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How to set performance targets
From time to time I get letters asking me if they are being realistic in setting themselves a target for a forthcoming event based on their current Personal Best. I also notice that there is a thread on the message board at the moment about different coaches planning for performance (http://www.concept2.co.uk/forum). Here I will try to draw these two threads together by explaining British head coach Jurgen Grobler's strategy for winning gold medals and how you can apply this theory to your own performance.As chief coach, Grobler's aim is to win a gold medal at the Olympic Games every four years; this is his outcome goal. The process by which he plans to achieve this is by winning the World Championships each year between the Olympic Games; these are the process goals. The target he sets is based on the time required to win the last Olympics and what this time will need to improve by to win the next. The improvement figure is arrived at by following the trend over the years from which he can extrapolate an improvement percentage which is know as Gold Medal Time. This percentage improvement is then applied to all areas of training.
For example then, assume that the figure of improvement is 4%. This is an enormous increase at this level but this is over four years. In year one, you would be looking at an improvement of 1%. This means that you would be looking at 0.08% a month, 0.02% per week and 0.001% improvement per session. Psychologically, an improvement of 0.001% a session seems far more attainable than 4%, even though it amounts to the same thing over an Olympiad.
If you complete a competition 10 seconds behind the winner, you have your goal, which is to improve by 10 seconds to draw level and 11 second to win. This assumes your competitor is not going to improve so, to be on the safe side, look for 15 seconds. This is your outcome goal but what is important is the process by which you will achieve it. You have to take these 15 seconds and break them down into manageable chunks. If you set yourself a year to meet in the same competition, you have 52 weeks during which you need to bring your time down by 0.3 seconds a week.
Instead of the World Championships used by Grobler, you can set other races as your process goals where you can see whether you are closing the gap. This will give you the opportunity to revise your strategy or reassess your outcome goal either up or down.
There was another comment on the message board about Pinsent's ability to bench press 300lbs. From Pinsent's point of view it will not the total poundage that is important, but the fact that he is hitting the revised target set for him by Grobler because this reinforces the belief that he is on schedule to win another gold medal in Athens.
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