First let me say I have total, 100% complete admiration and respect for Bompa himself – a true pioneer of the sports coaching and the sports performance industry. This article is in no way a criticism of him personally but rather a proclamation that Periodization as a concept is now officially dead and buried.

Periodization – that is, the traditional sports training planning model involving long blocks (cycles or phases) of training which emphasise specific aspects of training is 20 years past the use by date and it’s time we all moved on to something more relevant and more effective for the training and preparation of athletes in this century.

The popular version of periodisation was developed in the Eastern block, 40 years ago, for senior athletes: another time, another system, another world – and totally inappropriate for today’s athletes.

Today’s athletes – the Generation Y athletes – demand programs which are:

• Unique – not contrived – not a “one size fits all” solution to performance;
• Specific – to them as individuals;
• Responsive – to change and to their day to day (and even session to session) needs;
• Individualised – to match each athlete’s unique recovery abilities;
• Integrated – to take into consideration the overall mental, emotional, cultural and even spiritual needs of the athlete as a unique individual.

So what’s the alternative to periodization?

The specific goal of all training is to provide the optimal stimulus for each individual athlete at every training session.

How planning long blocks of training weeks in advance and rigidly sticking to them can be called an optimal training environment is beyond any-one’s guess. Optimal training comes from basing training around each individual athlete’s ability to recover and responding to the unique needs of each individual athlete at every session!

The Problem with Periodization:

Periodization is based around calendar weeks and months – so it assumes that all athletes adapt to loading at 6 am Monday morning or on the first day of the month.

The only reason the classic periodization model is based on “weeks and months” is to fit into the 1960’s definition of a working week, i.e. Monday to Friday when the majority of sports coaches were amateurs with full time day jobs.

In reality, training cycles can be two days, four days, twenty six days, ninety seven days or whatever it takes to achieve the targeted adaptations.

It doesn’t even have to be measured in terms of days – it can be hours, a number of sessions or be based on the achievement of measurable changes to performance without any time limit……whatever is meaningful in enhancing the performance of the athlete.

Periodization also assumed all performance is physical. That is, load the athlete through sequential cycles of physical training stress and they will perform in competition.

Performance is multi faceted and an integration of mind, body, spirit. It is physical…but it’s also mental, tactical, strategic, technical, emotional, cultural. The exclusively physical model of athlete preparation is hopefully extinct and gone forever.

Take Speed for Example:

The most precious thing in most sports is speed.

Who cares if you can repeat something 500 times at 95% intensity if you can’t do it once in competition conditions at 100%. The traditional periodization model “killed off” speed with weeks (or months) of non specific volume (base) training and then relied on tapering (and luck) to bring it back. Modern thinking is to be able to work on speed all year round and never be too far away from top speed at any time.

A Special Message for Coach Educators: Stop Teaching Traditional Periodization Models.

A message to coach educators…please stop teaching the traditional concept of periodization. As long as you keep telling coaches that the best way to plan and implement training programs is to set up one week microcycles, four week macrocycles and three month phases we will not progress.

So Goobye and Thanks for all the Phases:

So once again, thanks to Bompa for his original work. It provided a good basic training planning framework for coaches and athletes for the past 30 years. But it’s time to move on.

Just as no one watches black and white TV, plays vinyl records or smokes cigarettes any more, it’s time to move on to another paradigm in athlete training and preparation.

It’s time for the individualised, optimal training and preparation paradigm to take over: where each session takes into account the specific needs and recovery level of each athlete at every moment.

Wayne Goldsmith