"All the means of producing the desired training effects need to be logically placed in a long-term system of developing the athlete."

The entire purpose of all aspects of training is simple: adaptation. Every part of your program should have a specific desired adaptation, as should the summation of the training plan. Read Gabriel's article on adaptation for tons of quotes you can steal for life!

As you probably know, Cal Dietz does some very interesting stuff, but he always has an extremely rational and methodical reason behind it. In this article he discusses OC (oscillatory training) and partial, joint specific training for athletes.

I can't put it better than this:

"the methodological concept must always be based on the main principle governing the acquisition of Sports skills: Performance improvement is determined by a steady increase in the athlete's motor potential and the athlete's capacity to use this potential efficiently during training and competition. This means that without an improvement in an athlete's Special physical preparation level, one cannot expect an improvement in technical and tactical skill, the body's work Output, or the speed of execution of the competition exercise. Consequently, neither the planned for improvement in competition skill nor general Performance results will be fulfilled. The training process should therefore be principally aimed at an increase of the body's work Output in a given motor regimen"

I wrote this article last year with the intention of turning it into a two part article (I did, more on that soon). The idea is that nearly all levels of athletic based training can be highly successful without using any % based training at all: autoregulatory, RPE and VBT can replace the need for prescribed intensities. Part two described why % training makes the coaches job significantly easier, while being insanely accurate on a global scale for prescribing intensity (however that article got 1/10th the hits). Check it out, do you agree?