Monday, June 27, 2016

How to Organize a Training Session



If you were to create your own workout, there would be a variety of options from which to choose. These might include bodybuilding-type methods of prefatiguing your muscles, running before you train, running after you train, alternating between high intensity and low intensity, HIIT, pyramid sets, and so many other possible components that you could put into a training day. There are many ways to program a day, to a week, to a month and beyond. In this post, I’ll be talking about how to set up a training day for an athlete or for anyone who wants to train optimally for a competition.

The principle is simple. You should set up the day to start with the most neurologically taxing activities, working towards the least. 

The most neurologically taxing activities are things like your sport, specific sports training, sprints, agility work, and jumping. These are all activities that require a high level of coordination, power, and high central nervous system (CNS) activity. Ideally, exercises and activities like this will be prioritized before beginning to perform others.

Next on the high to low CNS hierarchy are lifts like maximal effort work (1RM-5RM), olympic lifts, and dynamic effort training. Exercises like these are a step below the ones mentioned above but are nonetheless very important. These will help increase your strength potential and build a bigger foundation to perform better as an athlete.

At the bottom of the hierarchy is accessory work such as hypertrophy training, muscular endurance, aerobic work (unless you are a distance runner), and all the other little things to add the icing on the cake. 

The specific exercises performed at each step will vary from athlete to athlete and sport to sport. However, the general principle remains the same:  organize your training day from highest to lowest neurologically taxing tasks. This hierarchy will help optimize your training session, allowing you to reach the best performance possible.

Ryan Goodell, CSCS

For consultation/personal training/coaching inquiries email: ryangoodell@weightsandstuff.com


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