Training block overview - Competitor (SPP) - WK31-36/2025

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

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

We’ll reintroduce regular deadlifts back in the strength progressions, build towards heavy back squat, and do most of our support/accessory strength work in the 4-10 rep range. For weightlifting, we’ll explore a few snatch variations in the first weeks before building towards 1RM snatch and clean and jerk in the final week of the block.

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.

- 5 training sessions (90 minutes to 2 hours), an optional additional base training/Z2 day, and a full rest day (on Sundays)

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

- Weekly skill / gymnastics work

- Weightlifting and strength work spread across five (5) 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 6/7/8-minute mixed modal intervals, designed so that you should be able to maintain intensity throughout, and longer, broken up (e.g. 0:30/0:30 or 0:40/0:20) EMOM intervals with bigger chunks of movements where you’ll have to manage both the increasing heart rate and local muscle fatigue.

- For running, we’ll focus on faster paced repeats that progress directly towards the 3km time trial.

- 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.

We’ll continue technical development of the snatch for the first three weeks before building towards a new 1RM in the final week. For clean and jerks, we’ll stay with the full lift as we progress towards the 1RM.

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

- Power snatch + deep power snatch + snatch complex for technical development for the first 3 weeks

- Full snatch waves on Wks 4 and 5.

- 1RM in the final week of the block

- Alternating weeks progression: Wks 1/3/5 (triples/doubles/singles) and Wks 2/4 (clean focus 3+1, 2+1, 1+1 / jerk focus 1+3, 1+2, 1+1).

- 1RM in the final week of the block

The progressions in this block are more varied than in the previous one. We still use the format of building to a heavy (but not maximal) set, followed by moderately hard, fairly low-volume (RPE 6-8) back-off sets for back squat and strict press but introduce more progression variations on the other lifts.

You should feel (somewhat) fresh each time you hit the big lifts. We are still not looking to grind through too close to failure on the main lifts but do introduce higher RPE/less RIR on some.

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

- Back squat top sets of H3@RPE7/8, H2@RPE7/8, H1@RPE8/1RM, paired with back-off sets of 6s, 4s and 2s (double reps to top set)

- Front squat shifts to higher repetition sets to build upper back strength/stamina and grit. Three weeks of 8s, followed by waves of 7-5-3 for two weeks before the deload.

- Deadlifts build up in 3s, paired with deficit deadlifts for back-off sets in the first 3 weeks. We’ll build to a heavy double on the 5th week before deload on the final week.

- Seated strict press for “base”, progressing into heavier strict press with top set, followed by back-off sets in the 2nd half of the block.

- Seal rows for first 3 weeks, followed by Meadows row for the second half (to familiarise you with the movement)

- Weekly Accessory circuit to bulletproof joints and build support muscles

Reintroducing skill sessions with barbell and DB cycling, as well as foundational gymnastics strength work.

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.

You need to be able to hit the training sessions with appropriate intensity and recover from them. This means eating enough overall and getting sufficient carbohydrates to fuel your training. 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 (body weight) in kg (or 10 x BW in lbs) x (1.5 to 1.8 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.