Mastering training load
This week we are going to consolidate your strength training from last week (ideally squatting a little deeper if tolerated). Be sure to note the increased reps in the workbook you are required to complete for the strength exercises.
As your knees start to feel better each and every week, you will probably be increasing the volume and intensity of your sport. With this in mind, we have another education week to help you reduce your risk of Osgood flare-ups and also help you get the most out of your training without under or overdoing the hard work.
The acute to chronic workload ratio
In sport performance, we monitor an athlete's acute to chronic workload ratio. This is the total amount of their recent (acute) training load, compared to their average normal (chronic) training load. A big difference between the two is a red flag.
The acute to chronic workload ratio directly complements the heat map, allowing you to track your training load over time to see how consistent you are with your training.
We have built a spreadsheet designed to help you track and monitor your training load over time. You can download and access it here:
What is training load?
Training load is the amount of training we do in a week.
It could be measured as hours of practice, distance covered, intensity of training or number of sprints. Tracking training load helps athletes and coaches manage their fatigue and performance to get the most out of each session and prepare to their very best for competition.
To start monitoring your training load, enter your weekly sporting commitments into the spreadsheet and fill in the number of minutes the session lasts and a rating of perceived exertion (RPE)*.
*RPE is an individual’s measurement of how hard a training session was. 1/10 would be an easy walk, 10/10 being your hardest sporting session ever. Some sessions may have a mix of hard and easy components, but most athletes have a pretty clear idea of an overall score. Get them to use that score.
This gives you an idea of how hard the session was, and how much time you spent at that intensity.
The goal of monitoring your training like this is to keep your training inside a bandwidth of what we call the floor and ceiling of training loads.
During the preseason, you want to smoothly build your training up until it enters a challenging but maintainable zone. In competition phase, maintaining your acute weekly loading within a consistent range (±15%) relative to your recent four-week rolling average is an important factor in reducing your risk of stress and overload based injuries, like Tendonopathy, stress fractures and Osgood Schlatters.
Mastering training load is a vital skill for athletes as it enables them to sidestep a vast majority of overuse injuries throughout their careers.
“Both low and high training loads are associated with increased likelihood of injury compared to moderate chronic loads."
— Australian Institute of Sport, 2015
Common errors and mistakes
A training load mistake is when you have a random or unavoidable lapse in acute workload (illness, weather, holiday etc). A training load error occurs when you try to overcompensate to make up for the mistake.
Training mistakes can also be accidental spikes in training volume due to tournaments. These mistakes are often unavoidable, but errors occur when you try to play catch up and get the reloading wrong.
It makes pretty good sense that if you spike your acute training load too high relative to your chronic loading you’re going to open yourself up to an elevated injury risk.
What’s interesting though is that a drop in your training volume is just as likely to leave you open for injury risk! This is because it creates a relative spike on your reload as you return to normal training.
There is sometimes a lag between when you made the training mistake and when the injury strikes. Stress fractures can take 3-5 weeks to show up, while things like Osgood Schlatters can appear settled or cured but re-appear 7-14 days after a spike in training load. This is one of the key reasons it’s important that you complete the entire seven program as a minimum, even if your knees are pain free already.
Video guides on understanding training load
These two videos explain in detail the concept and application of the chronic to acute ratio.