The Rationale for the Title
Rather than using the term “Program Planning”, I’ve opted to choose the one I have as it’s a quick overview of the two things I’ve been doing lately to make it possible for me to more effectively plan programming, rather than doing the actual programming itself. I hope this provides some insight and clarity into the process.
Annual Calendar
I start this process around early December each year. I use an application called Mindjet Mind Manager. It’s a little pricey if this is all you’re doing with it, but I use it to map out all my projects and writing. There are free mind mapping programs that will do the same thing or you can use the Word outlining mode.
National Events and Holidays
I start out by listing the 12 months of the year. I then go over the USAW national calendar for the upcoming year and place each national event in the proper month. I then go to Google and look up national holidays and place them in their respective months.
Gym Meets
I then decide when my sanctioned gym meets will take place (usually around the last qualifying dates for the major national events), and insert them into the calendar. I also include courses or seminars that I am presenting.
Flagging
I then put a green flag on the events the team or I will be attending and a red flag on the ones we won’t.
I then print the calendar and post it for all in the gym to see. Here is the calendar as it appeared before the Covid crisis intervened.
Planning Calendar
I do this one with an Excel Spread Sheet.
In the far left column I list the date of every Monday of the year. Across the top I list the green flagged competitions from the annual calendar.
For any given meet I go to the week of the event and insert a 1 in that square. I then decide whether we will use an 8 or 12 week macrocycle based on the level of athletes who will be competing. My intermediates usually use an 8 week, while the advanced use a 12 week. I then number the squares from the 1 square upwards until I get to 8 or 12. There are some variations based on holidays or the timing of the previous macrocycle.
I now have a table telling me what the training should be like for each week. At this point I can go about doing the detail planning.
I’ve included the early 2020 spreadsheet from before the Covid crisis.
