Greek Training Methods

 This past week in my foundation of leadership class we have been learning about the history of physical activity and cultures surrounding it. When we talked about the greeks and the olympics I was really fascinated and decided to start researching more. In my research I found that the greeks had a training philosophy called tetrades. Tetrades is a four day training cycle similar to training splits we see today, however the cycle was broken up into intensity and purpose rather than muscle groups. On the first day the training is focused on short explosive movements and lower in intensity, on the second day the intensity is all out focused on pushing your strength and endurance limits, the third day is a rest day but the greeks prioritized active recovery and would do meditation and other forms of relaxation like going to the hot springs, the fourth and final day of the cycle was also lower intensity focusing on skill and technique development. I found this super interesting because this would still be considered and effective and scientifically backed way to train today.