Weekly Schedule of Workouts

by Thomas Kurz

In this article you will learn about interrelation among workouts in a weekly training schedule.

Fatigue

Workouts cause fatigue. Fatigue is necessary for making progress, but if a workout schedule is bad, the accumulating fatigue will stop an athlete’s progress. So what is fatigue? Fatigue is a decreased effort capacity of a body or any of its parts resulting from exertion or excessive stimulation.

There are several types of fatigue (Kukushkin 1983): mental (boredom), sensory (a result of intense activity of the senses), emotional (a consequence of intense emotions, observed after performance at important sports competitions, or after executing movements that demand overcoming fear), and physical (caused by muscle work). While workouts cause all types of fatigue (in various degrees), the most obvious is physical fatigue. Physical fatigue directly affects structure and function of the musculoskeletal system and muscle fatigue is its main component. The following paragraphs based on Piotr Drabik’s article “Muscle Fatigue” concisely explain the essential facts of muscle fatigue.

Fatigue in a voluntary muscular effort is a complex phenomenon influenced by central nervous system (CNS) factors and peripheral factors, such as changes in muscle cells. According to the latest scientific data, muscle fatigue is caused by two main factors: mechanical damage and chemical damage. There is strong evidence to suggest a relationship between physicochemical damages and exercise-induced muscle soreness.

Mechanical damage is caused by mechanical stress and is most likely to occur when the vector of force acting on the muscle fiber (muscle cell) is not parallel to this fiber’s long axis, which happens in the majority of movements. Mechanical stress partially or completely destroys three types of structures in the muscle cell: membranes, myofibrils, and cytoskeleton.

Membranes (cellular membrane, mitochondrial membranes, nuclear membrane, sarcoplasmic reticulum membrane, lysosomal membrane, and more) separate various processes going on within the cell. When membranes are damaged, the molecules mix and all cell functions are impaired.

Myofibrils, the contractile elements of the muscle cell, are built of long, thin proteins that are easy to tear. When myofibrils are destroyed, the muscle cell cannot contract.

Cytoskeleton—the internal scaffolding of the cell—gives shape to the cell and, in the case of muscle cells, transmits forces generated by the myofibrils. When cytoskeleton is damaged, the end effect is the same as destroying myofibrils—the cell cannot contract.

Chemical damage is caused by oxidative stress—the overproduction of oxygen-derived free radicals. Oxidative stress damages all the structures of the cell as well as enzymes and nucleic acids that store and pass genetic information.

The more intense the effort, the more muscle cells damaged.

Other factors causing muscle fatigue are changes in the muscle cells’ concentration of metabolites (mainly ATP, ions of hydrogen and calcium) and enzymes, and of neurotransmitters in nerve cells contacting the muscle cells. Factors outside the muscle—such as activity of neurotransmitters in the central nervous system also contribute to fatigue.

The bottom line: Fatigue and its associated cellular damage (if not excessive) are prerequisites to improvement. To build muscle cells of greater stamina or strength and to stimulate production of new muscle cells (hyperplasia), the old structures have to be torn down before new ones are put in their place during rest and recovery. The type of damage depends on the kind of effort. Different types of muscle cells and different structures within these cells are damaged in different efforts and rebuilt afterwards. Efforts of long duration, against low resistance, damage mainly the energy-producing elements of slow-twitch muscle cells, while overcoming high resistance damages mainly the contractile elements of fast-twitch muscle cells.

Recovery

Biological systems and processes respond to change by bouncing in the opposite direction, overshooting their normal balance first in one way, then in another, until through gradually smaller oscillations, they come close to the most balanced state. The regulation of an amount of a given substance in a cell is done thusly: A damage or deficit triggers a restoration that continues until a surplus is detected. Once the surplus is detected the production is stopped and the concentration of the substance drops. When a deficit is detected, the production is started again and so this seesaw is repeated. The greater the deficit the more intensive the restoration and the whole process cannot stop “on a dime.”

Figure 1. A representation of changes in an athlete’s ability to do work during and after a fatiguing workout (modified from Pawluk 1985).

A hard workout causes fatigue and—even after the feeling of fatigue is gone—lowered ability to perform the same work for some time afterwards. As time passes, a resting athlete recovers and his or her ability to work improves. Because of the “inertia” or “overshooting” of the biological processes, the improvement does not end as soon as the athlete’s work ability has returned to the initial level but continues. This improvement above the initial level of capability is called “supercompensation” (compensation or restoration of used energy sources and destroyed structures in excess of the initial level). If another hard workout is done during the phase of supercompensation, the possible amount and intensity of work during it will be greater than in the previous workout. If no work is done during the supercompensation, then the athlete’s work capability will return to its initial level and may keep falling with continued inactivity.

Conducting the next workout of a similar type—stressing the same structures of the body—before the supercompensation not only keeps the athlete from improving but may cause injuries. If exercises stress tissues too often to allow them enough time to rebuild and mature between workouts, the tissues are gradually torn down and inflamed until a muscle, tendon, ligament, or joint cartilage is torn, or a bone is broken. (The issues of rebuilding and maturing of tissues and of gradual-onset injuries were covered in the article “Questions and Answers on Sports Injuries.”) So, a consequence of working out too hard or too often is having an excessive inflammation (Camus et al. 1994) and a sure sign that an athlete has an excessive inflammation is if he or she takes an anti-inflammatory medicine and it makes him or her feel better. Therefore, if an athlete feels some little ache or tenderness, perhaps even less uncomfortable than normal muscle soreness (which is acceptable only occasionally as it is associated with inflammation), takes an anti-inflammatory and right away feels better, it is very likely that the ache and tenderness were caused by an excessive inflammation.

Letting the supercompensation pass before doing a workout similar to the one that caused this supercompensation avoids the danger of stressing immature tissues but keeps the athlete from doing more work than previously.

A few words of caution: It is not possible to keep on hitting the supercompensation phase for more than a few weeks. After a certain time of continuous progress there will be no supercompensation because various adaptive changes in the body, in response to training loads, occur at different times. Some systems respond with greater delay than others. One example of this is the marching fracture experienced by military recruits. Initially, recruits improve their marching speed and distance and then, if their complaints about painful feet are not heeded and the amount of marching is not reduced, they develop stress fractures that could have been prevented by refraining from marching and running during the third week of basic training (Jones 1983). This is because the cardiovascular and respiratory function and muscular strength and endurance improve with training sooner than the strength of bones. (The issues of control and planning of training in periods longer than a week are covered extensively in my book Science of Sports Training.)

To be on the safe side—to keep improving without setting oneself up for injuries—the athlete must pay attention to signs of overall health. An athlete is in good health when he or she wakes up happy, energetic, gets up right away, is looking forward to working out, has a good appetite, and has no cravings for sweets and stimulants. Sometimes it is necessary to work out so hard that the athlete is tired the next day, but this is acceptable only for short periods. More than a few days of the athlete pushing beyond his or her ability to recover and adapt, and thus beyond good health, invites injuries and infections.

If workouts are too hard or too frequent, or both, for the athlete’s pace of recovery, the athlete may experience soreness, lack of enthusiasm for exercise, poor sleep, not getting up early and full of energy, wanting to stay in bed for a few more minutes, and irritability (Kurz 2001).

Recovery after a very intensive workout can take 72 hours or more, but athletes have too many skills to practice and abilities to develop to work out hard only twice a week. Fortunately, the recovery of all systems affecting the functional abilities of the body does not proceed simultaneously (Farfel 1964; Mika 1992). Various systems recover, and thus can reach supercompensation, in different lengths of time. This allows the athlete to work out daily or even several times a day, without overtraining, provided that the content of each consecutive workout stresses the system that has sufficiently recovered and does not adversely affect the recovery of other systems.

Microcycle or Weekly Schedule of Workouts

The shortest cycle of interrelated workouts, ending with a day of rest and resulting in supercompensation, is called a microcycle. A microcycle consists of at least one training phase and one recovery phase. The training phase may have several workouts. The recovery phase may consist of a day of complete rest, special restorative treatments, or of active rest.

Theoretically, the shortest microcycle could last two days. In reality that rarely happens. Usually the training phase and recovery phase are repeated a few times during the microcycle, with the last recovery phase coinciding with the end of the microcycle. An average of five to six workouts (minimum three to four) in a week allows for co-influence between these workouts (Naglak 1979).

The number of phases in a microcycle depends on that microcycle’s duration (Matwiejew [Matveev] 1979). A weekly microcycle, for example, can have two training phases, each consisting of two or three workouts separated by a lighter workout or by active rest, and ending with a day of active rest or complete rest.

Weekly microcycles are most common because they agree well with the normal schedule of life and also with the natural biological cycles that last about seven days (Matwiejew [Matveev] 1980). Microcycles of other durations, as short as three days or as long as two weeks, are usually used during a competition period when the schedule of life changes and an athlete has to adapt to the rhythm of forthcoming competitions (Platonov 1997).

The structure of a microcycle varies depending on specific features of the sport, current training tasks, and reactions of individual athletes. Even within one sport there cannot be one universal structure of a microcycle because it must take into account the content of training, an athlete’s form, and external factors—which all constantly change.

Workouts with maximal and close to maximal training loads, called main workouts, determine how a microcycle is planned. For example, in a workout dedicated to speed-endurance, the training load is maximal and recovery allowing for repeating it may take 72 hours; in a strength or strength-endurance workout the training load is less than maximal and recovery may take 48 hours. In the case of an aerobic endurance workout with a big but not maximal load the recovery may take 72 hours (Soldatow 1969). The recovery time dictates when one can repeat a given type of workout.

Knowing that different systems recover at different rates after a given type of effort, a coach can schedule additional workouts to be done in the periods between main workouts. These additional workouts maximize the effect of the main workouts and maintain continuity of the training process. Each of these additional workouts is dedicated to a different task, with training loads oscillating from small to big. The function of each may be to either increase the effect of the main workout by delaying and increasing supercompensation, or to speed up recovery after the main workout by means of active rest, and either to realize additional tasks (such as preventing flexibility loss after strength or endurance workouts), or to realize tasks of secondary importance at this stage of training (Matwiejew [Matveev] 1980).

Every workout is tied to the workouts preceding and following it. Its content and structure depend also on the total number of workouts in a microcycle and on the sum and distribution of training loads in a microcycle.

In endurance sports, repeating main workouts before achieving full recovery is done more often than in speed-strength sports. For developing endurance, it is effective to repeat the same training load before an athlete has recovered. This increases the eventual supercompensation at the end of a microcycle. Recovery after a series of endurance workouts conducted without full recovery improves endurance 40–42% over its initial level. After one workout, improvement is 3–7% only (Naglak 1979).

Sequence of Workouts

In planning a microcycle or any period of the training process, the coach cannot only take into account the total workload in all exercises. The sequence of the types of effort also has great importance. Studies of the recovery period done in the 1960s (Soldatow 1969) have shown that full recovery after an endurance workout that was preceded by a speed workout usually occurs after 48 hours. When the speed workout follows the endurance workout, recovery takes 72 or even 96 hours. (For today’s top-level athletes, these recovery times may be much shorter [Platonow {Platonov} 1990].) After a brief anaerobic effort, it may take only 3–8 hours for athletes to recover enough to work out again. After exhaustive aerobic efforts, full recovery may take a few days. Even though athletes might recover sufficiently to work out again the next day, or within the same day, after three days of working out enough fatigue accumulates to require a day of complete rest or active rest. The results of subsequent workouts will be adversely affected if continued for more than three days without some form of rest (Naglak 1979).

Researcher N. G. Ozolin (1971) offered the following sequence as a guide for the succession of workouts in a microcycle:
1. Technical (learning or perfecting technique at medium intensity)
2. Technical (perfecting technique at submaximal and maximal intensity)
3. Speed
4. Speed-endurance (anaerobic endurance)
5. Strength with submaximal and maximal loads
6. Muscular endurance with medium and low loads
7. Muscular endurance with high and maximal intensity
8. Aerobic endurance with maximum intensity
9. Aerobic endurance with medium intensity

The above sequence is only a guide. One or more workouts can be skipped but the sequence should not be reversed. Subsequent workouts should alternately stress the neuromuscular system and the vegetative system rather than stressing either one in succession. The sequence of speed, strength, speed-endurance (anaerobic endurance), aerobic endurance may lead to overtraining if repeated often, although it appears to follow the preferred sequence of workouts. In this example the neuromuscular system is stressed in the first two days, while in the next two days the vegetative system is stressed. A better arrangement is a day of workout stressing the neuromuscular system followed by a day that stresses the vegetative system (Naglak 1979). Workouts in rationally planned microcycles with two workouts per day are similarly arranged. Days with workouts stressing the vegetative system (anaerobic endurance workout, aerobic endurance workout) are interspaced with days stressing the neuromuscular system (speed workout and strength workout), and there are days when each workout of the day stresses a different system (Matwiejew [Matveev] and Jagiello 1997).

Matwiejew [Matveev] and Jagiello (1997) conducted research on the national judo teams of Ukraine and of the Commonwealth of Independent States to find out when and what type of workouts should be done depending on the sequence of preceding workouts. The conclusions of their research apply to training for any sport.

In the first stage of their research, they established the sequence and time of recovery for various abilities after different workouts with big loads.
After an aerobic endurance workout with a heavy load (for gradation of loads see Science of Sports Training: How to Plan and Control Training for Peak Performance), speed recovered after 24 hours, strength in about 36 hours, anaerobic endurance (intensive efforts up to 5 minutes) in more than 48 hours, and aerobic endurance in more than 72 hours.

After a workout with a heavy load dedicated to anaerobic endurance, aerobic endurance recovered in 24 hours, strength in about 36, speed in more than 48, and anaerobic endurance in 72 hours.

After a speed workout with a heavy load, aerobic endurance recovered in more than 24 hours, anaerobic endurance in more than 36, strength in more than 48, and speed in more than 72 hours.

After a workout with a heavy load dedicated to speed-strength, aerobic endurance recovered in more than 24 hours, anaerobic endurance in about 36, strength in more than 48, and speed in 72 hours.

After a workout with a heavy load dedicated to strength-endurance, speed recovered in 24 hours, aerobic endurance in 36, strength in 48, and anaerobic endurance in 72 hours.

The next stages of Matveev and Jagiello’s research dealt with the influence of subsequent workouts on recovery and with designing and testing weekly sequences of workouts (microcycles). They found that following a workout with a heavy load with another workout with moderate load of the same type (say, two endurance workouts) within the same day increases fatigue and delays recovery. But if the second workout with a moderate load was of a different type (for example, a speed workout with a moderate load following a heavy endurance workout), then it shortened the recovery! They got similar results when workouts were 24 hours apart.

Their research revealed that in effective workout sequences, heavy or moderate loads follow workouts with light or moderate loads that develop other abilities. (A light load is 20–30% of the heavy load volume and a moderate load is 40–60% of the heavy load volume.) Then, after any type of workout with a heavy load, the next workout should have a light or at most a moderate load. In case of microcycles with two workouts per day, only one workout of any type may have a heavy load.

The content of each workout of a microcycle depends on the previous workouts, on the workouts that will follow it, and on the type and amount of rest. This is especially clear in microcycles with many workouts in one day. In such a case, the effect of the first workout will influence the warm-up and the type and amount of work in the second workout. The planning of the third workout will depend on the combined effect of the two preceding workouts. The training load of each workout is smaller than if there is only one workout in a day. If the first one of two workouts in a day is very intensive and long, the second one ought to consist of simple and nonfatiguing exercises.
The following factors have to be considered when planning a microcycle:

1. Schedule of the athlete’s work

2. Requirements of the sport and the training level of the athlete

3. Individual reactions to training, depending on the preceding workouts and rest

4. Function of the microcycle and its place in larger structures—the mesocycles (a cycle of training lasting about one month) and the macrocycles (a cycle of training lasting several months).

The space of this article does not permit me to delve into these factors here. For more information on all these factors see Science of Sports Training.

Training Tips of the Article

• A consequence of working out too hard or too often is having an excessive inflammation. If an athlete feels some little ache or tenderness, perhaps even less uncomfortable than normal muscle soreness (which is acceptable only occasionally as it is associated with excessive inflammation), takes an anti-inflammatory and right away feels better, it is very likely that the ache and tenderness were caused by an excessive inflammation. Excessively or chronically inflamed muscles, tendons, and cartilage tear easily!
• If workouts are too hard or too frequent, or both, for the athlete’s pace of recovery, the athlete may experience soreness, lack of enthusiasm for exercise, poor sleep, not getting up early and full of energy, wanting to stay in bed for few more minutes, and irritability (Kurz 2001).

In the following articles you will learn about conditioning exercises and their place in a workout, microcycle and in longer cycles of training.

This article is based on the book Science of Sports Training. Get this book now and have all of the info—not just the crumbs! Order now!

References

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Drabik, P. 2001. Muscle Fatigue. Stadion News vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 2–3.

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Kurz, T. 2001. Science of Sports Training: How to Plan and Control Training for Peak Performance. Island Pond, VT: Stadion Publishing Co., Inc.

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Ozolin, N. G. 1971. Sovermennaya systema sportivnoy trenirovki. Moscow: Fizkultura i Sport. Quoted in T. O. Bompa, Periodization: Theory and Methodology of Training. (Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 1999), pp. 166–7.

Pawluk, J. 1985. Materialy Szkoleniowe no. 2. Warsaw: Polski Zwiazek Judo.

Platonow, W. N. [Platonov, V. N.] 1990. Adaptacja w sporcie. Warsaw: RCMSKFiS.

Platonov, V. N. 1997. Obshchaya teoriya podgotovki sportsmenov v olimpiyskom sportie. Kiev: Olimpiyskaya Literatura.

Soldatow, A. 1969. Oddzialywanie roznych obciazen a planowanie treningu. Sport Wyczynowy no. 10/68, pp. 47–51. Quoted in Z. Naglak, Trening sportowy—Teoria i praktyka. (Warsaw: PWN, 1979), p. 54.

Wilmore, J. H., and D. L. Costill. 1999. Physiology of Sport and Exercise. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

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