Furey Athletics

Mountain of Success: Part II

In this installment of the Javelin SLAM, I will go into the base of the “Mountain of Success.” This describes the  straight forward process of how you can combine an athlete’s goals, historical data/ norms and a thorough assessment of an athletes mental, physical and emotional capabilities to generate a training plan baseline.

Athlete Assessment and Training Plan Development

Step 1: Understand the athlete’s goals.

• Work with the athlete to define long term and short term goals
• Goals should be “SMART”
  • Specific: what exactly will you accomplish?
  • Measurable: how will you know when you reach this goal?
  • Achievable: is achieving this goal realistic with effort and commitment? 
  • Relevant: why is this goal significant your life? This goal is important because? the benefit of achieving this goal will be 
  • Timely: when will this goal be achieved?

Step 2: Understand the performance capabilities qualities required to achieve the athlete’s goals.

• Analysis of sport performance model
  • What mix of endurance, speed, strength and technique is required
• Analysis of tradition and training norms in sport
  • What does history say about the requirements to achieve the athlete’s goals?
  • What historic performance data is available to assess the athlete’s current capabilities?
• Technical model
  • What top performing champions can the athlete model themselves after?

Step 3: Movement screen, performance testing and historic performance/ technique review to assess baseline.

• Perform testing and assessments to baseline the athlete’s capabilities in all relevant capacities including strength, speed, endurance, flexibility, mobility, emotional and mental capabilities.
• See example Javelin Throwers assessment below.

Step 4: Understand the athlete’s background with training.

            Javelin example:

• Throwing volume history
• Running volume history
• Lifting volume history
  • Power lifts
  • Olympic lifts
• Jumping volume background
• Gymnastics background
• Injury background
• “Rehab” exercise background
• Other sports played
• Current available training time per week
• Current available facilities

Step 5: Understand athlete commitment level. Will they set their life up to achieve their dreams?

• Time investment
• Sacrifice of other life activities
• Financial support

Step 6: Set Up long term (1-4 years) outline at a quarterly level (3 months) and list the following for each quarter:

• Training Block Type
• Training Block Goals
  • Based on athletes needs with respect to the sport
  • Include description (1-2 sentences) for goals in the following
    • Technical
    • Endurance
    • Speed
    • Strength

Step 7: Detail the plan for the next 12 months. Plan phases at a monthly basis walking backwards from the final competition for this training year.

• Define training phase types
• Define training phase goals
  • Based on athletes needs with respect to the sport
  • Include the training methods that will be used for each of the categories below. (1 sentence per training method)
    • Technical
    • Endurance
    • Speed
    • Strength

**Steps 8-10 are strongly influenced by the work of Joel Jameson as documented in his writing on 8WeeksOut.com!

Step 8: Organize the training week for the near term monthly training phase.

• What should be done on each day in terms of training load
  • Volume and intensity and what is the emphasis
  • Hard Days- highest volume and intensity (max of 3 hard days days per week)
  • Medium Days- maintain fitness and heighten the body’s functions
    • Can be high intensity at low volume or moderate intensity and moderate volume
  • Easy Days-Speed up recovery through active rest, light workout with concentric only, swimming, walking, easy jogging

Step 9: Determine methods and exercises for the near term monthly training phase.

• Start with methods for adaptation not just exercises.
• Exercises are the extensions of methods
• Exercise selection
  • The goals of training block
  • Fitness level of the athlete
  • Individual testing & assessment results
  • Time of year
  • Available equipment

Step 10: Model volume and intensity of the near term monthly phase.

• Detail the specific sets, reps, intensity, rest, description, etc. for each of the training methods identified in the near term monthly plan.
  • Introduction- body adapts to new stress at low/ moderate loads
  • Loading- gradual increase of training load no more than 5% per week through volume and/or intensity
  • Stabilization- Adapt to the higher stress. Keep the loads the same, make sure that the new fitness sticks
  • Restoration- Keep intensity at 90% and reduce volume by 20-30%

Step 11: Define when training goals will be assessed through controlled testing and early competitions. Establish dates in the training calendar.

Step 12: Implement Training Plan!

• Follow the training plan while making course corrections as required.
• Follow steps 8-11 for each monthly phase.

In following the 12 steps above you will have established a solid base for the “Mountain of Success,” but the journey is not over. Stay tuned for the critical strategy of how to use training component testing (KPI’s), practice and early season competitions to effectively manage the training plan and achieve the desired training results. After that, we will  talk about the third and final leg of the journey where athlete and coach reassess and course correct to optimize the next trip into the unknown.

It’s probably obviously that this process is not practical to use day in and day out with every athlete. But some of the general principles may be useful in refining the methods you currently use.

Thank you for reading! If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below and I will do my best to answer them all in upcoming posts.