2025 Thoughts on Periodization

As in Part 1 (Tapering strategies for different racing scenarios), these are notes from a program planning meeting with the GRP Row coaches. I’ve added some context and links for an audience beyond the GRP. The two main questions we discussed were how my periodization strategies have evolved from traditional programming of endurance, strength, power, and speed, and how to program velocity-based training (VBT) in a periodized system.

Evolution in periodization strategies with regards to traditional programming of endurance, strength, power, speed

I still don’t do direct strength training for muscle endurance. By “direct” I mean high-rep training like 20+ reps, especially on multi-joint compound exercises. This is different from the “indirect” or downstream effect of strength training on muscle endurance. The exception when we might use specific high-rep training is the unusual situation in which the rower will be offloaded for a long (6+ weeks) amount of time without being able to do cardiovascular training. This has only occurred in my experience due to prolonged injury like low back pain or rib stress injury or in study-abroad kind of circumstances. The sport training and general cardiovascular training takes care of endurance, so we can keep the strength training focused on priority goals of health, strength, power, and muscle mass. Read more about this here.

The rest of this answer draws from my article, “Basics of Strength Training for Rowing,” and also the “Rowing Stronger” book.

I wrote my earlier materials around the concept of “block periodization.” I think this is fine as a general term to describe how training is organized in developmental phases (ie. “blocks”). However, I now don’t think this is clear enough as a strict concept to stand on its own without further clarification and detail. Coaches interpret things differently, not everyone reads the exact same source material, and we all adjust programs to our specific needs. In the last few years, I’ve tried to use “organization” more than “periodization” to avoid semantic discussions around the exact flavor of periodization and all the varying definitions according to one source or interpretation versus another.

“Organization” is what I’m trying to do anyway. A more linear organization approach progressing from one developmental block to the next with clear transition points worked great in junior, college, and many masters rowing schedules. These programs built up over an academic or calendar year to one or two major competitions. The GRP rowers work more in 12-week blocks around approximately quarterly performance events, such as erg testing, selection camps, and national or international racing. Adding to the complexity, rowers are on different pathways from one another (multiple/individual training programs required) and can move between pathways (and therefore training programs). A rower could be on a developmental pathway and longer training blocks, but then have a good result or get an opportunity to move to a competitive pathway. We had to use a more blended programming approach to develop one or two qualities while strongly maintaining the other qualities in order to be race-ready on potentially short notice.

Here’s what I try to do in strength training with all rowers.

1. Break training down into phases that make sense for the context.
2. Pick one focus quality to develop in each phase of strength training. Maybe two qualities if they are complementary, such as technique and hypertrophy or power and coordination, but I’d typically prefer two shorter phases with one focus quality per phase rather than a longer phase of two focus qualities.
3. Do some training for the non-focus qualities, so that we don’t lose them entirely while training for the focus qualities. For example, when focusing on technique and hypertrophy, we do some plyometric exercises to maintain power. Every 2-4 weeks we work up to one or two sets of low reps with weights above 85% of approximate 1RM to maintain max strength.

Rowers with less experience and/or training on longer timelines can have longer training phases focusing more on developmental qualities and less on maintenance qualities. For example, a junior or collegiate rower training for spring 2km season can really focus on technique and hypertrophy with a full 10-16 weeks of summer training dedicated to it. We can put less emphasis on maintaining strength and power because we know we have more time to develop those later in the training year.

Rowers with more experience and/or training on shorter timelines have shorter training phases with more blended focus. The GRP are rarely more than 12 weeks away from a 2km performance, so a standard strength training cycle is 4-6 weeks for development and 6-8 weeks of prep (all while holding a high (>160km/wk) rowing training load). Many masters rowers race a similar schedule. For example, if we put equivalent importance on fall head race season, winter erg race season, and spring and/or summer sprint race season. Masters who approach the distance season or the sprint season as the “off-season” could use the longer training phase strategy.

There could be adequate terms for this strategy in the current periodization vocabulary. I’d rather just stick to “organization” and work harder to describe better in plain, specific language what I’m trying to do with training, rather spending the same or more effort to understand prior terms, stay abreast of “new” terminology, make sure others understand that terminology when and how I use it (and that my use is consistent with others’), and updating everything again when another term comes along.

Dr. John Kiely’s research and writing about periodization history, paradigms, and fallacies has been helpful for me in this shift. I recommend it for readers who wish to go further in this discussion without necessarily expecting immediate “how-to” practical training applications. There’s also a great chapter in the “Myths of Sport Performance” book that I recommended earlier, which makes good use of Kiely’s research and more. (Note: The excellent “Myths” editors also have a new book out, “Women Working in Sport.”)

Here’s my main takeaway. Periodization really just means “organization of training.” This organization includes biological, physical, and physiological factors (heavily discussed in coaching), as well as social, cultural, and contextual factors (less discussed). We can organize training however works for our specific situations without feeling bound by prior terms, methods, or systems. These prior concepts ultimately just reflect other coaches organizing training in their own best systematic and contextual ways. Ideally, we should learn from and draw from these concepts to improve our own training, while avoiding creating confusion by misusing others’ or original terminology or creating our own redundant or conflicting terminology (yet this is what often/inevitably happens).

Training organization with velocity-based training (VBT)

Read about VBT in my Five-Year Update PDF addendum to my book.

Using velocity-based training (VBT) doesn’t require any different organizational or programming approach than using RPE or percent-1RM training. I think VBT is superior to both of these options when rowers are experienced, competitive, and there’s a budget for the technology. I think VBT is probably not that useful for rowers with less than about three years of concurrent rowing and strength training experience. Spend your time, money, and effort getting consistent strength training time with quality coaching. These will make a bigger difference and have to be in place before VBT is actually useful anyway.

For experienced and competitive rowers with the budget for training technology, VBT can enhance strength training by providing more detailed data. There are some VBT-specific program designs, like the “VL10” system that I wrote about in Part 7 of my series. Even with the full-time, high-performance GRP rowers, that was the only time we used that design. I usually just kept the same sets, reps, and overall progression of the program. We still found VBT valuable versus percent-1RM or RPE to guide weight selection for main work squat and deadlift exercises.

I chose the word “guide” intentionally there, rather than “regulate” or “autoregulate,” because I still relied on athlete communication and mutual feedback. We discussed and evaluated quality and feel along with the VBT data to determine weight selection. Here is a good 2025 article to read more along this line: “A Critical Appraisal of Using Barbell Velocity Data to Regulate Training.”