Sports Periodization Course

Coaches want to play with their strongest team. As the final decision-maker of the practice schedule, coaches must take into consideration all the external factors impacting player fatigue and freshness. Periodization is a recent buzzword that encompasses the overall training schedule from practices, to games, to tournaments, and most importantly, training intensity vs training volume.

While we are a soccer coaching education organization, periodization is critical to all intensity sports and speed of action sports. Cross country is an endurance sport played at one tempo. Sports such as soccer, field hockey, basketball, lacrosse, and volleyball are intensity sports. These sports require players to play at 100%, but not at 100% for every minute of the game or match. At times, it is 100% and other times the game or match allows players to jog, walk, etc. How coaches manage the training environment to replicate the demands of their individual sport will be the focus of this course. Unfortunately, players cannot be trained as soldiers during the week and expected to perform as artists in their game.

In this four meeting course, coaches will discuss principles of the periodization model and how best to apply these principles given the external factors unique to their specific team/situation. Often times, coaches implement schedules and/or programs observed from other clubs or university programs. The dilemma with this is that these may be solutions to problems that you do not encounter in your own environment. The principles of the periodization model are objective and are applicable to all situations, regardless of the external factors present.

Topics covered during the course:

• Isolated fitness                             
• Fitness vs freshness
• Is more better?                             
• Intensity vs volume
• Playing at 100%                            
• Components of sport fitness
• Structuring the training week    
• Conditioning sessions
• Tournaments – survival of the fittest?

Click here Sports Periodization Brochure to download the Sports Periodization brochure.