Inverted Periodization - Introduction to a New Way of Training

Since I started to coach athletes over 15 years ago, I always contested the traditional method of training that was available at the time. The traditional periodization that implies that ideally an athlete can only peak for an event one or maybe two times per year made no sense based on what I had experienced and started teaching others. As an athlete myself, I wanted to do well in most races of the season and not only in one or two.

In addition, I noticed the strong lack of development of proper motor skills, technique, speed and strength during the "base phase" that so many training partners religiously applied to their training. In fact, most of them started the "base phase" faster than when they finished, and faster than their season races! Obviously it made no sense adding volume in training when the basic foundation of skills were not yet developed!

Today I see many athletes with poor motor pattern development increasing their chances of injury and poorer performance due to the unsuitable volume they do during the base phase of the traditional "periodization" training approach. I guess for many, the fear of "not conquering the distance" is responsible for most of the over-distance training done out there -- and many of the mistakes!

Not satisfied with the information I was getting from coaches and books to explain the reasoning behind using a traditional periodization theory for multisport training, I began to develop an alternative way of training that culminated in an article about "Inverted Training Periodization" that was published in the USA Triathlon Coaching Journal in 2003. As the name implies, inverted periodization focuses on developing technique, strength and speed first and endurance closer to your event(s).

More and more there are increasing numbers of coaches and sports scientists contesting the traditional periodization of training. The basis of training periodization was founded several decades ago when scientific knowledge was far from complete and athletes' workloads, results, and demands were much lower then they are currently. At that time traditional training periodization as a division of the whole seasonal program into smaller periods and training units was proposed -- and generally accepted without much challenge.

Due to the small number of publications and the reasonably small population of scientists studying the field, this "traditional periodization" was republished many times and became a universal and monopolistic approach to training planning and analysis without much debate or study. However, recently further progress in sport science has reinforced the extreme contradictions between traditional periodization and the successful experiences of prominent coaches and athletes.
In triathlon especially, it has become clearer that athletes guided solely by heart rate monitors and powermeters or those who follow a pre-determined training cycle using the principles of traditional periodization (one in which there is a "base phase" complemented by the unchallenged, generic approach of training for 2 or 3 weeks followed by a recovery week) rarely reach their full potential and are often prone to injury, poor focus and a lack of self-awareness. Most of the athletes today are guided only by "numbers" and often lose their ability to interpret their bodies' responses to training.

Further, it is becoming increasingly clear that triathlon is littered with the wreckage of professional and age group athletes who have destroyed their body's immune function, endocrine balance and biomechanical health often permanently or for very long durations due to highly catabolic approaches to training -- too much volume, too long "intense" sessions, little explosive speed or strength built into their training, and a general lack of emphasis on basic motor skill development. As a result, the strong focus on aerobic "gains" without the corresponding balance of more anabolic training sessions leads to increasing breakdown, generally evident in increasingly poor performances, greater fatigue, lower sex drive, more injuries, inability to concentrate, "puffiness" and weight gain, blood sugar fluctuations and insulin resistance and a littany of other symptoms.

The negative consequences of traditional periodized training have begun to be outlined in sports science literature as a pattern of drawbacks and outright contradictions between traditional theory and desired outcomes, including:

1) Inability to provide multi peak performances during the season (one shot Charlie)

2) Drawbacks of long lasting mixed training programs (an emphasis on "zone training" and aerobic capacity makes you slower)

3) Negative interactions between non-compatible workloads that induced conflicting training responses

4) Insufficient training stimuli to help highly qualified athletes to progress, as a result of mixed training (too tired to train properly)

However, unlike traditional periodization, which usually tries to develop many abilities simultaneously, the Inverted Periodization applies training stimulation of carefully selected fitness components for a set block of time, an approach sometimes referred to as "Block Periodization." 

In his recent book about Block Periodization , Dr. Vladimir Issurin comments: "The basis of contemporary training was founded several decades ago when scientific knowledge was far from complete and athletes' workloads, results, and demands were much lower then they are currently."

As our sport evolves, we triathlon coaches and athletes need to acknowledge the increasing evidence of flaws in the general approach to training that is common with the approach used by many major coaching companies today. The Inverted Periodization provides an alternative to training that might better suit athletes' needs. "Thinking outside of the box" should be the general rule for any athlete or coach looking to improve his or her abilities. If you feel that you have reached a plateau in your training, if you're constantly tired and have yet to reach your goals, then maybe it's time for a change in your training method!

More About Inverted Periodization here