MTC Periodization Program Reference Guide
By: Patrick Janukavicius, Luc Morin, and Luis Colorado
Under the guidance of experienced triathlon coach Luc Morin and EPerformance, the MTC
program is developed to help athletes meet their goals for the upcoming race season. The
purpose of this document is to provide a brief explanation of MTC’s training periodization and
the accompanying program provided to members as an excel document.
A Brief Introduction to Periodization
Training hard is extremely demanding on the body. Extended periods of intense exercise, day
after day, week after week, inevitably leads to injury unless the body is given sufficient time to
recover. In fact, every professional coach agrees that athletes cannot perform their best at
races if they train hard all year around.
Our body needs time to adapt and recover from training. To overcome the damage that can
occur from intense exercise, coaches have designed systems to vary the duration and intensity
of training from week to week and throughout the year so that the body and mind remain
healthy. The purpose of this periodization is to ensure that you’re in top shape physically and
mentally on race day.
For those with a passion for reading articles related to the science of training you may read ‘The
Science and Practice of Periodization: A Brief Review, by Anthony Turner’. The document is
provided under the ‘Athletic Literature’ subsection of the members tab on MTC’s website.
The Periodization of the MTC Program
The program provided to MTC athletes in an excel document is a very useful tool to plan and
track your training. It is also designed to illustrate the periodization of the training. To begin,
let us examine some of the principles forming the backbone to the training periodization.
Training Hours: As a first step, athletes can choose whether they want to train for a maximum
of 13, 15, or 17 hours a week. This can be based on the number of hours available to train, past
experience, etc. EPerformance will be providing MTC athletes with three separate programs for
athletes interested in training for the different durations. If you are unsure how much training
volume you can handle please speak to a coach.
Weekly Training load: is usually defined by the volume x intensity. MTC uses a training sum of
nine (9), where a volume number (scaled to the weekly number of hours) are added to the
intensity number for a total of 9. So, for example when the intensity is high, let’s say 8, then
weekly volume is low, in this case 1. If intensity were at 4, volume would be at 5, because we
always want the sum to be 9. This is an estimate of the training load that an athlete can handle.
If both volume and intensity were high at the same time, it would inevitably lead to injury.
Figure 1 describes how training volume relates to training hours and the sort of workouts
provided at different intensity levels.
Figure 1 – This figure shows the training volumes scale and the intensity scales.
Training Phases: are defined in row ‘Macrocycles’ under Accumulation (Base Building or
Volume build up), Transmutation (competitive or intensity) and Realization (taper) – based on
a model where multiple goals and races are targeted (Figure 2).
Weekly training VOLUME: (# hours) is defined in row ‘VOLUME’ (Figure 2).
Weekly training intensity: is defined in row ‘INTENSITY’. (Figure 2)
Training Emphasis: is defined in rows ‘1st Emphasis’, ‘2nd Emphasis’ and ‘Maintenance’. –
Emphasis will vary according to the season and the proximity of races. Keeping in mind that
swimming needs to be the corner stone of the emphasis given its impact on the other two
sports on race day (exponential negative influence on race performance.) (Figure 2).
Figure 2 – This figure shows McGill’s target races, the intensity and volume of workouts in a given week, and
the emphasized sport in the training cycle.
Tracking your training
The feedback worksheet provided in the MTC program is an excellent place for you to track
your training volume and performance. You can track your hours, distance, or other neat things
such as your swim stroke count or your cycling and running cadence.
This tool is great for tracking performance. You can follow the progression of your
improvement yourself, or send the document over to a personal coach so that they know
exactly what you have been up to!
Mesocycles
The Mesocycles are the training blocks of the program, usually defined in a period of 4 weeks.
The ‘Meso’ tabs in the excel program are very useful as they give you a monthly calendar of the
expected workouts and tell you the details of the daily workouts (Figure 3). If you ever can’t
make a practice you know exactly what you are expected to do on your own!
Figure 3 – All the daily workouts are explained in the Meso tab of the excel file.
Assessments
MTC will hold various time trials throughout the year. Track your progress in the assessments
tab to see how you are improving.
What are the differences between the programs for the different
volumes of training?
The different programs for volumes of 13, 15 or 17 hours look similar. The differences are
subtle to allow everyone to come to the same coached workouts (basic concept of a team
program). There are some added uncoached workouts that the higher volume athletes are
expected to complete. For example, on Tuesday, February 12, athletes wishing to train for 15
hours a week are expected to complete a 30 minute jog on their own (Figure 3). Keep a close
eye on the calendar provided in the Meso tab!
Figure 4 – This figure is a snapshot of part of the calendar provided in the 15 hour program (v.15). The red
circles an uncoached jog Tuesday morning that athletes are expected to complete on their own.
The Principles Behind MTC’s Periodization
1) Recovery between workouts is of absolute importance. Recovery is not just the amount of
time between workouts but recovery includes nutrition, rest time, sleep patterns, naps, and
keeping the mind and body on task.
Recovery can be monitored by measuring resting heart rate or maximal effort. When resting
heart rate increases by 5 beats it is considered as a sign of fatigue. When Maximal power/effort
cannot be performed, it is chronic fatigue. This occurs when athletes continue training and do
not give their bodies sufficient time to recover.
2) Increasing training frequency is the best way to increase cumulative training load.
Increasing training load by increasing training frequency is advantageous compared to
increasing training volume. Shorter workouts are less demanding on the body and therefore
take less time to recover from. Having more workouts in a week allows athletes to target more
energy systems.
Think of this situation: An athlete wants to complete 150 km a week of running a week to train
for a marathon. What is better, running for 30 km 5 times a week or running 15 kilometres 10
times a week? Training 10 times a week is a far better approach that would allow an athlete to
reach the target volume while reducing the risks of injury associated with long 30 km runs.
More workouts would allow an athlete to vary the stimulus of training in a way that would
target more energy systems, for example doing some speedwork, fartlek, threshold and VO2
Max.
3) Improving technique will increase your efficiency. One of the goals on the MTC program is
to have athletes swimming, biking and running properly. This helps to avoid injuries and
increases athletes’ efficiency. The miracle is that improved efficiency improves performance
without having to increase training load.