Dulling the Knife

Here is the scenario. The competition season has just ended.
Your athletes are fast, explosive and technically proficient. They are
fully tapered. All their capacities are sharpened to a razors edge. So now
what? Most of
the time we go do what I call dulling the knife. We take a couple
of weeks of rest, then some active rest and then we start piling on the volume
with a general prep phase. The exact opposite of where we just ended. We deaden
them; take away all those hard earned explosive and speed qualities
that we have so carefully accumulated over the previous training year. Anyone can do that, it takes no imagination and creativity to slog and make people slow. Frankly this is
a vestige of the old model of classical Periodization that lingers on today; it
is Russian revenge for not having prevailed in the cold war. Instead of dulling the knife you
want to take advantage of those sharpened qualities and start the next year up
a step from the previous training year. Don’t be afraid to keep intensity up on
key training components. Instead of piling on the volume and dulling the knife
alternate intensity microcycles and volume microcyles. Jut don't let yourself get too far away from where you want to be when you compete. Sometimes we forget that
training is cumulative from day to day, week to week, month to month and above
all from year to year. Take advantage of their sharpness and start training at
a higher level, keep that knife sharp, but not to a razors edge.That comes later when you need to.