Workout of the Week #38

2-Day Mountainbike Competition Period Strength Workout

This is Anneke Beerten’s strength training workout which she used in the season of 2011-2012.

This is the Competition Period Strength Workout, which consists of 2 weekly strength training workouts on non-consecutive days.

This strength training workout focuses on converting the strength & power gains of the previous workout (WOW #35 MTB General Preparation Workout, WOW #36 MTB Special Preparation Strength Workout & WOW #37 Pre-Competition Strength Workout) into speed & power.

This is the 1st week of a 4-week strength training program.

Check out how to use this strength training program

Strength Training Workout Summary

Training Goal: Maximize Speed & Explosiveness

Training Intensity: 0-85% 1 RM

Training Exertion: Light to meium

Training Split: Full-Body

Suitable for: Advanced

Repetitions: 2-4

Training Effort: Dynamic

Welcome to Workout of the Week number 38. So now we’ve progressed through our general prep, special prep, and pre-competition. Now we’re in the competition period where we focus on speed and power development.

Training Goals

What are the training goals? I just said it – speed and explosiveness. So that’s supposed to mean speed and explosiveness, excuse me.

Training Variables

So basically, we have speed efforts, we have power efforts, and we have strength efforts.

Training Intensity:

  • Speed: 0% to 30% of the 1RM
  • Power: 30% to 50%
  • Strength: 80% to 85%

Rep Ranges:

  • Speed zone: 2 to 3 reps
  • Power zone: 3 to 4 reps
  • Strength zone: 2 to 3 reps

Exertion:

  • Speed and power development: Light
  • Strength development: Medium

Training Effort:

  • Speed zone: Plyometric effort
  • Power zone: Ballistic effort
  • Strength zone: Maximum effort (there’s a typo here – wasn’t my best day when I did these presentations)

Exercise Selection

Let’s talk exercises. If we look at the exercise selection:

  • Speed: We use mainly jumps and throws (there’s a typo here – I don’t know what to say, I hope you can follow it)
  • Power development: We did loaded jumps
  • Strength: We did Olympic lifts and fundamental movements

Exercise Order: Goes from most complex to least complex

Additional Training Variables

If we look at more training variables:

  • Training frequency: Two days a week
  • Training organization: Station training including some complexes
  • Training split: Full body split

Program Overview

So how does that look? If we are here, we jump into the program right now.

So here we are inside of the workout. Let’s see how many typos we can find in here – we already found a few in the PowerPoint presentation. Okay, joking aside, here we are inside. You can read about the intention of that workout, and then you have the table of contents. You can see the weekly structure – two sessions a week, preferably 2 to 3 days in between the sessions.

Workout 1

Let’s have a look at workout number one. And you can see here, especially if you compare it with the previous workout, the pre-competition, you can see now volume is reduced. Yeah, so less exercises, meaning we have one standalone exercise and then we have two complexes.

Standalone Exercise: Barbell jump squats

Complexes:

  1. Hang power clean and hurdle jumps (that was similar in the pre-competition workout)
  2. Back squats and counter-movement box jumps

Loading:

  • Power/ballistic work (barbell jump squats): Three sets of three at 30%
  • Heavier loading: Two sets of two at 80%
  • Light loading: Three sets of two

Workout 2

We see a similar approach in the second workout. So this time we have three complexes:

  1. Drop jumps with bench throw
  2. Single-legged leg press throws combined with medicine ball slam
  3. Box squats and non-counter-movement box jump

Loading Details:

  • Drop jumps: Three repetitions for the light loading
  • Bench throw: Three sets of three at 30%
  • Single-legged leg press throws: Three sets of three at 30%
  • Medicine ball slam: Unloaded or light load (1 or 2 kilos medicine ball), three sets of four
  • Box squats: Three sets of two at 80%
  • Non-counter-movement box jumps: Three sets of two

(Did I just say box jumps or box squats? For the box squats, three sets of two at 80%, and for the non-counter-movement box jumps, three sets of two.)

Additional Resources

Looks like it wasn’t my best day designing the PowerPoint presentation, and also here I had a few spelling errors. Anyway, look at the glossary explaining the terms, read about Anuka who followed that program in 2011-2012 very successfully, then read a bit about myself, read about what other people have to say about me. And last but certainly not least, you can join the membership where you get the 4-week periodized training program.

Next Steps

So let’s move back and finish that presentation. What are the next steps?

  1. Number one: You download that program (despite my spelling mistakes)
  2. You join the membership (also despite my spelling mistakes)

And you like and subscribe, right? You can grab all previous workouts here, you can watch the video of the previous workout – so the pre-competition – and if you haven’t already, subscribe here.

In the next week, we look at the transition period.

More information