Reverse periodisation

[thehog]

What it is? and is it actually that new?

The term has been used since around 1999 and even Chris Carmichael was using the "term" with Armstrong as way back as 2002.

Apparently it was some form of reverse East German training theology.

Triathlon use the theory a lot but basically now just call it periodisation - because that what it is.

So what is reverse periodisation for Team Sky?

 

[D-Queued]

What it is? and is it actually that new?

The term has been used since around 1999 and even Chris Carmichael was using the "term" with Armstrong as way back as 2002.

Apparently it was some form of reverse East German training theology.

Triathlon use the theory a lot but basically now just call it periodisation - because that what it is.

So what is reverse periodisation for Team Sky?

"The difference in approaches of these two models is essentially this – the traditional model commences with capacity (volume) and shifts towards power (intensity). The alternative model, as the name suggests, reverses this approach – commences with power and shifts toward capacity.”

In other words, go hard in all of your workouts... build to longer workouts.

Grossly oversimplifed above, but does that make sense/help answer the question?

Perhaps a better analogy is that this is the 'antacid' approach. i.e. Rather than L.S.D. (long, steady distance), you get to actually do some intensity work.

(Carmichael correctly references Tudor Bompa as the founder of Periodisation, but some of us actually trained under Tudor... way back when he was actually developing this.)

Dave.

 

[Race Radio]

I have trained this way for decades. Always felt it worked best for me

It could be argued that much of cycling trained this way prior to the specialization that you have today. Riders would do some base, followed by the intense Classics of the spring, then roll into the spring/summer Grand Tours

 

[JayKosta]

Starting with 'high intensity' can result in injury, if done in excess.

Intensity is certainly required to simulate improvement, but being able to train again after a scheduled recovery period is vital.
Having to extend the recovery period to heal due to excessive intensity is not productive.

Jay Kosta
Endwell NY USA

 

[Fortyninefourteen]

What it is? and is it actually that new?

The term has been used since around 1999 and even Chris Carmichael was using the "term" with Armstrong as way back as 2002.

Apparently it was some form of reverse East German training theology.

Triathlon use the theory a lot but basically now just call it periodisation - because that what it is.

So what is reverse periodisation for Team Sky?

It's when you put the period at the beginning of the sentence. EX:

.Lance Armstrong was the cleanest rider in history

 

[FitSsikS]

It's when you put the period at the beginning of the sentence. EX:

.Lance Armstrong was the cleanest rider in history

Hmm...I was going to suggest a similar theory.

Reverse periodisation = putting periods where you wouldn't normally put them.

This:

I never cheated unless the day ended with a 'y.' We trained long and hard.

Becomes this:

I never cheated. Unless the day ended with a 'y' we trained long and hard.

 

[DirtyWorks]

I stumbled upon this concept a couple of years ago after resuming riding and hating going so slow. Not like I was going super-fast before, but ughhh!

It is working great for me. I get real progress in power output within a set number of very few hours in a week to train. I never had a name for it though and get dismissed because it defies bicycle training culture.

 

[blutto]

"The difference in approaches of these two models is essentially this – the traditional model commences with capacity (volume) and shifts towards power (intensity). The alternative model, as the name suggests, reverses this approach – commences with power and shifts toward capacity.”

In other words, go hard in all of your workouts... build to longer workouts.

Grossly oversimplifed above, but does that make sense/help answer the question?

Perhaps a better analogy is that this is the 'antacid' approach. i.e. Rather than L.S.D. (long, steady distance), you get to actually do some intensity work.

(Carmichael correctly references Tudor Bompa as the founder of Periodisation, but some of us actually trained under Tudor... way back when he was actually developing this.)

Dave.

...Tudor eh...yeah, way back when, we trained ( thru our coach at the time ) with Tudor ( mostly on the strength part of the program...an idea which btw has been quite thoroughly trashed by some bright lights on this forum...but which oddly enough has been used recently in some form by Sky )...

...we also had a lot of help from a rowing coach who was doing his Masters at the time ( in exercise physiology )....his reading of the history of training had Tudor as a direct successor to the Lydiard system ( which was embraced wholesale by the Soviets and then fine tuned by iron-curtain guys like Tudor )...

...a runner training a strength coach training a rower training a cyclist...kinda weird path but it worked...real well in fact...and I'm sure that these ideas have had some effect on the swimming world ....as the rowing coach in this scenario said on more than a few occassions a body is just a body, and with a well trained body and a good application of the specific mechanics one would be well on the way to a chance at success...

Cheers

blutto

 

[D-Queued]

Note that part of the theory behind classic periodization is that when you start 'speed training', you are actually de-fitnessing (if that is a word). You sacrifice your endurance (overall fitness) for short, race-type specific, high-intensity work with a single event focus.

Given that GTs are actually some of the longest rides, and certainly longest in a continuous series, that a cyclist might do in a year, maybe that helps explain the reverse periodization concept.

But, I am just wildly guessing on that point...

...Tudor eh...yeah...

...a runner training a strength coach training a rower training a cyclist...kinda weird path but it worked...real well in fact...and I'm sure that these ideas have had some effect on the swimming world ....as the rowing coach in this scenario said on more than a few occassions a body is just a body, and with a well trained body and a good application of the specific mechanics one would be well on the way to a chance at success...

Cheers

blutto

Of course, on the rowing side of that equation the National Team qualifying tests* included the dreaded bicycle ergometer test... a number of weight tests... and a running test...

We were told that some of the rowers were setting International records on the bike erg...

Does it all make sense now?

Dave.

*These were used up until the boycotted Olympics, after which Concept II ergometers started to be used more commonly as they were introduced in 1981... while CRASH B indoor rowing competitions started in 1980... by 1986, there wasn't a boathouse in Boston that wasn't full of the (nasty) things

 

[coinneach]

any of you guys read the Grahame Obree book on training methods? Sounds a lot like reverse periodisation, not that I totally understand either(!) but no body, even on the Clinic, has accused GO of anything dodgy

 

[Wallace and Gromit]

...(nasty) things

There's not much on which the Forum ever agrees, but surely the inherent nastiness of C2 ergometers would be such a subject. Evil devices.

 

[Doofus]

The idea of doing a block of VO2 intensity before working on threshold, or doing a limited amount concurrently with threshold, is to raise the aerobic ceiling (what they call "headroom" over on the Wattage forum) in order to help raise threshold higher.

Rather than assuming aerobic development is a linear process (work a lot at 2mml or under, then work a lot at 4mml or under, then cap it off with VO2), it treats aerobic development as a process of working endurance, threshold, and VO2 together, but varying the amount of time spent on each the farther/closer one is to competition.

Sebastian Coe trained in a vaguely similar manner. His father Peter would have him work all energy systems during the winter, although the focus was still on lower intensities.

It can work, but I don't know how healthy it would be for someone who isn't a full-time athlete. Maintaining high intensity during the winter, even if its only once a week, is pretty taxing on your endocrine system.

Of course if you were (ahem) helping that system out, you'd be recovering just fine....

 

[thehog]

I've tried reverse periodisation.


Basically I'd wake up and start drinking around 10am. I'd finish around noon and go to sleep for 2-3 hours whereby I'd wake up and place a few bets on the nags then start drinking again. I'd eventually pass out around 3-4am.

I found this much better then the normal sleep wake pattern.

 

[Fortyninefourteen]

I've tried reverse periodisation.


Basically I'd wake up and start drinking around 10am. I'd finish around noon and go to sleep for 2-3 hours whereby I'd wake up and place a few bets on the nags then start drinking again. I'd eventually pass out around 3-4am.

I found this much better then the normal sleep wake pattern.

My wife tried reverse periodisation.

She pretends nothing happened for 2 days, then has her period, then has PMS.

 

[DirtyWorks]

It can work, but I don't know how healthy it would be for someone who isn't a full-time athlete. Maintaining high intensity during the winter, even if its only once a week, is pretty taxing on your endocrine system.

Of course if you were (ahem) helping that system out, you'd be recovering just fine....

This method works great for me. I think maybe you are assuming that there's quite a bit of volume with the intensity? There's enough length of time to tax the aerobic systems in developing more power but never too much because the power output just flattens out beyond a point and that doesn't help. For me anyway, there isn't much volume at high intensity.

 

[Froome19]

Originally it was used in the 1970's by the German Athletics team as far as I know...

 

[thehog]

Originally it was used in the 1970's by the German Athletics team as far as I know...

Sounds to me you're searching for the answers.

 

[gerundium]

it's like building a pyramid from the top down.

 

[thehog]

it's like building a pyramid from the top down.

Impossiable?

 

[Froome19]

Sounds to me you're searching for the answers.

Nope not so..

 

[thehog]

Nope not so..

OK. Good.

But I'd like to hear your own words on Sky's total domination of the Tour. Rather than Sky's doctrine. Why do you think they were so strong?

The Vuelta winner from 2010 and 2nd LBL couldn't even barely attack and gain time.

 

[Krebs cycle]

"The difference in approaches of these two models is essentially this – the traditional model commences with capacity (volume) and shifts towards power (intensity). The alternative model, as the name suggests, reverses this approach – commences with power and shifts toward capacity.”

In other words, go hard in all of your workouts... build to longer workouts.
.

Notice in Nick's article he refers to Charlie Francis. Sprint and power athletes esp those involved in sprint endurance type events, just call it "short to long" training. Develop speed first and then gradually lengthen it out. Some coaches like a mix of both short to long and long to short, but in Australia all of the fastest 400m times have been set by athletes that generally use a short to long approach. In sprint canoe, they use the same approach. In rowing and track cycling same again.

I think the term "reverse periodisation" is a bit of a furphy anyway. In all of those above examples, nobody simply works on high intensity training ONLY in base training phase and then shifts to low intensity volume work during pre-competition. The basic idea is simply that you never stray too far away from high intensity training in the entire yearly macrocycle. It is simply non-linear periodisation.

However, one overriding principle always remains that cannot be "reversed" in any way shape or form and that of course is progressive overload. eg: Include both VO2max intervals and aerobic base work from day dot but just gradually overload both as time passes and fitness improves.

The other thing that is a bit of a furphy (as noted by several people here) is that traditional linear periodisation (the generally recognized founder of which is Matveyev, not Bompa) isn't really what is done in practice because those principles are based on 1, 2 or 3 peak years whereas many sports have long competition phases. I think coaches and athletes (esp in high intensity events) worked out long ago that you can't spend too much time NOT doing any high intensity work over an entire racing season.

Check out BLOCK PERIODISATION which is a non-linear approach and is a more widely used term for contemporary approaches, and more accurately reflects what is being done in various sports.

 

[99kilos]

[First post so...]

I figured if any place could shed some light on to the history of Periodization (Reverse or otherwise) this would be the place.

I was under the impression that Bompa and Matveyev came up with Periodization as a way to "enhance" PEDs, predominantly in bodybuilders. Their "peroidized training cycle" would match their anabolic steroid cycle. For instance, in the "preparation phase", the athlete would not necessarily need to 'roid up as they were mostly focused on proper form and technique. Western coaches were slow to pick up the Periodization idea simply because it was assumed that the Soviets just doped...which they did....but just smarter.

Cursory google searches aren't turning anything up but figured someone might know more than I. Assuming this is at least in part true, there is a grand sense of irony that the most common method of training that endurance athletes do is rooted in doping.

 

[Page Mill Masochist]

Carmichael correctly references Tudor Bompa as the founder of Periodisation, but some of us actually trained under Tudor... way back when he was actually developing this.

Shows my runner's bias, I suppose, but all modern long distance training for peak events springs from New Zealand's Arthur Lydiard in the early 1960s: aerobic base first, power next, anaerobic sharpening last.

 

[the big ring]

Reverse periodisation is a furphy as it simply attempts to provide a smokescreen regarding the truth of what is going on at Team Sky - in particular the doping trio from Tenerife: Porte, Rogers and Wiggins.

You can reverse periodise a 400m medley or single stroke swim event, and any other event up to around 4 minutes - including an IP/ TP (think flying 1-2km efforts), but you don't reverse periodise a 3,500 km, 3 week event like the Tour de France.

If they were training super hard compared to everyone else, and they may have been as the earlier 2012 short tours evidenced, it's because they had super recovery - of the chemical kind.

Even Krebs cycle notes that it is sprint and power events that use this technique.

Sprint and power athletes esp those involved in sprint endurance* type events, just call it "short to long" training. Develop speed first and then gradually lengthen it out. Some coaches like a mix of both short to long and long to short, but in Australia all of the fastest 400m times have been set by athletes that generally use a short to long approach. In sprint canoe, they use the same approach. In rowing and track cycling same again.

For reference, consider the history of training in AUssie swimming: http://swimmingcoach.org/wsca/Austhistory.htm