Making Progress Through Periodization
You’ve been hitting the gym pretty regularly for months. The first week, you were pretty sore, but that was expected! The next week, you were a little less sore, and every workout you seemed to be getting a little more “acclimatized”… your body was starting to adapt. By the third week, you felt stronger, and picked up a little more weight, or did a few more reps. After a month, you were hitting 3-4 sets of everything, feeling great, and stronger! You’ve got this!
After week 6… you don’t seem to be getting any stronger. No big deal, it’s just a minor setback! Push through it. Week 7 and 8… Slight progress.
Week 9… You’re actually WEAKER than last week… What? Week 10… Same weights, same reps, no progress in the mirror either. You’ve been training consistently for over two months, and you saw great progress for the first month, but now… flat. You’ve hit a plateau.
Week 12… Three months in, and you’re still stuck. The same exercises you have been doing are stale. The scale is stagnant, you strength has peaked, and you’re motivation has tanked. You work just as hard as you have since day one, and see no changes.
Screw this… “Working out isn’t for me!” And… you’re done…
What went wrong?
There are a few basic principles to Exercise Science and Program Design that can’t be avoided… Like the laws of physics, death, and taxes. There are hundreds of articles, books, and journals devoted to these principles… but here, I’m going to simplify it down!
The first principle is “Progressive Overload”. Progressive Overload basically says that you must do either a few more reps, or a little more weight every week in order to continue to build muscle. That portion, you did… but it only lasts for so long.
The next principle, where most fail, is “Periodization”. Periodization is the concept of breaking your training up into segments, called microcycles and mesocycles, so that the training stimulus changes. Each “microcycle” for my training clients lasts about a month. For a professional athlete, depending on their sport, the cycles will vary greatly in length, and design. For a football player, the periodization cycles will be different from a baseball player. For a young athlete, still adding size, the cycles will be different than a veteran, who is simply trying to stay strong enough to stay in the league.
For most of my clients, the difference from microcycle to microcycle is typically simply a change in routine. A change from a machine exercise to a free-weight exercise for the same movement or body part. These small changes are ENOUGH to force the body into a slightly different “innervation” pattern, making the brain control the muscle group a bit differently. A change from one structural exercise, like a squat, to another structural exercise, like a lunge, is enough to keep the brain/muscle connection adapting, and the muscles growing. A month later… the pattern changes again. New exercise, same body-part. These changes are anything BUT random. There is a method to the madness of periodization!
Is one month the perfect periodization interval? Not always, not for all clients, and not for “perfect” program design, but for the majority of people it is a good point not only for a physical change of routine, but also a mental change of routine! Many of my clients come to me as FORMER clients of other trainers who NEVER changed their routines… and other trainers who never even established a routine that showed them progression.
For more advanced clients, like my college athletes, or clients looking to compete in bodybuilding/physique, the program may change more, adding mesocycles for 3-4 months (or more) of growth, followed by a mesocycle (broken into many microcycles) of “cutting” body fat for the contest. Then post-show, a mesocycle of building strength, followed by mass, followed by another cut. Each mesocycle will have 2-5 microcycles within it.
Getting serious results in a fitness routine is RARELY accomplished by doing the same old exercises, with the same old weights, month after month. Remember Einstein’s Definition of Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over… and expecting a different result. The definition of exercise insanity is doing the same workout over and over… and expecting a great physique!
If your routine is getting old… If your progress is stale… If you’re doing a lot of work, but nothing is changing… COME SEE US AT BURN! We’ll get your periodization on track, and get you seeing progress again!
You’ve been hitting the gym pretty regularly for months. The first week, you were pretty sore, but that was expected! The next week, you were a little less sore, and every workout you seemed to be getting a little more “acclimatized”… your body was starting to adapt. By the third week, you felt stronger, and picked up a little more weight, or did a few more reps. After a month, you were hitting 3-4 sets of everything, feeling great, and stronger! You’ve got this!
After week 6… you don’t seem to be getting any stronger. No big deal, it’s just a minor setback! Push through it. Week 7 and 8… Slight progress.
Week 9… You’re actually WEAKER than last week… What? Week 10… Same weights, same reps, no progress in the mirror either. You’ve been training consistently for over two months, and you saw great progress for the first month, but now… flat. You’ve hit a plateau.
Week 12… Three months in, and you’re still stuck. The same exercises you have been doing are stale. The scale is stagnant, you strength has peaked, and you’re motivation has tanked. You work just as hard as you have since day one, and see no changes.
Screw this… “Working out isn’t for me!” And… you’re done…
What went wrong?
There are a few basic principles to Exercise Science and Program Design that can’t be avoided… Like the laws of physics, death, and taxes. There are hundreds of articles, books, and journals devoted to these principles… but here, I’m going to simplify it down!
The first principle is “Progressive Overload”. Progressive Overload basically says that you must do either a few more reps, or a little more weight every week in order to continue to build muscle. That portion, you did… but it only lasts for so long.
The next principle, where most fail, is “Periodization”. Periodization is the concept of breaking your training up into segments, called microcycles and mesocycles, so that the training stimulus changes. Each “microcycle” for my training clients lasts about a month. For a professional athlete, depending on their sport, the cycles will vary greatly in length, and design. For a football player, the periodization cycles will be different from a baseball player. For a young athlete, still adding size, the cycles will be different than a veteran, who is simply trying to stay strong enough to stay in the league.
For most of my clients, the difference from microcycle to microcycle is typically simply a change in routine. A change from a machine exercise to a free-weight exercise for the same movement or body part. These small changes are ENOUGH to force the body into a slightly different “innervation” pattern, making the brain control the muscle group a bit differently. A change from one structural exercise, like a squat, to another structural exercise, like a lunge, is enough to keep the brain/muscle connection adapting, and the muscles growing. A month later… the pattern changes again. New exercise, same body-part. These changes are anything BUT random. There is a method to the madness of periodization!
Is one month the perfect periodization interval? Not always, not for all clients, and not for “perfect” program design, but for the majority of people it is a good point not only for a physical change of routine, but also a mental change of routine! Many of my clients come to me as FORMER clients of other trainers who NEVER changed their routines… and other trainers who never even established a routine that showed them progression.
For more advanced clients, like my college athletes, or clients looking to compete in bodybuilding/physique, the program may change more, adding mesocycles for 3-4 months (or more) of growth, followed by a mesocycle (broken into many microcycles) of “cutting” body fat for the contest. Then post-show, a mesocycle of building strength, followed by mass, followed by another cut. Each mesocycle will have 2-5 microcycles within it.
Getting serious results in a fitness routine is RARELY accomplished by doing the same old exercises, with the same old weights, month after month. Remember Einstein’s Definition of Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over… and expecting a different result. The definition of exercise insanity is doing the same workout over and over… and expecting a great physique!
If your routine is getting old… If your progress is stale… If you’re doing a lot of work, but nothing is changing… COME SEE US AT BURN! We’ll get your periodization on track, and get you seeing progress again!