Mini Aerobic Block

We had this weekend off footy because of interleague play so with all weekends off I like to try and utilise the extra energy resources from not training to going harder with my training.

If you remember, last season I did a mini pre-season block going into finals only to do my knee in the last game of the home and away season and miss finals anyway.

With each year I get older I 'm finding harder and harder to get a decent amount of training in between games so this week off has come as a god-sent for me right now. I also missed our last game so it will be 20 days between games for me which might actually turn into a good thing to have a break, albeit pretty early in the season.

So looked at the schedule and I had 10 - 11 days to play with for this min block where I'll train pretty much everyday but finish up the Thursday before the next game.

I'm a natural sprinter type so like the program I did in the link above, my focus is on aerobic methods.

I settled on working on 2 portions of the aerobic equation:

1. Improving the my general aerobic conditioning as well as heart strength which leads to stronger beats meaning more blood circulated per pump which means more oxygen being circulated throughout the working muscles
2. Improving the ability of my fast twitch muscle fibres to work harder for longer and to also recover faster bouts of alactic work which to you is repeat speed/power.

For each option I am using 2 training methods for each:

Aerobic - Threshold Training + Cardiac Output Intervals

Fast Muscle Fibers - Explosive Repeats + High Resistance Intervals

I train both aerobic qualities on 1 day and then both fast muscle fiber on the other day.

Day 1 - Threshold + Cardiac Power Intervals
Day 2 - Explosive Repeats + High Resistance Intervals
Day 3 - Upper Strength
Day 4 - Threshold + Cardiac Power Intervals
Day 5 - Footy Training
Day 6 - Off
Day 7 - Explosive Repeats + High Resistance Intervals
Day 8 - Threshold + Cardiac Power Intervals
Day 9 - Explosive Repeats + High Resistance Intervals
Day 10 - Upper Power
Day 11 - Off
Day 12 - Game

Threshold Training - after finding your anaerobic threshold (the point where energy is being supplied by your aerobic system then changes to anaerobic system which the point where fatigue hits you), then you want to train at a +/- 5 beats of that number for 3 - 5mins. Rest until your heart rate returns to 130bpm and go again.

Session 1 - 5 x 3mins
Session 2 - 4 x 4mins
Session 3 - 3 x 5mins

Cardiac Power Intervals - work as hard as you can x 60secs then rest until 130bpm and go again. I'm doing shuttle runs for this for some change of direction work.

Session 1 - 5 x 60secs
Session 2 - 4 x 60secs (I did these Friday and we had a light training run Saturday so I did the lower volume session 2nd instead of 1st.)
Session 3 - 6 x 60secs

Explosive Repeats - using an explosive exercise that allows for a minimum of 1 rep per second, work as hard as you can for 8 - 12 secs then rest 60 - 30secs. You then rest 8 - 10mins and repeat the 8on/60off. I'm doing cable swings for this where I get 12 - 13 reps per 8secs.

Session 1 - 8secs on + 60secs off x 6 sets, rest 8mins, 8secs on + 60secs off x 6
Session 2 - 10secs on + 40secs off x 6 sets, rest 8mins, 10secs on + 40secs off x 6
Session 3 - 12secs on + 30secs off x 6 sets, rest 8mins, 12secs on + 30secs off x 6

High Resistance Intervals - work as hard as you can x 10 - 12secs then resting to 130 bpm then go again. I'm doing hill sprints for these.

Session 1 - 6 x 10secs
Session 2 - 7 x 10secs
Session 3 - 8 x 10secs

So I'm half way through as you can see from my schedule above and my HRV is improving everyday even though I;m seeing a little spike in resting heart rate which is fine, it should drop pretty dramatically for Thursday, Friday or Saturday if my planning works out!

The Queen's Birthday weekend is about 4 weeks away so I'll definitely re-post that leading up tpo that week where you can too can hit it hard while you can!