PLANNING AND PROGRAMMING
When a coach wants to have excellent results or if that is expected from him, he must make a plan and program of the work in that club. Planning is a very complicated action where a coach decides targets and tasks, time cycle and requirement (technical, material, human ... etc) to be done. Here is a very important periodic break up which can be defined like time planning. Programming is other complicated action where, based on planning, coach decides about procedure with information about means, weight and methods of training work and competition.
This is why there needs to be an organized competition on a national level. Right now coaches and teams are entering tournaments as they go. Most of these tournaments are condensed into weekend competition. Players are playing 2-3 games a day. This is insane. Water polo is a very demanding sport and one high intensity game a day is more than enough. From my experience, I needed a few days to recover from tournaments like that. And I was just coaching. Often we had coaches’ and players’ burnout because of events like this.
Year round organized competition can provide a controlled environment for coaches to plan their cycles accordingly. There needs to be a four (4) or even eight (8) year plan to reach a goal. For example if that goal is Olympic gold then everything needs to be organized to reach that goal. That is usually done thru Olympic cycle or it can have specific name. Then within that Olympic cycle there needs to be annual planning for each season. Since national events are not set until a couple of months before the event it is hard for coaches to do any planning. What we have right now is pure survival. Proper periodization helps to prevent over-training and optimize performance by regulating the training cycle. A properly constructed cycle should allow the athlete to peak during the competitive season.
I think that this organization chart gives the best explanation about macro cycle, meso cycle and micro cycle. Those are terms when we speak about planning and programming training and difference is only a time; macro cycle (from 6-12 months - usually 1 season), meso cycle (from 1 to 6 months) and micro cycle (from 1 week to 1 month).
This is the example of planning and programming water polo training for one water polo season. We can think about one season, any season that we have to plan. Let’s say that the first period of the season was at the beginning of November until middle of December (7 matches). First break was between middle of December to middle of January (almost 4 weeks). Next 13 matches were between middle of January and beginning of April. Then was again break for 6 weeks (Easter holidays). After that was only last two matches and play off or play down games (where team have possible 2-12 matches).
In this graphic chart symbols are following: numbers- represent months; a- general preparation phase, b- basic preparation phase, c- specific water polo preparation phase, d- pre competition preparation phase; I.- preparation period, II.- competition period and III.- relax period.
In this diagram I want to show you expected relation between work intensity on training (black line) and team form (red line). You can see that work intensity was the highest at preparation periods but team form were the lowest at that period. This kind of planning can only be done if there is continuous planned competition.
CONCLUSION
With the socio-economic situation in Europe it is more than likely that there will not many players from USA playing in Europe. Given that, the current system in the USA needs to be changed. The National Team cannot change personnel every two years. There needs to be continuity in work to create results. If we keep sending our best players to get experience in Europe then who will stay here for the younger players to look up to and learn from? We cannot have European leagues here but we can create counterparts so American players can stay and play on American soil. The key to success of that league and USA water polo is that the competition is planned year round in advance. Colleges and high schools have to have some kind of planned competition in off season as well. A scattered tournament throughout the season does not help anyone. Leagues can create rivalries between clubs and a sense of belonging for players and fans.
