Periodization

Hello,

For university I have to make a 6 month periodization plan for an Olympic gymnasts.

I was just wondering what would be the best way to structure the strength sessions day to day.

Would doing something similar to how Coach ran the WODs with a handstand, dynamic push, pull and legs, max legs and upper and basic days be a good idea or since Coach's guys are juniors, would an Olympic senior gymnasts having a higher work capacity need more strength work per day?

And if they are training 6 days a week as opposed to 4 as the WODs would come out should they just cycle through in their entirety more frequently?

Thank you for your help

First of all where are you studying that would make you do this. Just curious. Secondly there are very few who can actually plan a workout schedule for Olympic gymnasts. The wod is a good place to start. But if they are asking about periodization I would thing the movements aren't the important part. Planning the actual periods are probably more the goal and should match up to peak the gymnast for competition. Again not a simple thing to understand without experience.

At such a level, athletes' workout regimes tend to be extensively personalized based on focus events, training strategy, coaching philosophy, personal strengths/weaknesses, injuries, etc. 

Also I don't think the WOD's Coach posted comprise the entirety of his athlete's strength training regimes. 

I'm studying second year sports therapy. We have been told that by the end of the strength and conditioning class we should have enough knowledge to assist a actual S&C coach.

The teacher has said that the structure of the 6 months and week by week periods are the main thing over individual workouts but I still would like to have as good of an idea as to how they should be set up as I can.

Hari_Seldon said:

At such a level, athletes' workout regimes tend to be extensively personalized based on focus events, training strategy, coaching philosophy, personal strengths/weaknesses, injuries, etc. 

 

Also I don't think the WOD's Coach posted comprise the entirety of his athlete's strength training regimes. 

Out of what you mentioned, I only really need to worry about injuries or common injury sites which can be pretty much everywhere for gymnasts so there will also be a lot of prehab/rehab stuff as well as massage, hydrotherapy and ice baths for recovery sessions.

I would also have more conditioning on top of the WODs and supplemental strength to go with the main strength session

Volumes have been written on periodization, a quick response on a forum will not cover much. I suggest you do some reading on the topic by people such as Tudor Bompa, Mel Siff, Yuri Verkhoshansky, Thomas Kurz, etc. 

Here are some good books that address this topic and are a great starting point:

Periodization by Tudor Bompa and G Haff

Supertraining by Mel Siff and Yuri Verkhoshansky

Science of Sports Training by Thomas Kurz

I bought Periodization by Bompa and Haff to help with this assignment. I'm not really concerned with rep ranges, tempos, loads and things like that because I can find information about them in the book. I just don't have a great amount of knowledge of what kind exercises are used to develop such high levels of strength and whether most gymnasts would work on one type of strength each training day or work on more than one area of movement type.

And if I were to use something similar to how the WODs are run, then I feel like it would be hard to create something original since I'm so used to how Coach put it together.

Any other opinions are greatly appreciated

Thanks

tim53 said:

Hello,

(...) a 6 month periodization plan for an Olympic gymnasts

(...)  what would be the best way to structure the strength sessions day to day. (...)

I am just wondering out loud why your uni courses did not seem to prepare you better to address this sort of problems?

Even the problem itself is imprecisely posed: are we talking about peaking an athlete for the Olympics, for the qualifications/selections, or just a periodization program for an Olympic class gymnast?

Peaking an athlete for the Olympics, with selections and qualifications 6 weeks to a month prior, is probably the most complex things coaches across disciplines, the world over, are trying to address...

To me, the best you can do is to define a starting point and end point for your athletes, then take a standard periodization program, and try to see how & what would work "in theory" to get your athletes as close as possible to an ideal state, both at qualifications, and at the event itself.

You'll have to list the many, many variables and factors that will affect the progress and results, and see how your program can start to address them. More than likely, you won't be able to reconcile all the moving parts towards a moving target - but at least, you'll have acquired some familiarity with the parts.

In any event, that "program" will only be an overall battle plan that will necessarily require daily & weekly adjustments from the feedback of how the athlete responds, is injured, tired, hungover, sick, in pain, had a row with his GF, and whatever happens with 16-25 year old kids.

Of course, you can always try to reverse engineer the WOD, but good luck with that!

It would vary according to the time of year. In the preseason, the focus will be on improvement. As the year progresses and competition nears, maintenance becomes the goal. The structure of the sessions would change accordingly. For example, when maintaining, the volume will be lower and you can use various types of movements while conditioning less frequently.

"Building the Gymnastic Body" is a good resource for exercise selection, and it would still be potentially useful even for that caliber of athletes. Rope climbs, inverted muscle ups, planche pushups, multi-plane pressing, etc could all be applied to the training plan for bent arm strength development. The straight arm movements will require more outside knowledge, but the dynamic pulling variations in the book are a good tool that can be used. The training load depends on the athlete's level of strength and training apparatus, but it will have to be determined through some experimentation with the athletes. Some work better with higher volume, others will not be able to handle it and you will have to make adjustments.

I like what FredInChina said above. If this is purely theoretical, you need to leave room for adjustments for the needs of various athletes. I wouldn't recommend trying to reverse engineer the WOD, but you can use certain elements from it (such as circuit training structure) during various times of the preparation season.