My 5 days intense training before semi-finals.

[Power]

Okay I got 5 days before my semi-finals in basketball for the season. I wanted to increase my stamina and increase leg strength in 5days. My first thought was to run for 2hrs in the morning and in the afternoon + resistance leg training to finish off . I know that I will be aching the next day and won't have enough rest to recover.

My new plan (which I started today) was to run for 5mins with resistance (inclined treadmill) every hour (total of 8sets in 8hrs), for the next 5days. Plus I am packing in more proteins for recovery and warm bath + massage on leg to finish the day.

To be honest, I never heard of such training plan, but I am cramming for 5 days. My common sense tells me that I won't be aching the next day and my recovery would be fast due to diet and the 55mins rest in between sets will have enough blood transport to my muscle to rest and develop. Kinda like a slow steady increase of strength + slow steady strength on my heart muscle in a short amount of time (5days), making it a fast increase stamina and strength but slowly working out. Kinda like eating 8 small meals rather than eating 3 big meals in a day.

Do you see any problem in my training plan that I might have missed? or do you think its a wrong approach? Be honest even if you think it's ridiculous, I don't mind, just explain it why you think so. (So I can rearrange in the next 4 days)

[Bruce Achterberg]

Recovery isn't just about your muscles. Try not to think of your body as a set of individual parts, but rather, a large, interconnected whole working together. While you may be giving your muscles enough time to recover (muscles recover pretty quickly), your other bodily systems will be taxed since recovery is a process in itself. You may gain some stamina potential, muscle-wise, but because you've been chopping your body down for the last few days with an intense training routine, your overall bodily efficiency will probably be lowered. Perhaps the fact that you've been consuming more protein will mean that you need more energy for digestion, so while your muscles are recovering, energy that would usually be freely available to you will now instead be used up with that extra digestion.

Every action has an equal (and opposite) reaction

You could compare it to speaking. For example, I have toastmasters speech that I have to present soon, and I could use a similar approach to you, practicing it at hourly intervals every day before performance. The problem with that approach is that I'd be so caught up in my speech, probably obsessing over the details, that I'd lose sight of the big picture and be a bit mentally frazzeled.

What I'd rather do is practice for over the course 2 days, then use the remaining days to just let my subconscious process it and give my brain a break so when the day comes to give the speech, while I may not be as prepared as I would if I practiced *every* day, I'd feel well-rested on the day of the presentation, which would consequently add energy to my performance which could very well assist me if my content isn't as good as think it is. Perhaps I'll be in a more relaxed state of mind and I may end up focusing less on delivering the content perfectly and more just being myself, effectively establishing a better connection with the audience.

Kind of a strange example, but my main point is that, at least for me, recovery is more of a holistic thing, not something that can be compartmentalised.

Use the resources you have effectively

At the core, this is about time management. Your intention is to perform well. You believe you have two resources to help you align with that intention: your time and your body. It's a question of "what will give me the most effectiveness within the time I have?"

Perhaps you'll get more benefit from spending a few days relaxing, listening to some motivational material, focusing on your goal, visualising yourself doing well, spending some extra time in the kitchen preparing some fresh fruit and veggies in addition to your regular meals to fuel your body with everything it needs, and/or maybe even doing something totally unrelated such as hanging out with some friends and having some fun -- whatever will positively impact you. This way, when the day comes, you're not only fully rested, but you'll be motivated to perform, and, most likely, itching to get out there and do something because you've just been in a recovery period -- a period of contraction before an intense expansion and outputting of energy.

As far as I understand, you want to "shine" (ie. do well; "burn brightly") for a short amount of time (ie. however long your performance will be), so perhaps, like a space shuttle, it's best to store up all of your fuel for one big push to "get you out of orbit" (ie. perform damn well).

Questioning your assumptions and thinking outside the box

Overall, my goal here isn't so much to tell you what to do, since I honestly don't know what you should do -- I'd need more information about a lot of things before I could make intelligent, beneficial suggestions with any certainty. My goal is to make you think about any alternate options and get you past the notion that "more training is the only beneficial thing". It may be, but it may not be, and this is why considering a few options will help you make a better decision. The fact you made the post you did shows that you aren't 100% confident with it.

If anything, my advice would be to select something, whether or not you think it's 100% ideal (you probably won't know what's ideal until you experiment a bit), and fully align with your decision, determined to not just "see if it will work", but to make it work. Believe it will give you the desired results you seek -- excellent performance -- and focus on empowering yourself (ie. "I have everything I need right now to give an excellent performance") instead of relying on things outside of you for power (ie. "I need to spend time doing training and eating a certain way to gather the energy I need to perform well").

Do your best, but don't reply on speculation

An alternative suggestion would be to, as a side project that you can do along with whatever you decide to do, is to say, "ok, I'm going to try this approach one time, and see how it does... then the next time there's a final coming up, or maybe even in the course of regular training, I'll try another approach (simulating the conditions of a final if you decide to try it in the course of regular training)".

Use whatever information you gain to improve your decision, such that you find something that you know will be effective from experience for the next time you need to prepare for a final.

[BamBam]

you cant expect your athletic level to be raised in just 5 days dude, it just isnt going to happen.

that stuff comes with weeks and months of training. The only thing you can do at this point to raise your game is to get mentally tough. Get ready to play through exaustion and pain, and get some confidence that you are already athletic enough.

If you do decide to train really hard this week, give yourself a day of rest beforehand, maybe just a light run the day before. Dont burn yourself out right before the biggest games of the season.

[Power]

Thanks Bruce, your post was helpful
I've added mental focus in the next days during my training, my last mental training was with the team and my coach last week training.

I can't compare it with preparing a speech because it is a running game and my body needs to adapt to a higher stress level every second. Taking it slow would not help my body adapt to a new level.
About the shuttle launch, I will be doing that on my last day. I will be resting for a 24 hr and store some energy.

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Thanks BamBam for you input I am aware not to burn my energy and exceed my limitation. I am not pushing way too much out of my boundaries. At the beginning of day 2 I assessed myself; I didn't feel fatigued and my muscles weren't aching. Today is day 3 and my body is feeling normal and will continue with my plans. I've been training throughout the season, this 5 day training is just to get that extra 1% leverage over the competition.
(It's a small margin between winning and losing and I'm training for that small margin... check this out)

An ispirational story for me is Jana Pitman. If you remember last 2004 Olympics (Australian athlete), she had a knee operation and it was her first olympics (she had the operation a week before the semi-finals). She ran in the semis after a week. She had a good chance of the medal if it wasn't for that knee incident.

I will be giving myself a day of rest and mental conditioning is on top of my list

[Power]

I've had a good day of rest and feeling better than ever. 10 more hours till game time

[Power]

Outcome of my training regime:

I did felt an increase of strength and stamina within the 5 days. It was a big change in a short a mount of time. I think I will continue to follow this training regime in between team trainings.

....the semi-finals outcome
..............we got demolished by 20points

2 players didn't qualify to the semis and we are left with 5 players (no substitute). Long story short... we were playing 4players against 5players and the opposite team took advantage of those numbers.