TargetTalk

Hi everyone,

What is the frequency and duration of your training prior to a major competition?

Thanks

I asked this same question of my dad (only coach I've ever had) several years back and he showed me this page as an example .



It shows that the Volume (duration) decreases noticeably, while the Intensity peaks. In other words, don't exhaust yourself physically for the 7~10 days before you head out, but get your head wrapped around the idea of shooting in a big match.

This is also a good example of having a training plan, knowing what matches to prepare for and deciding on How you're going to train for them.

Hi Brian,

Thanks for sharing!! I understand what you mean.
However, looking that the page, I don't get it, how does he measure the volume and intensity?

The bottom part of the page is what you're looking for. The dots are performance, and it follows intensity (for the most part). Volume though, in all cases, drops when you want peak performance.

As I remember, this was a sheet from a USA Shooting (National team/competitive international shooter) member.

There's more to be seen in the page too, like where the priority was (strength, endurance, technical) at different points in the year. Just interesting to see how a top-level shooter plans their year.

Its interesting to a professional training plan. I've been experimenting with trying to create something but seeing this makes you think about how we plan for events. I tend to increase my training in all sections - physical, mental and technical - I have a competition in a week and I'm working harder then normal but looking at this it would seem like maybe I need to re-evaluate how I prepare for competition.

A74BEDLM wrote:Its interesting to a professional training plan. I've been experimenting with trying to create something but seeing this makes you think about how we plan for events. I tend to increase my training in all sections - physical, mental and technical - I have a competition in a week and I'm working harder then normal but looking at this it would seem like maybe I need to re-evaluate how I prepare for competition.

Generally speaking you train hard to compete easy. So you want to do the harder physical work (including bulk shooting) in the months prior to a big comp. For at least a month before the big comp itself you would drop that down and start just training the match itself (i.e. 60 shots). I personally go lower to 20-30 shots and stop all physical training about a week before hand. If I did it properly then the last week would be mental preparation...

It does however get complicated when you have 3 or 4 big comps spread throughout the year, you then have to accept that your training will be sub-optimal for some of them and set 1 or maybe 2 as the most important ones.

Rob.