The Pathway Blog: Structured Seasons and New Beginnings

Welcome to the new Academy Pathway Blog, a new monthly look behind the scenes at the Academy!

Structured Seasons and New Beginnings

We have a saying at the Academy, "Timing is Everything". This runs through everything we do -whether it is learning the right moment to take a parry, managing the scheduling complexities of our school network, or ensuring that athletes are able to peak for the correct events.

One of our key additions this year to help achieve the final one of those goals was the formalisation of our new Structured Season, over two phases: Qualification and Championships.

The Championship Phase 2 of the Academy Structured Season

The Benefits of a Structured Fencing Season

1. Maximized Performance at Key Tournaments Fencing is a sport that requires high levels of explosive power, speed, and sharp tactical decision-making. A structured season helps ensure that fencers peak at the right times, especially before major tournaments. Periodisation allows fencers to gradually build up their fitness and technique, before shifting to competition preparation and tapering, allowing them to perform at their best when it matters most.

   
   

2. Avoiding Burnout and Injury

   Research shows that fatigue, both physical and mental is cumulative across much longer timescales than commonly believed. Balancing training intensity and rest, reduces the risk of injury while allowing the body and mind to recover properly. Having scheduled rest periods across the season ensures our athlete are able to recover well, balance other life commitments and access peak performance when it matters most.

   
   

3. Balanced Development of Skills A well-structured season ensures that all aspects of a fencer’s development are addressed. Having clear training blocks helps coaches and athletes ensure that fencers are able to make strong progress in their development across a variety of training goals, allows space for making adaptations to their games without pressure, and that skills and gameplans are competition-ready when they need to be.

   
   

4. Psychological Benefits A structured season doesn’t only benefit a fencer’s physical abilities—it can also have a positive impact on their mental game. Knowing that their training has been carefully planned with a clear purpose can help reduce anxiety and increase confidence.

   
   

5. Integration with our athlete-centred approach The structured season provides a framework that allows the Academy to better implement the key features of our development pathway. Ensuring that fitness programmes are integrated with the fencing-specific training, coach allocations are made based on qualification needs, a system of athlete check-ins is utilised to the most positive impact, and the individual competition calendars reflect athlete needs are all enhanced by the structured season rolled out this year. Our life-skills focuses help fencers develop in key areas that are both directly relevant to competitive needs and their overall growth outside of sports.

   
   
   
   

New Beginnings

As we move into 2025 and phase two of the season, the Academy has gained significant reinforcements to the coaching team -Lorenzo has joined as an assistant sabre coach, bringing a wealth of expertise from his time on the Italian national team (including a gold medal at the 2019 U20 Worlds), while Jason, an active member of the GBR Karate squad has joined as one of our school coaches. These are very exciting times for the Academy, and we can't wait to see what the future holds for our up and coming athletes as they begin to work with our new coaches. A total of 7 Academy fencers have met the qualification standard for their age category (or higher!), and with the Euros, Worlds, British Youth Championships, Youth Internationals and English Youth Championships all coming up soon, there are lots of opportunities for our athletes to shine bright in 2025.

Let's go Blue!

More Fencers | More Success | More Often