Have you got the 4 cornerstones of your training programme in place?

Any training programme for sport should consist of the following areas:

Preparation: Either planning, warming up, or getting ready to train.

Adaptation: The meat of the workout or training block. What you are trying to change physically (or sometimes mentally).

Application: In your life or sport. Change of directions, rate of force development, footwork or position specific. Putting your new food shopping and menu plan into place.

Regeneration: Mental and physical. Sleep, rest and time out from the sport. Allows you to come back ready to go again, enthused.

This can be applied to the workout, the weekly cycle, the monthly cycle and annual plans.

It’s all about balance

Each area will have different emphasis according to the time and need, but all are important and should be included to some degree.

• Too much preparation work (foam roller warm ups anyone?) will not leave time/ energy for the important adaptation and application work to take place.
• Too much adaptation work (must squat twice body weight?) will not leave time or energy for the application into the sport.
• Too much application (sport specific) will only work in competitive situations for a short time, before burnout or injury occurs, and a decline in performance
• Too much regeneration means you are detraining.

Have you reviewed your training programmes to see if you are including the 4 cornerstones in your daily, weekly, monthly and annual plans?

More Detail on this in How to take charge of your fitness training