How to train with no offseason

Question

I was looking at various training plans on the net, as I'm working up a routine for coaching a new team sparring group for our martial arts "circuit", and one thing struck me. All of the plans that I can find for athletes on strength, speed and agility assume that there is at least a 3-4 month (If not a little more) off season.

However, our competitions are year round. Our championships event is in late June - mid July (Scheduling varies), and the first tournament of the new season is the last day of that. Tournaments are pretty much year round, and if you travel extensively you could conceivably be competing each weekend.

With the exception of the regular sparring, it's relatively low impact, but with creative/extreme, there can be very demanding acrobatics segments/forms.

So how would you do periodization and cycling for a cohort that really has no off season? Assume a group of competitors that will compete in all events, to include point sparring, point stick sparring (Padded), forms, weapons, creative and extreme forms and weapons. Plus team sparring and team stick sparring.

Answer 1

I would look into a conjugate system since it allows for multiple fitness factors to improved at once, which is unlike linear sequential type systems. The improvement for each fitness factor is dependent on the amount of focus during each mesocycle, but will less then that which occurs through concentrated loading from programs which are more linear sequential.

For instance: A conjugate system wanting to have hypertrophy (50% of focus), increase strength (50% of focus), while have less improvements in hypertrophy then compared to a block solely focused on hypertrophy, and likewise for strength. However, the rate of deadaption occur at various rates. Thus, unlike a linear sequential system which have some fitness factors detraining at any given time, conjugate systems can allow for maintained or growth of all fitness factors simultaneously.