Phases of the season to compete in Triathlon

11 May 2016Updated May 11, 2016

3 reading minutes

Table of Contents

From the point of view of planning, it is very important to understand that the preparation towards a specific objective is to ascend from step to step up to it.

Our collaborator Personal Running tells us in this article how we have to correctly plan the triathlon season.

From the point of view of planning, it is very important to understand that preparation for a concrete goal is to ascend rung to rung up to it. Each one of these steps consists of a stage where we seek to achieve specific objectives, without which we should not move on to the next step, because in the end, it is nothing more than building foundation after foundation, day by day, week by week, ...

In order to know and describe the different parts of a Triathlon season From the point of view of planning, we must first understand the meaning of the following terms:

Macrocycle: it consists of several mesocycles and must always conclude with an important objective.
Mesocycle: its duration oscillates between 3 and 7 weeks, although the normal thing is that they are 4 and go with each calendar month. They are shorter periods of time that seek a partial adaptation and are usually called depending on what we are working on.
Microcycle: they can vary between 3 and 15 days, although it is normal to associate it with each calendar week. They can be of different denomination, depending on how we have structured the mesocycle to which it corresponds (accumulation, loading, adjustment, impact, tuning, ...)
Session: it is the last and most detailed expression of what we are looking for, since it translates and reflects on paper those contents that we will use as a tool in order to achieve the proposed objectives.

Once this brief summary was made, we could proceed to describe what would be a type planning focused on a triathlon season.

As we have said, each macrocycle must conclude with an important objective, so that generally a season can be composed of 2 and 4 macrocycles. Its form and duration can vary depending on the place that each one occupies within it.

Each of these macrocycles, in a general way they could be composed of the following phases:

General or General Physical Conditioning.
Specific
Tuning / tuning
Competition.
Adjustment.

We would always be talking about we would progress from the general to the specific, where the contents corresponding to each of the phases vary their nature from that which tries to provide the athlete with a good base, both aerobic, technical, as well as structural, etc ..., even contents that are more focused on empowering him to reach in the best conditions to the competition working on rhythms and intensities that it requires, aiming ever more fine.

Meta at Ironman

As a general rule, a first objective proposed in our calendar will have some initial phases that are more lasting or more "widened" in our planning, since they suppose the base and the first foundations of what will come later.

As we move forward in the calendar and we meet objectives, also generally we could say that each time the initial phases are being shorter or "narrow", making less emphasis on them than in the following ones, since we already dedicate in their moment enough for certain parameters and components of the training are sufficiently entrenched so that with a touch is enough without focusing or stopping too much.

Let's explain this with a practical example of a triathlete who has two goals marked in his planning and therefore 2 macrocycles well differentiated: