The Pathway Blog: Long-Term Planning

-Bryn Saunders

Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with planning -Thomas Edison

In this month’s blog, I wanted to shine a light on some of the background processes which are in place to help prepare our athletes for future good fortune, and the long-term periodisation cycles which inform everything we do at the Academy, down to the details of individual weekly classes.

The Freedom to Think Long-Term

One of the key indicators of wealth is the freedom to think about and plan for longer and longer timescales; someone living paycheque to paycheque is consumed by how they will manage to pay rent this month, someone more well-off may have the bandwith to plan for their retirement or save towards a larger purchase, whilst the truly wealthy are freed to consider long-term investments to build generational wealth. In many ways, this analogy holds true in the world of performance sport; a single coach acting as a one man band will always be preoccupied with the here and now of managing the weeks training and immediate needs for the next competition, a small team may be able to think about the needs of a season and periodise for success at the major events that year, but a team with professional support is freed to think in terms of multi-season cycles and the long-term development of the team, and their athletes are freed to simply execute what is required by the plan.

When we look at a goal such as medalling at an Olympic Games, the process is an extremely long-term endeavour.

Medals aren’t made overnight, and you have to work back from the top. If an athlete is going to be a medal contender at a Games, is it their first cycle? Are they where they need to be in terms of the qualification period 18 months ahead of the Games? Have they reached the development milestones they need to in order to be competitive that far in advance? Is the plan for each season tailored to position them properly at the major championships and qualification events? Is each phase and term of the season periodised properly? And is each training block relevant to the term and phase? Across 2 Olympic Cycles there are 88 training blocks.

The role of the Academy Pathway is to take this long-term thinking and make it relevant to the here and now, and take the planning load off of individual athletes or parents.

Training Blocks

We believe it is important for athletes to understand that everything they do in training serves a purpose, therefore, from the upcoming pre-season we will be publishing all of our 6-week training blocks for the 2025-26 season. For developing athletes, each training block will be focused on honing certain key skills, such as scoring a direct attack or making a successful distance trap, forming a cyclical yearly syllabus of 11 blocks each season.

Depending on their level of experience, athletes may be focusing on exploring that skill for the first time, developing it and making it more resilient, or accelerating tactical development from that skill.

We want every athlete in Academy classes to have a clear vision of what training block they are in and what they are working towards, always ready to answer the question, “what are we working towards today?”

Our New Mentoring Lead for Growth and Development

Helping the Academy bring all of this to life is our new team member, Johnny Davis. Johnny is a two-time Olympian, and served as the GB Team Manager at the Tokyo 2020 Games. He will be mentoring Academy athletes and coaches within the performance space and working with the support team to ensure that our long-term planning is at the cutting edge of performance sport best practices. Johnny brings a wealth of experience to the Academy team, and we’re very excited to have him on board for our journey towards Brisbane and beyond!

Checking in on the Journey

It is particularly important to us that fencers and parents have a good understanding of how they are doing. We are launching new fencer reports this coming season, initially for all fencers receiving 1:1 lessons, which will serve to help parents and athletes understand the progress they are making and what they are currently working towards. Stay tuned for these!