Competition prep: one date, four phases

The principle

A competition has a date. The whole program starts from there: Azetta writes every week from this Monday to the week of the event, and gives each one a phase — base, build, peak, taper. Volume and difficulty go up first, then volume drops so that fatigue fades before the big day, while intensity gets closer to the event itself. A countdown tells you where you stand.

Four preparations are built by the engine: powerbuilding (up to a strength meet, or with no meet), fitness test (military, police, firefighters), Murph and obstacle race. Running races, from 5K to marathon, go through the app's race plans.

The Azetta method

1. Length

The plan runs from the Monday of the current week to the week of the event, 30 weeks at most. A date in the past or further away is refused. Under 6 weeks, the plan is still written, with a warning: progress will be limited. Powerbuilding can do without a date: it then lasts 12 weeks of base and build, with no peak.

2. The phases

The phases are those of the race plans (see the article on race plans):

Powerbuilding, Murph and the fitness test without a run take the phases of a 10K or a 5K: one week of taper. Preparations built around a run (the fitness test when it includes a run, the obstacle race) take the phases of the race plan for their distance as they are. In powerbuilding, one week in four of base and build becomes a deload: about half the sets (rounded up), with the same loads.

3. Number of sessions

You give a range of sessions per week (3 to 5, for example), not a fixed number:

In powerbuilding, the chosen split keeps its own limits: upper / lower (a heavy day and a volume day for each) and one main lift per day from 3 to 5 sessions, full body from 2 to 3, because each session there trains every muscle. When a week has fewer sessions than the split contains, they rotate from one week to the next; a fifth session adds accessory work for the upper body, without a main lift.

4. Where sessions fall

• Two sessions that train the same major group — legs, push, pull — never fall on two days in a row, including from Sunday to Monday: 48 hours per group.
• The sessions you already do with your unit or club keep their day and count in the same way (an easy session doesn't count); your heavy leg session avoids the day before or after a hard run or a hard session with your unit, when another arrangement exists.
• If your days can't hold every session without breaking the 48 hours, the week has fewer, never two on the same day; the app tells you.
• Nothing is planned on the day of the event (except the event itself for Murph and races), nor the day before, nor after.

5. Powerbuilding

The four barbell lifts — squat, bench press, deadlift, overhead press — are the backbone. The heavy day and the volume day are kept distinct: volume is done on the paused variants (2 to 3 seconds at the bottom, no bounce).

Loads are not written into the plan: the app prescribes them as for any session, from your logged sets, the maxes you entered or an estimate. For the main lifts, you choose how to read them:

• as % of your max: the load that leaves 2 reps in reserve at the top of the range, using the Epley formula read backwards;
• by effort: RPE 8, meaning you have 2 reps left.

That is about 81% for sets of 5, 86% for sets of 3, 88% for doubles and 91% for singles. If a session goes over the length you chose, the last accessory exercises are removed; the main lifts always stay.

6. The fitness test

No official scoring table is used: you pick the events of your test (push-ups, sit-ups, crunches, pull-ups, squats, plank, run, shuttle run), then give today's number and your target.

• Each event progresses in a straight line from today's number to your target, reached at the end of the peak.
• In training, each set stays well below the week's max:

The plank, held in seconds, gets 15 points more. Until you can do one pull-up, pull-ups become inverted rows (Australian pull-ups). Support work (close-grip push-ups, inverted rows, 3 × 8-12) backs up pushing and pulling.

• A mock test every 4 weeks, never in the last two: one strength session of the week becomes a test (one set, as many as possible), the others are lightened, and the week's hard run becomes a time trial at the pace your progression aims for that day.
• The test run follows the race plan for its distance (2.4 km by default, from 1 to 10 km), with 2 runs per week (3 from 5 km), minus your unit's runs. The shuttle run is prepared with 200 m repeats, from 6 to 12 up to the peak.

7. Murph

1.6 km run, 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, 300 squats, 1.6 km run.

• Each round is set at half your max in one set, capped at 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups and 15 squats.
• Partitioned volume rises from 40% of the Murph to 100% at the end of the peak, 30 rounds at most per session; 40% during the taper. In build and peak, two partitioned sessions per week when you do at least three.
• With a weighted vest, one session per week wears it in build and peak.
• One easy run and, when there is room, repeated 400 m (6 to 8, 4 during the taper).
• On the big day, the full challenge. If your pull-up max is too low to reach 100 pull-ups in 30 rounds, the app warns you.

8. The obstacle race

A running plan up to the distance (5, 15 or 30 km), with 2 runs per week (3 from 10 km), and one or two sessions for the obstacles: pull-ups, hanging, loaded walk, burpees, hanging knee raises; push-ups, walking lunges, inverted rows, plank.

Why this choice

• Periodization — blocks that change volume and intensity towards a date — gives on average better strength gains than training without variation (meta-analysis by Rhea and Alderman, 2004).
• Tapering, which reduces volume while keeping intensity, improves performance on the day of the event (Bosquet et al., 2007), and the principle also holds for strength (Pritchard et al., 2015). Hence the peak of heavier, shorter sets, then a last light week.
• Reps in reserve (RPE 8 = 2 reps in reserve) let you set the effort on how you are on the day rather than on a fixed percentage (Zourdos et al., 2016; Helms et al., 2016).
• Submaximal sets for a reps test build up volume without going to failure at every session; the mock test measures where you stand.
• The 48 hours per muscle group and counting your unit's sessions avoid stacking two hard sessions on the same muscles without noticing.

Limits

• The tables of sets, reps and percentages are the app's choices, cautious and classic, not values proven for you; loads then adjust to your logged sessions.
• The progression of a fitness test is linear: the body itself does not always progress at the same rate. The mock tests are there to show it.
• The app doesn't know your competition's rules or your test's scoring table: your targets are your own.
• Triathlon is not planned yet: only the running part and your strength are.

References

1. Rhea MR, Alderman BL. A meta-analysis of periodized versus nonperiodized strength and power training programs. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 2004;75(4):413-422.
2. Bosquet L, Montpetit J, Arvisais D, Mujika I. Effects of tapering on performance: a meta-analysis. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 2007;39(8):1358-1365.
3. Pritchard H, Keogh J, Barnes M, McGuigan M. Effects and mechanisms of tapering in maximizing muscular strength. Strength and Conditioning Journal, 2015;37(2):72-83.
4. Zourdos MC, Klemp A, Dolan C, et al. Novel resistance training-specific rating of perceived exertion scale measuring repetitions in reserve. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 2016;30(1):267-275.
5. Helms ER, Cronin J, Storey A, Zourdos MC. Application of the repetitions in reserve-based rating of perceived exertion scale for resistance training. Strength and Conditioning Journal, 2016;38(4):42-49.