Reverse Periodisation

This is not a new concept, indeed we’ve been speaking about it in conjunction with other methodologies for years. However, what the years have now given us is that the clean, normalised data on this is now indisputable.

What is reverse periodisation?

It’s probably helpful here to mention how old school periodisation worked. Basically, you did base work for the first few training cycles and then built in more volume and intensity as you built into the season. However, this presents a few major issues when approaching an IRONMAN or long distance triathlon event. Simply, due to the long nature of an IRONMAN you have to continue to do the long, endurance work up to the event. This is in direct conflict with trying to do high intensity work that traditional periodisation prescribes. The result: you do neither well.

By reversing periodisation we start with building the most powerful engine we possibly can across all three disciplines. Make this engine as powerful as we can up to almost the last safe moment, and then maintain it whilst supporting your new shiny engine with the endurance work needed for your event.

The advantages of this are considerable

• Increasing your power is a time consuming business and actually much harder than building endurance. Giving yourself time at the start to complete this rather than rushing it at the end is very useful.
• By focusing on the higher intensity work early you have more time to recover around the sessions which means you get far more out of it.
• Reverse periodisation allows you to establish your threshold prior to the endurance build. This means you know how much endurance you’re going to need. For example, if your FTP was 200W for the bike it might give you an outcome of six hours on an IRONMAN bike. However, if your FTP was built up to 250W then maybe you could do it in 5.15 hours. This would mean you only need to train the endurance phase to that effect, making your training vastly more efficient.

To sum it up, keep this in mind

“Fast before Far, Strong before Long”

Podcast: Escaping the Power-Stamina Paradox

Originally published in the TriDot Community ↗