Fall Fitness Plan Preview

I believe in training plans, but then I believe in training and I believe in plans; so that was a love child waiting to happen. But anyway, as you know, I like a weekly schedule that's good for about six to eight weeks. So that's more or less eight training phases in a year, ideally following each other in some sort of narrative. Or they will, hopefully, this year, because last year was like being shot through a cannon: fast, and mostly in the dark.

Or I guess like Robinson Crusoe being shot through a cannon, I've landed on the beach with a soft poofft! and have commenced taking notes for my NFT guide to the island.

Since last season ended, it's been like this:

June-July	off season	break	injury resistance muscle activation
August- early September	preseason	base	moderate endurance blocking technique

I don't know if it's going to happen like this again, I only got a break because I wasn't invited to practice with Second Wind at the start of the travel season. I really liked my break, it was totally beneficial to crosstrain. It's been hard to fit that in during preseason, because I also need technique on skates, like, a lot.

Preseason ended with a bang, and a whimper, with last Thursday's speed practice led by Larry and Pom, followed by a five day break. I'm expecting prescrimmage to pick up where that left off:

late September-October	prescrimmage	build	extensive endurance speed technique
November-January	scrimmage	prepeak	intensive endurance pack awareness

I adapted these training focuses for skating from Matt Fitzgerald's Brain Training For Runners: A Revolutionary New Training System to Improve Endurance, Speed, Health, and Results. Injury prevention comes from strength training, and muscle activation comes from plyos. Moderate endurance pretty much just means back to skating, and blocking technique is, uh, blocking technique; it involves a lot of basic skating skills, though. Extensive endurance means endurance at moderate pace. Speed technique is going to be about making my form as efficient as possible, or else intensive endurance, or endurance at sprint pace, is going to suck. Pack awareness is playing well with others, which is to say playing the game.

I mean, that narrative makes sense to me. But I'm not wholly in charge of my training and will catch as catch can, and probably won't write about WCR's training plan in detail. But I figure what I can work on independently during warmups and write about, also adapted from Fitzgerald, is proprioceptive or body position drills, which is sort of my specialty anyway—