Coursework – Designing a Periodised Strength Program for a Semi-Professional Athlete

Introduction

This coursework designs and justifies a 12-week periodised strength program for a semi-professional footballer in one of Australia’s collision-based football codes at state league level. The brief requires a needs analysis, a testing battery, a fully specified plan with transparent load calculations, and a monitoring framework capable of managing injury risk in an athlete who trains around full-time employment. Two commitments organise the work: every training variable is traceable to a baseline test result, and load is quantified rather than described so that progression can be audited, all within the scope of practice defined by Exercise and Sports Science Australia (ESSA, 2023).

Needs Analysis

Demands of the competition

The athlete’s code is an intermittent, collision-based field sport played over roughly 80-100 minutes, in which prolonged low-intensity activity is punctuated by repeated accelerations, decelerations, changes of direction and contested collisions. Three qualities dominate. Maximal lower-body strength underpins acceleration, deceleration and the capacity to absorb contact, and is the quality from which speed and power are most readily developed once a foundation of force exists (Suchomel et al., 2018). Repeat-effort capacity determines how much of the match can be contested at intensity. Eccentric hamstring and adductor strength are the tissue-level qualities implicated in the sport’s dominant soft-tissue injuries.

Hamstring strain is the single most frequent time-loss injury in these codes, and team ball sports account for a large share of hospitalised sports injury among Australian males aged 15-34 years (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare [AIHW], 2024). Any program for this population that does not address eccentric hamstring capacity and high-speed running exposure is incomplete.

Athlete profile and constraints

The athlete is a 23-year-old male midfield-type player, 185.2 cm and 88.4 kg, entering his third senior season with two years of structured resistance training and competent barbell technique. He is currently uninjured, but his history includes one grade one hamstring strain 14 months ago and intermittent adductor-related groin discomfort last pre-season. Semi-professional status imposes constraints a professional template ignores: he works full-time and trains on two squad weeknights plus two gymnasium evenings, giving four programmed sessions per week with gym work capped at 75 minutes. The plan is built around that ceiling rather than a theoretical optimum, which is why a block model was preferred over a concurrent one spreading limited training time across too many simultaneous targets (Issurin, 2016).

Scope of Practice and Testing Governance

All testing and prescription sit within the scope of an Accredited Exercise Scientist: ESSA (2023) authorises exercise assessment and prescription for apparently healthy and athletic populations but excludes diagnosis and clinical exercise rehabilitation, which belong to an Accredited Exercise Physiologist or medical practitioner. The hamstring asymmetry identified at baseline is therefore treated as a modifiable risk variable, not a diagnosed pathology, and any symptomatic presentation triggers referral to the club physiotherapist. Barbell coaching follows Australian Strength and Conditioning Association standards (ASCA, 2022), screening used the Adult Pre-exercise Screening System under consent, and supplementation queries go to an accredited sports dietitian for assessment against the AIS Sports Supplement Framework and Sport Integrity Australia’s anti-doping arrangements (Australian Institute of Sport [AIS], 2023).

Baseline Testing Battery

Testing ran over two days before week 1, with neuromuscular tests before maximal strength tests and the aerobic test on day two. Table 1 reports the battery.

Table 1: Baseline testing battery, protocols and results (week 0).

Three results drive the program. The working maximum was estimated from the three-repetition squat using the Brzycki (1993) equation, 1RM = load / (1.0278 – 0.0278 x repetitions) = 142.5 / (1.0278 – 0.0834) = 150.9 kg, and 150 kg was adopted for prescription. Relative strength is therefore 150 / 88.4 = 1.70 times body mass, short of the twice-body-mass standard associated with well-developed force capacity (Suchomel et al., 2018), which makes maximal strength the primary target. Aerobic capacity was estimated using the equation of Bangsbo et al. (2008), VO_2max = (0.0084 x distance) + 36.4 = (0.0084 x 1,360) + 36.4 = 47.8 mL/kg/min, confirming a repeat-effort deficit. Eccentric hamstring asymmetry, (310 – 268) / 310 x 100 = 13.5 per cent, exceeds the 10 per cent flag and, given the athlete’s history, is the plan’s highest-priority risk variable.

Program Design

Periodisation model

A block structure was selected, comprising three four-week mesocycles that concentrate on a small number of compatible targets in sequence rather than developing all qualities at once (Issurin, 2016). Figure 1 illustrates the model: accumulation develops work capacity at moderate intensity and high volume, transmutation converts that base into maximal strength at high intensity, and realisation expresses strength as speed-strength while volume falls sharply into the trial fixtures.

Prescription and worked volume load

Table 2 specifies the plan using the back squat as the indicator lift against which progression is judged; each session also contains a hip-hinge variation, an upper-body push and pull, a unilateral pattern and the tissue-specific work described below. Loads derive from the 150 kg working maximum, rounded to the nearest 2.5 kg on the bar.

Table 2: Twelve-week periodised program, back squat prescription and weekly volume load.

Absolute load is relative intensity multiplied by the working maximum, so week 6 loads at 0.85 x 150 = 127.5 kg, and volume load is sets x repetitions x load = 5 x 4 x 127.5 = 2,550 kg. Week 7 shows the rounding convention: 0.875 x 150 = 131.25 kg, rounded to 132.5 kg, giving 6 x 3 x 132.5 = 2,385 kg. Mesocycle totals of 14,840 kg, 9,285 kg and 3,930 kg give a program total of 28,055 kg, falling by (9,285 – 14,840) / 14,840 x 100 = -37.4 per cent and then (3,930 – 9,285) / 9,285 x 100 = -57.7 per cent. Because mechanical intensity rises from 65 to 92.5 per cent of maximum across the same span, falling tonnage represents a change in the character of the stimulus rather than less training stress (Haff & Triplett, 2016). In realisation, heavy squat sets are paired with loaded jump squats at 30 per cent of maximum and short sprints, so that force developed in block two is expressed at the velocities the sport demands.

Load Monitoring and Injury-Risk Management

Acute:chronic workload ratio

Internal load across gym, field and conditioning is quantified as the CR-10 session rating of perceived exertion multiplied by session duration in minutes (Foster et al., 2001): a 65-minute gym session rated 7 contributes 7 x 65 = 455 arbitrary units, a 90-minute field session rated 6 contributes 6 x 90 = 540 arbitrary units. Weekly totals are compared with a four-week rolling chronic load in Table 3.

Table 3: Weekly internal load, four-week rolling chronic load and acute:chronic workload ratio.

Week 6 shows the arithmetic: chronic load is the mean of weeks 3 to 6, (2,540 + 1,760 + 2,860 + 3,050) / 4 = 2,552.5 arbitrary units, so the ratio is 3,050 / 2,552.5 = 1.19. The planning rule is that no week may exceed 1.30 once a chronic base exists. Had week 6 been prescribed at the 3,800 arbitrary units originally drafted, chronic load would have been 2,740 and the ratio 3,800 / 2,740 = 1.39, breaching the cap, so the week was rewritten before delivery (Gabbett, 2020). Ratios below 0.80 in weeks 4, 8 and 12 are intended consequences of unloading and tapering; the managed variable is the size of the subsequent ramp, not the dip.

Wellness, recovery and tissue-specific screening

Monitoring pairs internal load with a five-item wellness questionnaire completed each morning, covering sleep quality, fatigue, muscle soreness, stress and mood on a five-point scale for a maximum of 25. A total below 15, or a two-point fall in any item against the individual rolling seven-day mean, triggers a conversation before the session and, if unresolved, a 5 to 10 per cent cut to top-set intensity. Individual baselines are used rather than squad norms, because only within-athlete change in self-report scales is interpretable (Bourdon et al., 2017).

Recovery is programmed rather than assumed. At least 48 hours separate heavy lower-body sessions from field sessions containing maximal-velocity running, and sleep extension toward eight to nine hours is targeted around weeks 7 and 11. Tissue-specific work addresses the two baseline deficits: Nordic hamstring exercise twice weekly in blocks one and two and once weekly in block three, progressing from 2 sets of 4 repetitions to 3 sets of 6, on evidence that its inclusion approximately halves hamstring injury rates when the prescribed volume is genuinely completed (van Dyk et al., 2019); Copenhagen adduction twice weekly for the 285 N squeeze; and high-speed running progressed independently of gym load, since exposure to near-maximal velocity is itself protective. Both are retested fortnightly.

Evaluation

The plan’s principal strength is the direct line from assessment to prescription, the transmutation block allocating most high-intensity exposure to the clearest deficit, which is defensible given the breadth of qualities that improve alongside maximal force in field-sport athletes (Suchomel et al., 2018). Four limitations qualify it. First, the working maximum is estimated rather than measured, and predictive equations carry error of several kilograms, so Table 2 describes intended rather than certain intensities; velocity-based checks or repetitions-in-reserve ratings are needed mid-block to confirm loads land where intended (Brzycki, 1993). Second, the acute:chronic workload ratio is contested statistically, since the acute week sits inside the chronic window and the causal claims once attached to it are poorly supported (Impellizzeri et al., 2020); it is used here as a planning heuristic, not a predictive injury model, which is why absolute loads appear beside it in Table 3. Third, without global positioning system data the plan cannot verify that high-speed running progressed as intended, a material gap given the hamstring history. Fourth, all data derive from one athlete over one pre-season, so change at retest is uncontrolled.

Evaluation is scheduled rather than optional. The battery is repeated in week 13 against criteria set in advance: a squat working maximum of at least 165 kg, equivalent to 165 / 88.4 = 1.87 times body mass and a 10 per cent gain; a countermovement jump of at least 41.0 cm; a Yo-Yo distance of at least 1,600 m, or an estimated (0.0084 x 1,600) + 36.4 = 49.8 mL/kg/min; hamstring asymmetry below 10 per cent; and an adductor squeeze above 300 N. Failure on the strength criterion with stable wellness would indicate insufficient intensity in block two; failure with declining wellness and rising ratios would indicate that total load exceeded recovery capacity, justifying a cut to field volume before gym intensity.

Conclusion

This coursework has designed a 12-week block periodised strength program for a semi-professional footballer in an Australian collision-based code, grounded in a needs analysis and a 10-item baseline battery. It concentrates on maximal lower-body strength, the clearest deficit at 1.70 times body mass, while addressing the 13.5 per cent eccentric hamstring asymmetry that is the most consequential injury risk given the athlete’s history. Volume load falls by 37.4 per cent and then 57.7 per cent across successive mesocycles as relative intensity rises from 65 to 92.5 per cent of maximum, and weekly internal load is capped by an acute:chronic ceiling of 1.30 that already required one week to be rewritten. Delivered within the scope of an Accredited Exercise Scientist and evaluated against pre-specified criteria, the program is auditable and open to revision on evidence.

References

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van Dyk, N., Behan, F. P., & Whiteley, R. (2019). Including the Nordic hamstring exercise in injury prevention programmes halves the rate of hamstring injuries. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 53(21), 1362-1370.