Training block overview - Advanced Competitor (SPP) - WK25-30/2025

The primary goal of this stream is to develop your sport-specific work capacity and help you stay prepared for upcoming competitions this summer.

In this 6-week cycle, we’ll work on your running (once a week), movement capacity, sport-specific conditioning, gymnastics strength, and practice with plenty of competition workouts.

Lifting focuses on developing absolute strength, improving lifting technique, and reinforcing control in key positions under load. You'll build intensity week by week through structured progressions in the classic lifts, focused pause work, and accessory exercises to support the main lifts.

This program is designed to cover a broad range of adaptations. If you want to focus more on either your running (engine stream) or weightlifting/strength (strength stream), choose one of our more specialised streams.

- 10 training sessions (1 to 2 hours each), an optional additional base training/Z2 day, and a full rest day (on Sundays)

- Four (4) main conditioning sessions (1 running session, 1 sport-specific interval session and 2 weekly competition workout sessions)

- Optional, additional lower-intensity aerobic base sessions on Wednesdays (NEW) and Fridays

- Weekly skill sessions and embedded skill work

- Weightlifting and strength work spread across four (4) training sessions.

Each week is organised based on the movements, repetitions and intensity to allow for sufficient recovery for you to work hard in each session (but due to the high-intensity nature of sports-specific training in our sport, the fatigue is likely to accumulate more over the weeks than in the strength/engine streams).

Most of the training in this stream is at a fairly high intensity, so you must be diligent with your rest, recovery and nutrition.

The primary focus for this stream is to keep you competition-ready and to develop your sports-specific work capacity.

- The weekly competition workouts offer an opportunity to practice pushing yourself, develop your movement capacity under fatigue, and refine your pacing under intensity.

- The weekly sports-specific intervals vary between shorter (< 4:00) mixed modal intervals, designed so that you should be able to maintain high intensity throughout, and longer intervals with bigger chunks of movements where you’ll have to manage both high heart rate and local muscle fatigue.

- The running sessions start with a 5km time trial and build towards a faster mile time from there. We’ll work on durability and fatigue tolerance with 5km pace intervals, and speed/form with shorter repeats and drills.

- Aerobic base sessions of longer duration, lower to moderate intensity that improve mitochondrial density and capillarization, which indirectly supports lactate clearance.

It’s important to note that each of these sessions should be done at prescribed intensities to stimulate the intended adaptations properly.

Learning and practising “Intensity control” (matching intensity/pace to session intent) is a key skill that will elevate the level of your training beyond merely “doing workouts.” It will allow you to make the most out of each session and ensure sufficient recovery from your training to continue to put in high-quality work.

The main focus here is positional strength as a foundation for new 1RMs in the following training block. We’ll keep the full snatch and clean & jerk at controlled %s to focus on form.

Here are the progressions (from Wk1-Wk6) for the lifts:

- Full snatch builds from doubles at 65–85% to heavy singles at 90–95%, with emphasis on timing, drive, and lockout under fatigue

- Snatch pull w/ pause below knee progresses from moderate volume at 85–95% → peak strength pulls at 105–115%

- EMOM deload week (Week 6) for both full lifts and pulls to aid recovery and reinforce consistent bar speed

- Block clean & jerk (from knees) in Wk1–Wk3 progress from moderate % to 85%, emphasizing second pull speed and turnover

- Transition to full clean & jerk from floor in Wk4–Wk6, building to heavy singles (up to 90%)

- Floating clean pulls / clean pulls develop bar control and posterior chain strength, progressing to 110–115%

- Jerk balance + jerk support work (dips and rack holds) run weekly for timing, footwork, and overhead position

The key progressions in this block follow a format of building to a heavy (but not maximal) set, followed by moderately hard, fairly low-volume (RPE 6-8) back-off sets. The goal is to build strength without constantly feeling tired from pushing too close to failure or excessive volume.

You should feel (somewhat) fresh each time you hit the big lifts. You should not be grinding through the sets on these lifts. The accessory work can/will be closer to failure to elicit more hypertrophy stimulus.

Here are the progressions (from Wk1-Wk6) for main lifts in different movement patterns:

- Back squat waves from top set at H3@RPE7 to H1@RPE8–9, paired with back-off sets building from 5s → 2s

- Front squat follows a similar wave using a heavy paused front squat, followed by front squat for back-off sets, progressing weekly in RPE and %

- Overhead squat tempo work (21X1) runs every week with moderate volume, aiding positional strength and midline stability

- Push press progresses weekly from H5 → H2 @ RPE 8–9, paired with back-off sets

- Strict press, dips, and strict pull-ups, rotate weekly for balanced pushing/pulling volume

- Accessory work (DB bench/DB incline bench, rows, etc.) builds week-to-week.

- Romanian deadlifts, ring holds, and back extensions are layered in throughout the week

- Isolation and shoulder-stability work (external rotations etc.) included to bulletproof joints and support training volume

Deload in Week 6 scales back volume and intensity across lifts and accessories to consolidate adaptations

The skill sessions in this block are focused on foundational gymnastics strength, and positions. We’ll sprinkle in some sports-specific drills as well.

The quality of your training is the quality of your repetitions. Aim to make every training session the best it can be. Focus on what’s within your control:

- Giving your best effort (this is not merely pushing as hard as you can each time but reflecting on the intent of the training session, then applying yourself to it).

- Doing the work (and not skipping skill pieces or other parts of training)

- Holding yourself to movement standards (establishing solid foundations for all upcoming training)

- Warming up / cooling down

- Sleeping well

- Fuelling sufficiently

Exposure to competition workouts will help you develop your tactical skills (making and executing plans) as well as improve your movement skills in a high-intensity context.

For each conditioning interval, it’s important that you hit the with the intended intensity. If you go too hard on the 1st interval in a session, your intensity will drop too much later in the session. If you go too easy, your output and heart rate won’t get high enough to stimulate the intended adaptations.

For strength and skill, we aim to consistently put in high-quality work from one session to the next. Aim to build on each week's progress, whether by increasing the reps or weights (depending on the progression). Focus on accumulating excellent repetitions to lay a solid foundation of strength and technical capacity.

As your goal is to build your work capacity, you need to be able to hit the hard sessions hard and recover from them. This means eating enough overall and getting sufficient carbohydrate to fuel the high-intensity efforts. Having a carb drink at hand for training sessions and re-fuelling as soon as possible after might be a good idea.

A good sign that you could eat more to fuel your training is that you feel hungry. If you’re not sure, a few rough reference points for daily intake (if you’re into macros) could be:

Protein - 2.2g per kg (1 gram per lb) BW

Fat - 25-30% of daily calories or 1g per kg (1g per lb) BW

Carbs - Remaining calories or 4+g per kg (1.8+g per lb) BW

Calories - 22 x BW in kg (or 10 x BW in lbs) x (1.7 to 2 as “activity multiplier”)

Remember that if you don’t eat enough, you won’t recover and get the results you want.

The most important thing for your recovery will be to get enough (7.5-9 hours) sleep regularly. Your training (and results) will be better if you get more sleep. Aim to be in bed by 11 pm at the latest, and sleep in a cool, dark, and quiet room. If you can, get out for a short (10-minute) walk soon after sunrise (before 10 am is fine) and again around sunset. This will help set your circadian rhythm, making it easier to go to bed early.

All other recovery modalities will take a backseat to this. Implementing a 10- to 30-minute daily mobility routine, split between morning, training, and evening, will also likely pay off, both in the short and long term.