Annual Training Plan

The start of the training year will depend upon the athlete's circumstances and objectives, but this would generally be around October for track and field athletics in the UK.

Annual Training Plan

Single Periodisation

This is an example of an annual training plan (macrocycle) for an athlete whose major competition is sometime in July/August.

The objectives of each phase are:

• Phase 1 - General development of strength, mobility, endurance and basic technique
• Phase 2 - Development of specific fitness and advanced technical skills
• Phase 3 - Competition experience - achievement of qualification times for main competition
• Phase 4 - Adjustment of technical model, preparation for the main competition
• Phase 5 - Competition experience and achievement of outdoor objectives
• Phase 6 - Active recovery - planning preparation for next season

Double Periodisation

For the athlete with competitive objectives for both the indoor and outdoor season then the phase allocation could be as follows:

The objectives of each phase are:

• Phase 1 - General development of strength, mobility, endurance and basic technique
• Phase 2 - Development of specific fitness and advanced technical skills
• Phase 3 - Competition experience - Indoor competition in Feb and achievement of qualification times in May for the main competition in phase 5
• Phase 4 - Adjustment of technical model, preparation for the main competition
• Phase 5 - Competition experience and achievement of outdoor objectives
• Phase 6 - Active recovery - planning preparation for next season

Detailed Annual Training Plan

The following link provides an example of a detailed Annual Training Plan (Macrocycle, Mesocycle and Microcycle) to help guide you with the planning of an athlete's training program.

Page Reference

The reference for this page is:

• MACKENZIE, B. (2001) Annual Training Plan [WWW] Available from: http://www.brianmac.co.uk/sprints/plan100.htm [Accessed

Associated Pages

The following Sports Coach pages should be read in conjunction with this page:

• Sprint Technique
• Sprint Photo Sequence
• Sprint Warm up Drills
• Sprint Starts
• Setting up the Starting Blocks
• Sprint Relay
• 100 metres Training
• 200 metres Training
• 300 metres Training
• 400 metres Training
• Planning the Training - 6 stages of development
• Find a Coach
• Sport/Event specific articles

Associated Books

The following books provide more information related to this topic:

• Sprints and Relays, F. W. Dick
• Sprinting and Hurdling, P. Warden
• How to Teach Track Events, M. Arnold