Training for Peak Performance During Competition

How many of you believe that the best way to peak for a competition is to train hard for 6 weeks, more or less, and then completely stop training a few days before the competition? I'd say 95% of you have learned and adopted this method without bothering to question it. I'll go out on a limb and say that the people who taught you to do this, also probably never questioned the individuals that taught them. "Everyone" said to do it, so "everyone" did it. Does it work? Yes, it can help people peak at the right time. Is it the best method? Not necessarily. Also, if you've never tried a different method, you have absolutely no idea if it is the best method for you. Well, here's some food for thought.

Some time in 2002/2003, I learned a "new" method of peaking. Many of the people who I've told about this method, and shared the details with, have never heard of it (if they did hear of it, they never tried it and had very little details about the method). This technique is used by some of the world's best athletes (e.g. mixed martial artists, Olympic athletes, professional boxers, etc.) Who knows? Maybe it's one of their "secrets." Here's the gist. . .

Let's say you have a competition that is two weeks away (14 days). Most people would keep training hard until the 10th or 11th day. The rest of the days would be for rest to prepare for day 14. Now, let's take a different approach to training. Instead of training hard until the 10th or 11th day, certain athletes would stop training hard on the 7th day. From the 8th to the 11th day, these athletes would have complete rest. No athletic activity whatsoever. On the 12th day, a light intensity workout would be on the agenda. On the 13th day, the athlete would train at no more than 50% intensity. The 14th day, it would be "game time."

The method is rooted on the principle of tapering up as competition day approaches. It also considers the mental aspect of training/over-training--in a nutshell, athletes are more driven when they are fully rested, physically and mentally.

There are more details to this training method and it would take me a short book to convey the details and various timing schemes. I wanted to give you some insight into this training method to open some eyes to different methods. Again, if you have never tried a different method, how do you know what will work best for you? Keep in mind, this is a proven method used by world class athletes. It's the same technique I've adopted in the past as well.

I predict that after reading this, the majority of you who plan to compete will go on to experiment with this . Awesome. Please do. Take off your blinders and realize that everything evolves, even methods for peaking. Play with the principles and see how it works out for you.

Tags: tapering, peaking, competition, performance, training