The Annual Training Plan

Your Guidebook to the Podium

You are now armed with some very powerful knowledge from past issues of Holeshot Magazine: your limiters, your season goals and your training objectives. It is now time to put all these things together to create an Annual Training Plan! Do you have a training plan? When I entered the motocross world I was shocked that so many racers did not employ a training plan of any sort. “I just ride and man I ride hard and I ride as much as I can!” is a pretty common “training plan” in the MX world. After going through the following procedure you will have the goods to be able to start your own Annual Training Plan, your personal master plan that will most effectively guide you through the upcoming season. This Annual Training Plan will ensure that all your training activities are always moving you towards your goals in motocross. It will provide you with confidence as you will be assured you are doing the right things at the right time. It is your guidebook to the podium!

An exact step by step instructional on how to set up an Annual Training Plan is beyond the scope of this magazine but this is the first article in a series that will serve as a “beginner’s guide” to creating your own Annual Training Plan.
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Schedule your training periods:
Get a calendar out and mark your first “A priority” event. The beginning of your off season training will ideally be 25 weeks from this A event. Starting with a week before the week of your A event count backwards and mark off four week training periods. These weeks and training periods will look like this:

Base 1, week 1 (ideally the first week of off season training)
Base 1, week 2
Base 1, week 3
Base 1, week 4

Base 2, week 1
Base 2, week 2
Base 2, week 3
Base 2, week 4

Base 3, week 1
Base 3, week 2
Base 3, week 3
Base 3, week 4

Build 1, week 1
Build 1, week 2
Build 1, week 3
Build 1, week 4

Build 2, week 1
Build 2, week 2
Build 2, week 3
Build 2, week 4

Race week, A priority race

Identify goals for each training period:
Each training period stresses different components of fitness. In very general terms:

Base 1:
Cardiovascular fitness: fat metabolizing, low level cardiovascular aerobic only exercise, high total weekly volume
Strength: Muscular Transition phase, exercises should be done in the 12 -15 repetitions to failure range, 3 sets per exercise usually (mid level load, mid level repetitions per session)
Motocross: Endurance riding; long motos at lower intensity, high weekly volume of riding

Base 2:
Cardiovascular fitness: fat and carbohydrate metabolizing, low to mid level aerobic only exercise, higher weekly volume than in Base 1
Strength: Maximum Strength phase, exercises should be done in the 4-8 repetitions to failure range, 3-4 sets per exercise usually (high load, low total repetitions per session)
Motocross: Still endurance type of riding, longer moto lengths and larger total weekly volume of riding

Base 3:
Cardiovascular exercise: mostly carbohydrate metabolizing mid level aerobic only exercise with some low level fat metabolizing aerobic only exercise, the highest weekly volume of the training year
Strength: Power Endurance phase, exercises are done with a very quick, explosive positive phase of movement with loads set so speed can be maintained through 12 repetitions, 3 sets per exercise usually (mid load, mid volume but quick movement)
Motocross: endurance type of riding, the longest motos of the training year with the largest total weekly volume of the training year

Build 1:
Cardiovascular exercise: interval training begins stressing aerobic threshold. One to twice per week of interval work, other days are aerobic only recovery workouts.

Strength:
Strength Maintenance, one set to fail at 12 repetitions, one set to fail at 8 repetitions, two sets per exercise only. Frequency can be reduced to once per week.

Motocross:
Begin sprint/interval type of work. Short efforts (from 3 to 5 minute sprints usually) with high intensity. Once to twice per week, all other motos should be endurance type. High intensity, low total weekly volume.

Build 2:
Cardiovascular exercise: anaerobic power intervals start here, maximum effort, very short duration intervals. All other cardiovascular work should be recovery type.
Strength: Same as Build 1, once per week, or can be eliminated altogether.
Motocross: the highest intensity, shortest duration interval work of the training year but highest intensity; one to two lap all out sprints. All other riding should be endurance type. This is the highest intensity but smallest total weekly riding of the training year.

Race week:
Cardiovascular and motocross work should be very high intensity but very low duration. Total weekly volume of all training is very low. Purpose is to stress the body systems that equate to speed but keep the volume very low to aid building up energy stores and “tapering down” for the big event.

These parameters are stated in very general terms just to give you an idea of how periodized training is scheduled and what the goal is of each training period.

Each training period can be planned using these very general rules:

• For all Base periods weekly volume increases from week 1 to week 3

• For all Build periods weekly volume is lower than Base and the same from week to week – For workouts and training weeks in general: as training intensity goes up, training volume must go down. i.e., intensity and volume never go up at the same time

• Week 4 for all training periods is the “rest week.” This is actually when you get faster as your body takes the energy usually used for training and utilizes it to make the cellular and tissue changes that lead to increased performance. Training volume and intensity are both low and workouts are recovery type only.

• During each training week workouts should generally be scheduled from the highest intensity, lowest duration to the lowest intensity, highest duration (with appropriate recovery workouts in between the highest intensity days).

You now possess the general rules in getting your Annual Training Plan started. Creation of an Annual Training Plan is a very important and complex task that should be practiced at the end of every season just after your end of season break. This gives you the both the hindsight into your past season as well as a view into the upcoming season. This issue of Holeshot gives you the first steps in creating your season guidebook. Future issues will continue with this very important process.

Seiji Ishii is founder and president of Pinnacle Elite Fitness in Austin, TX and head coach of www.coachseiji.com. Pinnacle Elite Fitness is a personal training and testing center and coachseiji.com provides coaching services to motorsport and endurance sport athletes. Seiji works with pros like Team Solitaire’s Ryan Clark, top privateer Heath Voss and KTM Factory Supermoto rider John Lewis. Coach Seiji also works with amateurs like Kawasaki Xtreme Team Green’s Hunter Hewitt and senior amateurs like Team Tedder’s Matt Tedder. You can contact Seiji at seiji@coachseiji.com. Sign up for your free motocross training newsletter at www.coachseiji.com!

Originally published in Holeshot Magazine.