Page 28 - Team TTO PARIS 2024

Most athletes are doing their
best to manage little niggles, if
not outright injuries and go into
competition with just the
right amount of races and
training load under their belt.
As Richards stressed,
“you don’t want to go into the
Games over raced, but you
don’t want to be
under raced either.”

How then do the world’s best athletes prepare for
once in a lifetime moments like the Olym-pics Games Training is also periodised. Coaches typically break
– preparation. Swim coach, Mark Pouchet stressed down their plans into specific time blocks. Each block
that coaches do not consider their training plans as a has a goal and provides the body with different types
means to prevent injury. Instead these carefully of stress. The aim is to stress the body over time, allow
constructed programmes are devised to condition it to recover and then stress it again. This allows
athletes so they can withstand the challenges of a athletes to train for and build particular types of fitness
season, “with peaks at the right time.” including speed endurance, strength and or anaerobic
capacity. Whatever is needed for a particular sport, the
Preparation and conditioning for elite athletes is best coaches develop mi-cro and meso cycles to
targeted, specific and at its base a combina-tion of achieve specific results.
science, hard work and faith. Every athlete is different,
the requirements of every sport differs, and the On his approach to training, Richards said, “Preparation
qualification criteria and timelines for each Olympic never stops. We operate in a four year cycle, so every
sport varies. The objective of targeted, precise year you’re trying to build the foundation for the next
planning, is to ensure that training and recovery year. For Track & Field athletes, every year is either
periods are matched not only to each athlete, but World Champs, Commonwealth or Olympics. Ideally
designed to build and improve on existing strengths, coaches try to get you to where you need to be for
while mitigating weakness. national trials and games. As the meets get closer, the
load in practice gets lighter because coaches are trying
It all starts with testing. It is not uncommon for to give athletes their legs back.”
athletes from powerhouse nations including the US,
UK, Australia, China and Germany to be the subject of When it comes to ‘peaking’ at the right time, Richards,
research and testing with a clear focus on identifying said, “You want to open your season, in your zip code,
and minimising deficiencies. which is somewhere close to your personal best and
with each competition get progressively faster.”
Tests on body composition and power determine
which areas are weak, tight or below aver-age. A Decorated Olympian Michael Johnson, recently
strength programme would then be designed to weighed in on this topic on the social media platform X
address weaknesses while still hitting the core areas. saying, “Fast times in April doesn’t mean an athlete will
Nutrition is also prioritised and blood work is often keep running fast in the coming months. It simply
used to tell athletes what supplements they should shows what they’re capable of. Next step is figuring
take, how they should eat and how best they can out how to replicate that time in the biggest moments
recover. Little things matter at this level. Sleep quality, 2-3 months from now. Fast times in April also doesn’t
and an adequate warm up are not variables, train-ing mean an athletes can’t replicate it later. The peaked too
or supplements can address but their impact should early theory has never been proven and makes no
not be discounted. sense.”

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