For athletes competing in the Winter Olympics, inborn talent, years of training, dedication and mental toughness are essential to winning a spot on the medal stand — a bit of luck and good weather doesn’t hurt, either. But there is another important consideration most of us don’t think about: timing.
“It’s a tremendous amount of commitment and dedication for essentially one day of activity,” said David Ramirez, director of the Athletic Training Education Program at Loyola Marymount University. “When I’m watching the games, I like to analyze the athletes’ training programs, their patterns. Do they peak too early training for the trials? Are they too tired for the competition?”
Most athletes prepare for competition with four-step training regimen. Over a four-week period, trainers work their athletes to a certain stress and performance level for one week, they push more the second week, and further the third week. The fourth week the athlete is allowed to recover. Then, the regimen is repeated and with each cycle, the athlete becomes stronger, faster and more competitive in their sport. The process is called “periodization.”
The ideal, said Ramirez, is to time an athletes’ training routine so that their optimum performance level coincides with his or her next competition. But figuring out the right timing isn’t that easy.
U.S. Olympic speed skater Tucker Fredricks was described in the Los Angeles Timesas being “a bit glum after a workout last week about a lack of snap in his legs.” He seemed more cheerful some days later. “It wasn’t amazing out there, but usually if it is amazing, the next day I don’t race well,” Fredricks told the paper, “so I think I’m right where I need to be.”
Even with all that effort, concentration and timing, “It might be your best day but someone else has a better day,” said Ramirez. In some ways, Ramirez said, timing is harder to pull off for college-level athletes, “because you are training for multiple events and that means they have to peak on Thursday, recover and compete again on Saturday.” In team sports, the challenge is to have multiple players peak at the same time.