Do you write out a training program, follow it for three or four weeks, then decide it’s time for a change, only to rack your brain as to what comes next?
What comes next, or the decisions that go into creating the next program – that’s what Periodization is.
So how do we periodize in training? In this, Part 1 of our series of articles on Periodization, I will cover the underlying concepts, before explaining exactly how to Periodize in further detail.
Periodization Beginnings
Technically speaking, Periodization is the organised, systematic planning of training. In the form that we look at periodization today, scientific models of planning for training of athletes originated in Communist bloc countries in the 1950’s and 1960’s. However, theories on periodization were proposed in the 1920’s and 1930’s, and the ancient Greeks were reported to undergo periods of organised training prior to the Olympics and sports festivals.
The first, most foremost, purpose of periodization is to allow the athlete, or client, to attain optimal performance, or “to peak” at a specified time or competition. This is achieved by the manipulation of program variables at specific times, dividing training into smaller phases, with each phase having a different emphasis.
As a coach, you may be used to periodizing your training, perhaps without even knowing it. Ever planned to progress yourself or a client from a certain exercise to a more difficult one? Well, that’s Periodization.
For example, a sprinter may have multiple phases leading to a peak for the indoor season, followed by training phases before a second peak for the outdoor season. Further, high level athletes may have national trials and even the Olympic games, all of which may need individual training cycles and tapering periods, all in an effort to peak at the right time. At the high level, these cycles will be planned well in advance, with the ebb and flow of training and recovery hopefully resulting in a performance peak.
Periodization Basics
Failure to periodize training, is simply to apply training principles at complete random. Whilst success has followed some individuals that did not plan training but used “intrinsic” and “instinctive” information and feelings to dictate future training, it is universally appreciated that periodization of training has vast benefits.
In my eyes, when we use the term periodization, what we are really referring to is; either the decision’s that have gone into the changes across the entire plan, or the decisions that have accounted for a change in programming – even if programs are not decided or designed more than one phase ahead.
The benefits of periodization include the ability to attain specific training results at a specific time, avoiding inefficient and ineffective training, as well as potentially averting overtraining – everything a coach or a trainee could want.
However, the three primary reasons that necessitate the need for periodization, and at it’s most basic, a change in program, are as follows; Fatigue, Accommodation, and Logistics.
Periodization Factors
Fatigue in the various systems of the body, including the soft tissue structures, hormone producing tissues and the central nervous system, prohibits continual results, if the same program parameters are adhered to for a long enough period (assuming the client is training hard enough). The reduction in positive adaptations from fatigue, is one of the foremost reasons that successful modern periodization schemes incorporate frequent changes.
Accommodation occurs when the body is presented with the same stimulus continually, resulting in a reduction in response. For example, this may be in the case of continually using the same intensity (or set & rep scheme), or using the same exercises continually.
This phenomenon is easily experienced when putting on an itchy jumper; at first, the body notices it, but after a period of time, the stimulus fails to produce the same response, and the body stops noticing. The same occurs in training; eventually the training program that resulted in progress, fails to do so.
Logistically, there is the not enough time, energy, or recovery ability to cover all the required qualities and movements that a client needs to fulfill their end goal, in one training program.
It would be impossible to incorporate every exercise desired in amounts great enough to produce results, and even if you could, fatigue and adaptation would require a change in a short period of time anyway. Therefore, training has to be sequenced in a manner that maximises the training response of individual elements.
Furthermore, the decay of qualities that are not being trained has to be considered – whatever you are not training, you may be losing. This is easily seen when training for an extended time on a particular goal, say muscle mass. Whilst a 12-week cycle dedicated to a high volume of work may increase Hypertrophy, without high intensity set’s that heavily stress the Central Nervous System’s ability to recruit motor units, strength will suffer.
Periodization in Training Considerations
Designing a single training program is far easier than creating a string of programs that enable continued progress. Some training goals are easier to accomplish than others; for example, fat loss requires, above everything, more energy to be burnt than consumed – something easily achieved.
Hypertrophy requires the necessary recruitment and fatigue of many muscle fibres, and strength adaptations require the recruitment and fatigue of fibres specific to the movement(s) strength increases are required in.
Creating a single program specific to these adaptations is relatively easy. However, a single training program will only derive minimal results, as the three primary concerns around periodization will soon render that program ineffective, necessitating a change.
When you design a program, it should be with respect to the entire plan.
Fatigue
At a surface level, fatigue (both acute – during an individual session, and the fatigue from the training bout itself – necessitating a recovery period to regenerate and super-compensate), is the biggest factor that needs to be taken into account when designing specific training programs.
As described previously, the fatigue from single and multiple training bouts will manifest through multiple tissues and systems throughout the body. Some, like micro trauma to muscle cells, will super-compensate in a rapid fashion. Fatigue that isn’t fully dispersed before the next training bout will accumulate, and with each successive session grow in magnitude, effected performance and adaptation.
High volume of work over a long period, can reduce the ability and function of the nervous, immune and hormonal systems of the body. This fatigue will not super-compensate in the same fashion, and must be carefully managed to achieve long term results.
When we see the impact of fatigue, the build up eventually will slow, and in some cases, completely stop or reverse forward progress. You know when you can’t get any more reps, or use any more weight than the previous session? Thats what fatigue can do.
This can be apparent for the program overall, or within just a single movement or muscle – with certain exercises, like deadlifts for example, producing much greater levels of fatigue than other, simpler movements, like leg extensions.
Muscular Fatigue
When dealing with high volumes of work, fatigue in the muscular system, and extending from that, the associated soft tissue structures, must be carefully managed to achieve ongoing progress. Trauma to these tissues that is not resolved during the rest periods between training sessions, accumulates in a rising, non-linear fashion, resulting in increases in internal scarring and inflammation, prohibiting nutrient uptake and regeneration.
If you have been training hard enough for a while, I’m sure you have experienced this for yourself. You’re training hard, using a good number of sets, and with each training session that goes by, the residual soreness increases. Soon, that pain is enough to effect your performance. That doesn’t mean that pain needs to be apparent for fatigue to impact – this is just an example of how it fatigue can manifest.
Muscular fatigue is dependent on both overall training volume, as well as training volume per lift, and per muscle group, per unit of time. For example, the same amount of work for a muscle group, performed in three days, verses being distributed across an entire week, will result in more accumulated fatigue to the muscle in question.
Muscular fatigue can be mitigated somewhat by the rotation of movements, which is why I am a huge fan of rotational training programs, like when using two different upper and lower body sessions per week, that still cover the entire half body (unlike body part specific splits).
Nervous System Fatigue
As with any system, excessive use will result in fatigue and a drop in performance. In the case of the nervous system, advances through training are counteracted with reductions in performance through fatigue. Where advances in the muscular system are structural, increases in performance through positive nervous system adaptations are not, simply being the body’s ability to contract muscle fibres in a more advantageous way.
Where muscular fatigue tends to be a function of total training volume or tonnage, nervous system fatigue tends to be dependent on high levels of performance, not simply total work. For example, compound lifts performed above 90% of 1RM are known to have a significant impact in the recovery of the nervous system.
Even though training at higher intensity levels usually leads to a lower total number of repetitions and total tonnage lifted than at moderate training intensities, the fatigue apparent due to nervous system stimulation is vastly greater, especially when using large loads – The CNS has to recruit so many motor units to complete the job . This is one reason why elite level powerlifters tend to perform a relatively low level of work at high intensity compared to you and I – they are simply operating on a different level!
In a way, nervous system fatigue will prevent itself from developing. By reducing the motor unit recruitment when under fatigue, the nervous system can reduce the stress on itself. Therefore, it is actually quite hard, especially at lower training levels, to experience an appreciable amount of nervous system fatigue.
High levels of fatigue in the nervous system are only present due to high levels of performance, therefore, the body must be under low levels of fatigue to facilitate high levels of neuromuscular recruitment, to then indent into the recovery of the individual.
As with muscular fatigue, fatigue in the nervous system can be systematic, or specific to an individual motor pattern, but regardless, it is well accepted that neurological fatigue takes longer to recover from then muscular fatigue, which has a big impact on things like training splits, where the recovery curves of the CNS and muscular system do not always overlap.
When you are designing successive programs, I believe it is wise to segregate training systems that highly stress the muscular system, and those that highly stress the CNS. For example, you may follow up a program that used, on average, rep ranges of 8-12, stressing the muscular system, with a program that utilises more sets in the 4-6 rep range, allowing the muscular system to de-load from the amount of work. This is the backbone of Undulating Periodization.
Accommodation
Accommodation will refer to the bodies unwillingness to create positive adaptations to the stimuli presented. Generally, the more “neurological’’ the response, the faster the adaptations, however, these will also be the adaptations to be accommodated the fastest, as well as the quickest to be lost during a period of extended rest.
Accommodation will essentially slow down the response and positive adaptations to a level of stimuli. However, this does not prevent fatigue from being induced from training bouts, the positive response is simply not apparent.
The more advanced the client, the greater the rate and amount of change needed to avoid stagnation from accommodation. This applies to the both the ultimate ability of the client, as well as how much the client has improved (specific to each lift/muscle).
When approaching the need of variation due to accommodation, we can split this into two categories, accommodation to the Type/Volume/Intensity of stress, and accommodation to movement patterns. For example, you may have nicely fluctuated the sets and reps of successive programs, and done your best to keep fatigue at bay – but if you kept the exact same exercises in program after program, accommodation is likely to slow progression.
Accommodation to Training Stress
Accommodation will be more apparent to certain parameters of the training program than others. The training split will rarely be needed to be changed due to the fact of accommodation. Rest periods between sets fall in the same category, although manipulation of these variables will occur for other reasons.
Accommodation to Repetitions/Intensity come at the quickest rate of all training parameters. The training response can be continued for much greater periods when the repetition range (and consequence intensity) is varied. Given that it is the intensity (in terms of load as a % of maximum) that dictates the amount of motor units recruited during a rep (and across the set), changes in rep range can insure a new neurological stimuli (less or more motor units recruited). Positive neurological adaptations will result in a greater number of motor units recruited (this generally occurs before increases in hypertrophy, as a less energy expensive process).
Therefore, the training parameter that will, and should, change most frequently, and greatest over a long period of training, is the rep scheme. This applies to the average rep in the scheme, the order of reps, and the absolute reps performed. You will see in my Periodization schemes, that I will vary the rep range, and the set/rep scheme for every program – which will help prevent the effects of accommodation from occurring.
Whilst the rep performed will need to be varied due to accommodation, so will the number of Sets. The volume of stimuli will need to be progressively increased to ensure continual results. At the beginner levels, a single set is sometimes adequate to produce enough fatigue and consequently stimuli to produce a positive adaptation. However, as the client progresses, more sets are required to provide enough stimuli for results.
From a neurological point of view, the stimuli is recorded as an “imprint”, almost like a memory in the nervous system. As stated, accommodation will occur to the stimuli presented, therefore increases in the amount of sets performed are also accommodated to. Therefore, it is wise to only increase the volume of sets (for a particular exercise and rep range) by the minimum amount to ensure continual results, as decreases in sets can diminish the rate of results.
In regards to the muscular system, accommodation is less of a consideration. Seeing as changes in rep ranges and load use changes the recruitment of motor units, the muscular system does not accommodate in the same way as the nervous system – the motor unit is either recruited and placed under tension or it is not.
So when you are designing programs, or certain aspects of programs aimed at promoting hypertrophy, you don’t have to be as concerned about clever set/rep protocols being used, as the central nervous system is less likely to have an impact on accommodation. However, each motor unit, and subsequent fibres, will build resilience and tolerance to training stresses, necessitating increases in sets and total volume long term.
Accommodation to Movement Patterns
Accommodation to movement patterns will become apparent due to continual use of the same motor pattern or movement. For example, squatting continuously with the same stance, same bar position, same knee break etc, will eventually result in a diminished rate of response. However, this can be circumvented somewhat by the change in type/volume/intensity of stress placed upon the squat movement through the use of varying set/rep/tempo/rest protocols. In other words, you can extend the use of certain exercises if you change the loading parameters – something I tend to implement with slow accommodating movements, like upright Olympic style Barbell Back Squats.
Whilst changing the stimuli for a specific lift still results in positive changes for that lift, and the specific muscles associated with it, changing exercises, even slightly, can result in adaptations that do not transfer to the existing lift. Therefore, in an effort to retain specificity to the desired outcomes, we will see much greater changes in loading parameters than exercise selection.
In my own programs and periodization scheme, some new clients and students are suprised at the lack of variability, particularly in the major barbell lifts. However, buy sticking to a tight rotation of major movements, and a wide range of loading parameters, I am able to continually progress the loads used with the lifts that have far reaching effects, rather than changing them again and again every program.
One of the factors affecting the rate of accommodation to movements, is the complexity of the motor pattern. Simpler, smaller movements, like bicep curls, will result in accommodation faster than complex movements like a snatch, or dips on rings. Speed of movement is also a consideration, with faster movements being accommodated to quicker than slower, more cyclical movements.
Furthermore, it is commonly accepted that upper body movements need to be varied more often than lower body movements. It is theorised this may be due to the degrees of movement the upper body possesses in comparison to the lower body.
Accommodation by Individual
As a rule, the more advanced the client, the faster and greater the changes need to be due to accommodation. This is also due to the induced fatigue advanced clients can accumulate through high performance training. However, individual genetics will also play a major role in the accommodation rate between individuals.
Charles Poliquin had postulated that the neurotransmitter dominance between individuals was the greatest determinant of accommodation, with trainees that score highly on Dopamine and Acetyl-Choline dominance tests needing the largest amount of variability due to accommodation.
As an example, in the mid 2010’s, I had an employee that would accommodate to any like program in three sessions; that is, no matter what, the fourth session of a given workout in a program would be a reduction in performance on the third. No matter if we manipulated the sets, the reps, the fourth with the same set of exercises would be worse than the third. The result from a programming perspective was we needed to have greater variety in terms of exercise selection within a training cycle, with two different lower and upper body programs. Other trainees I was writing programs for, even at the same strength level, could easily perform 6 or 7 workouts of the same type in a row before needing to change due to accommodation.
Accommodation may be witnessed during training when the prerequisites for improvement are only slightly above the current level of preparedness. With each improvement in performance for a certain movement, or increase in size for a certain muscle, there are many other performance factors that need to be in place, or improving at the same time.
Logistics
Now, we must consider, that within each single end goal, there is always a great number of other factors that can be trained. For example, you should always be aiming to improve the strength and quality of movement for the individual, regardless of the goal of the client. Furthermore, fulfilling the end goal always requires a smaller series of improvements to be made before the end goal is reached.
For example, your clients true end goal may be fat loss. However, your client may be untrained, have restrictions in their shoulder, poor posture etc. Now, your periodization plan may include phases to raise general strength, rehab the shoulder issues, correct the posture, and then concentrate on pure fat loss training. Failure to correct the problems will minimise the results from the fat loss training, as well as exacerbate the risk of injury.
Furthermore, the requirements of accommodation and fatigue necessitate the need for rest from certain training types or movements, however that comes at the expense of de-training.
Detraining occurs when a quality which has been built up, is allowed to regress by virtue of reduced or no stimulation. One of the key principles regarding de-training is the time of which the quality has been present – individuals that have acquired the given level of performance for a long period will retain the gained quality at a much slower rate.
One of the criticisms I often have when viewing student’s (and other coaches’) periodization plans, is when programs are designed to run for 4, 5, 6 weeks or even longer without change. Whilst it could be justified that if progress is still being made, you should continue to use that program – however, I believe this to be a fallacy.
Using programs for a relatively longer period of time allows the decay of previously trained qualities, whether that be specific movement strength or a general quality, to have a greater effect. We know that from studies on training residuals, that highly neurological qualities (maximal strength, speed etc) tend to regress quite rapidly after 15-20 days. This means that specific strength (for example, in a particular movement), will start to regress after this period, if not trained directly.
When you stay with a particular program for longer than this time period, the movements or qualities that are not being directly stimulated will be taking a hit in terms of performance. When you switch programs, and come back to whatever you were not training, you are starting back at a point below where you left, sometimes significantly. What makes this even more confusing is the rapid increases that can be seen once you re-introduce those movements, which may lead you to think your program is magic – but all you are doing is re-training to get back to where you left off!
Whilst writing new programs every 6 weeks may be easier from a coaching point of view, it certainly may not be as effective as more frequent changes.
Periodization in Training; Planning
One of the last pieces of the puzzle surrounding periodization, is the appropriate sequencing of training methods. We know, from both academic research and successful sporting systems, that the carefully timed introduction of certain training parameters can drastically enhance performance.
We also know that most high level endeavors require a large amount of physical qualities to be developed, even if it doesn’t appear so. Sprinters need speed endurance, marathon runners need strength, powerlifters need flexibility, and olympic lifters need speed.
What we also know is that you can’t focus on everything at once, and developing certain things before others can have an advantageous effect on the next training phase.
In long term training plans, general qualities; those that do not necessarily ensure top performance, but without them will ensure low levels of performance, should be developed before more specific ones. As an example, a sprinter will need a certain level of aerobic capability to successfully complete and recover from high level training sessions. It’s not specific to sprinting, it won’t make him or her be the best because of it, but without it, will be a prohibiting factor.
In terms of strength, we have more generalised qualities, such as eccentric strength, which may not be the performance difference, but without it, will prohibit the success of other training, like reactive strength. Maximal strength isn’t super specific to bodybuilding; it’s not a strength competition, but lack of strength will prohibit the recruitment of muscle fibres. In this case, I would design a bodybuilders off season to incorporate phases designed to enhance absolute strength levels, before focusing solely on increasing muscle mass.
Conclusion
In conclusion, periodization isn’t something you choose to use or not use; any change in program, or any decision to make a change is periodizing. However, following the principles behind periodization will greatly enhance the success of your programs.
Our future articles will explore in more detail the specifics behind program writing, periodization schemes, and how to adjust them for specific goals.
Have you used Periodization before? If so, leave a comment below with your Periodization plan. If not, let me know as well!