Echoes of the Modern Training Periodization Concepts in Russia Before the October 1917 Revolution

The debate on the origins of the discipline of training periodization is still ongoing. The text “Olympic Sport,” published by B. A. Kotov in 1916, was one of the first known books to focus on training methods and strategies for performance development. The book is also considered the first to deal with training organization and periodization. In addition, Kotov was the only author to cover these topics in Russia before the Soviet Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917. Recently, our research group had the opportunity to work on the original text published in 1916 in Russian, and on the article published with the pseudonym of “Boko” in 1913 for the journal “Russky Sport.” The analysis of Kotov's articles offers an insight into periodization and training at the beginning of the 20th century. The knowledge of the historical events and of the evolution of sport allow this article to be contextualized and to understand the author's attempt to promote a different approach to athletic training. Relevant breakthroughs were included in this article, such as the use of training programs to organize long training periods, the prescription of submaximal training loads based on perceived effort and the use of specific preparation phases. In addition, the text contains one of the first notations of the concept of overtraining. Considering its novelty, “Olympic Sport” represents a revolutionary book and the author can be considered as a fundamental contributor to the development of the discipline of the training theory and a starting point of modern periodization.