity exercise have to be sustained by aerobic oxidation in the recovery periods and they have to be repeated during something like 38-80 changes of direction per set and 300-500 bursts over an entire match!!!!

My goal in the pre-competition phase is to prepare the body more specifically for the event demands.  This means I will do up to 3 sessions aimed at increasing the conditioning level of the athlete, and specifically power endurance. Having developed a good base of aerobic/anaerobic fitness as well as speed, strength and power in the preparation phase it is now time to learn to endure those qualities. This is where we do this.  This usually lasts 2 weeks and can occur ‘on the road’ in an ideal scenario as the athlete is competing but at lesser important tournaments.  Here we can target a few sessions of conditioning at the beginning to middle of the tournament and do one more at the end of the tournament.

And Finally…….

• Taper- Remove fatigue and sharpen the sword  

Yes, it is important to avoid accumulation of fatigue at the end of this phase, so before MAJOR tournaments I will add in a Taper week which is often during the tournament before the most important one.  Here I strip away the volume of conditioning work  and actually focus back on the strength and power workouts we did in the late preparation phase -usually a few times in the week- but at a lower volume than in the preparation phase.  Usually early in the week we will do a strength orientated session and later in the week it will be more explosive power orientated.  We don’t want to do anything that will accumulate fatigue so all drills should be anaerobic-alactic devoid of neural fatigue, and we prioritise tennis tactical goals as well as regenerative and injury prevention means of training.

• Peak– the time of the most important competitions

Everything that we have discussed so far has prepared us for this peak; the time when the athlete should be psychologically, physically and technically/tactically at their optimal level of readiness to perform at their highest level.

I hope you have found this information useful and I very much look forward to hearing your comments about the APA Training System and its approach to Periodisation.

Well it’s been a busy week for me getting the latest Ebook I’m writing finished and the highlight of the week was spending the day at the Middlesex Student S&C Conference.   

Anthony Turner organised another great line up of speakers covering biochemistry, nutrition, screening protocols and coaching science.  

For this first post I’m going to review Rob Walsh’s presentation on ‘Movement screens and Integrative Corrective Exercise.’  

Rob said he had been working with the students at Harrow school for a few years now and had gone from his first day where he saw around 5 good clean screenings of an Overhead squat out of 800 students to now having students at 15 years old lifting 175kg for 8 reps on the Deadlift.  

He started by showing us this Snatch balance performance and asked us a) if it was any good and b) to find the fault.

We agreed that it was good.  The symptom of the fault was that he would fall forward with the weight but the cause was a very slight heal raise of the left foot.  Now he went on to explain later that this type of fault could be described as a ‘mouse in the room.’  He said that for professional Olympic lifters then this mouse in the room would be very important.  To squat deep butt to floor (B2F) you need around 20-30 degrees dorsi flexion.  This lifter probably lacked about 5 degrees in his left foot but that was enough to throw off his lift and the imbalance got magnified as he went up in weight.  

However, for most athletes you need to focus on finding the elephant in the room.  Rob said that several screening tools have come on the market of which the Functional Movement screen (FMS) is the most widely used and well known.  The problem with the FMS is that even for experienced coaches it takes at least 12 minutes and up to about 20 minutes for less experienced coaches.  This is too long when you have a large group.  

So at Harrow and in other professional settings where he works, he has decided to use an Overhead squat and a Single leg squat as these TOGETHER will reveal most of the elephants in the room and allow you to quickly determine the key programme considerations. Below are the key aspects each of the squats highlight 

Overhead Squat:  

– Movement pattern  

-Flexibility  

-Sagittal plane  

Single leg squat:  

-Sub-Systems (slings)  

-Strength Stability  

-Transverse and Frontal plane  

Chicken or the Egg?

Now all these screens are designed to detect a muscle imbalance, which is a combination of a motor pattern issue, a tightness and a weakness.  Rob said the problem is ‘Death by Over Analysis,’  who cares if the athlete got tight and then got weak, or they got weak and then got tight or the motor pattern was faulty so they got weak etc etc.  In 99% of cases the elephant in the room will be because of one of three things:  

1. Blocked ankles  

2. Weak posterior hips  – especially glute medius  

3. Thoracic mobility  

Instructions for testing:

-Don’t wear shoes- the heel lift will promote more dorsi flexion  

-Don’t coach them  

-Save time by putting their feet in the correct place for them (shoulder width apart and facing forward)  

-Do 5 reps in each plane (this will also test the movement under fatigue)  

-Ask them to go ‘as deep as possible without falling over’  

Key points on Overhead Squat:

Rob asks the athletes to go as low as possible.  Apparently the NASM only ask athletes to go to parallel (which is about 120 degrees at the knee).  The picture above is at 90 degrees.  I learnt from Rob that you need about 10-15 degrees dorsi flexion to 90 degrees (which is also known as a half squat).  You need about 15-20 degrees to hit the parallel squat and about 20-30 degrees to hit a full squat (B2F).

  I also learnt that you should expect the spine to stay in neutral up to a depth of thighs parallel.  After this point the pelvis will have to tuck under into a posterior tilt to make room for the femur.  He also said that the pelvic tucking is nearly always attributed to tight hamstrings but actually in many cases blocked ankles are the cause.  Don’t assume it’s hamstrings.  

I asked Rob about the ‘Scottish hip’ that I had heard Stuart McGill talk about at the UKSCA conference a few years back. Rob agreed that for athletes whose hips get impinged when their feet are parallel will be allowed to turn their feet out but it will be noted on the screening results.  This impingement can be confirmed with an assessment of their hips on a couch, where they will probably present with tightness in internal rotation.  

Key points on Single leg Squat:

  Rob looks for 45 degrees bend at the leg on this one.  His rational is that in most sports it is very rarely necessary to have more bend at the knee when on the sports field.   The hands are on the hips and the free leg is slightly bent in front.  

The main thing to look out for are:

-hip drop (glute medius weakness relative to hip adductors)  

-lean back (you can correct this with cable chops)  

-lean forward (you can correct this with cable lifts)  

Well that sums up the review of our first presentation.  Hope you like it!

Below are details of the next APA Workshop on Speed, Agility and Quickness Training for Sports.

Date: May 24th

Location: Gosling Sports Park

Time: 9-12pm

Cost: £30  with 3 license points for Tennis Coaches 

For those of you who made the last workshop (of the same title) I encourage you to come to this one too! I want to pick up where we left off on the theory and get stuck in to some more practical and really consolidate our learning. 

For those who didn’t make the last one, don’t worry, I’ll give you a summary of the key theory on the day so you understand the key concepts behind the drills!  

Full details are at the link on the website

To wet your appetite check out this video of some of the work APA have been doing with our pro team Tennis players at Gosling Tennis Academy this winter pre-season!!

Please enjoy our latest Blog contribution from APA coach Fabrizio Gargiulo        

The human body is vastly complex, comprised of several ‘systems’. Some are commonly known, others less so. Today we take a look at one of these systems known as the Myofascial system. Most people understand the make up of the body as a series of muscles, tendons and ligaments attached to the skeleton, all surrounded by skin and protecting the vital internal organs. In this blog I aim to challenge the belief that muscles are individual and can operate in isolation and to explain why we (at APA) train our athletes predominantly in compound exercises.

The term Myofascial refers to the unit comprised of muscle and connective tissue. Myofascial meridians join the bones, muscles, tendons, ligaments, and connective tissue throughout the body in a web-like chain covering the whole body from the ground up to the head. The connective tissue is what connects a chain of muscles together. The muscles could and should be viewed, not as lots of individual muscles attached to bones, but as a single muscle running from head to toe that attaches at many points in order to allow movement. Indeed muscle is not even attached to bone directly but through the connective tissue – fascia. All too easily, however, we are seduced into the convenient mechanical picture that a muscle ‘begins’ or originates here and ‘ends’ or inserts there, and therefore its function is to approximate these two points. This is certainly how it is taught throughout academia, perhaps for simplicity, however a deeper understanding of the connective tissue enables the S&C coach to better plan and articulate training programmes.

The fascia acts as a ‘double-bag’ surrounding the bones, cartilage, and synovial fluid in the inner bag, the periosteum and ligaments forming the inner bag. The muscle fibres being in the outer bag, with the outer bag itself being formed of structures called fascia, intermuscular septa, and myofascia. In total all the bodies structures are connected via fascia, this can from time to time cause problems when one area is placed under stress or trauma, there is likely a chain reaction to another connected part of the body. However it can also work in the advantage of the body with the ‘transfer of tension’ enabling some outstanding feats of strength and athleticism.

The principle researcher in the area of Myofascial meridians for many years has been Thomas Myers. Myers’ talks about the influence of injury on the fascial system with an analogy – if a tree falls on the corner of a building, the corner collapses but the building can remain intact. Much treatment therapy of the body operates with this view of the body – fix the broken part. If one looks at the body as a tensegrity model, however, the entire structure will give when a stress is applied in one corner. “Load it too much and the structure will ultimately break”. Ultimately the strain placed on a structure is distributed throughout that structure and the tensegrity of the structure may have a weak point, which I likely to be the place of collapse or in the human body, point of pain.

Within the human body there have been several ‘lines’ of fascia identified (sometimes known as sling systems) as shown in the diagram.

Athletic movements are dynamic by nature and utilise many if not all of these lines when performing sporting actions such as running, throwing, jumping, kicking a ball or swimming.  It is important therefore that we as strength and conditioning coaches consider the implications of the training we administer to our athletes – ultimately the goal of which is to improve performance and reduce injury risk.

Compound movement training is nothing new, but it is something we advocate highly at APA. Our athletes from a young age are taught strength exercises such as how to squat, lunge, push and pull. With sports such as tennis being multi-directional and explosive, we also focus on teaching landing mechanics, jumping mechanics, change of direction mechanics and Olympic lifting techniques. . Compound exercises are an excellent way of getting the body to utilise many of the lines or sling systems of fascia in the body to stabilise movement, produce power and decelerate the mass of the body.

 As our athletes develop, the early teaching of compound movements such as squats or Olympic lifts will gradually become loaded exercises. Thus enabling us to strengthen the entire chain of the body; myofibrils, connective fascia and the nervous system that feeds them in order to improve athletic performance. Once an athlete has fully developed, the intensity of the training they complete will be the increasing factor, designed to replicate the stress placed on them during competitive situations.

Specificity vs. Athletic training?

There has long been a discussion about training athletes in the specific movements for their sport. The methodology used at APA is to establish a fundamental athletic base from which sport specific training can be added onto. Our predominant athletic population is tennis players, however many of our young players (5-12yrs) will play various other sports alongside tennis, until they choose to focus on one sport. We encourage young players to participate in many sports whilst they are still developing the cognitive and proprioceptive skills needed. However as APA operates in a tennis environment, we train and improve the movements specific to tennis alongside gross motor skills and compound athletic exercises. One of the primary reasons for compound exercises being used is the range or extent of muscles used as part of the exercise and the cross-over or translation to movements within sport.

Examples of which can be found in the Olympic lifts – primarily challenging the superficial front and back lines – which focus on taking the body from a ‘triple flexed’ position to a ‘triple extended’ position under load. A not too distant example of a sporting move is the serve in tennis, although the added rotation and implements of the racquet and ball make it a more complex skill to complete, the muscular actions are very similar.

Running and squatting also utilise similar musculature and fascial lines…

The superficial front and back lines are predominantly used for both running and squatting.

Throwing and kicking a ball also challenge connective fascial systems and so benefit from training the lines and muscles used in each action, such as squatting, lunging, pushing, pulling, rotating and overhead pressing. The lateral and spiral lines are both involved in actions requiring a degree of rotation.

As you can see in all the photos above the body is being placed under severe mechanical stress and it is the fascia and connective tissue that is holding everything together. Without compound training, the myofibrils of the muscles would be the primary target of strength training as in isolation exercises such as leg extension or bicep curls. By training compound movements we are improving our athletes’ whole body and everything that goes into physically performing an explosive task.

If you are interested in using APA to help you improve your athletic performance please get in touch.

Fabrizio Gargiulo