Where am I going? Periodization in slalom

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'
'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.
'I don't much care where -' said Alice.
'Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat."

Alice in wonderland, by Lewis Carroll

Periodization in slalom has always been controversial, or confusing at least. That is because there’s a two way focus to it: on one side, the development of the physical conditioning needed to perform, in terms of strength, endurance, speed and flexibility, and on the other a very spread out race calendar throughout the year.

The straightest and most traditional is the one based on the physical preparation, making the athlete to reach his top performance level on the key races of the season. The most typical moments of peak shape during an slalom season are the team selections (depends on the country, but between March and May), two World Cup cycles (June, August), and a World Champs or Olympic Games (August-September). Besides the continental championships (February for Oceania, May in Europe, variable on the rest). That makes at least 5 times you have to be in peak shape, not counting on the national races, which importance changes between countries.

The other focus would be about racing as much as possible, because as already said in this blog, our sport is situation-based. It's going to be more about decision-making, i.e. how the athlete deals with racing and whether or not he’s able to put himself in the right mindset for it, not with the excuse of a physical training load. As Fabien Lefevre states in the video Evil in the upstreams:

"The best training is to race, because your real potential will be proved on the race."

Nobody can gainsay this Fabien's statement. However, we can't deny that physical preparation is fundamental, and specially, conditioning. I don't think that physical shape is going to be essential to get a good result, but it's going to put it at stake if there's is some gap in this aspect of training. I would say that a good physical training allows us to forget about one variable in this huge equation that slalom performance is. One that allows the athlete to get the most of his technique and tactic skills and abilities. It also gives the athlete the capacity of being more time in the water without risk of injuries or overtraining. Training to train..

So, we can't make it all about physical conditioning, but neither skip it so the athlete can race more. Doing so would be a mistake because at some point the athlete's potential caps if any part of his / her physical conditioning becomes a limiting factor.

This balance between physical-based preparation and racing-based preparation will be changing depending on the subjects. On the early stages, it's better not to split it, as they will learn in any situation, as well as improve in the physical side in any kind of training. There's is no need to do special trainings just for strength, or reduce the number of races for better conditioning. They just need to have a good environment, with a lot of situations to experience for themselves.
Later on, as they become athletes, progressively abandoning the sessions without a specific goal and start to develop every aspect for itself, in the overall goal of increasing the athlete's potential. For example, there's some techniques that a paddler can't do it properly without the right amount of strength. Or can't keep the proper gestures at the bottom of the course without the needed endurance.
Finally, when an athlete gets at his top, and with a great amount of experience, he can allow himself to spend more time on the water, without feeling the need of "parallel" training.

As always, thanks to Jordi Domenjó on the powered correction of my English.