In last week’s blog entry, I described what Periodization is; why it’s so invaluable to your long-term training goals, and the separate components that comprise the Periodization philosophy. To recap, these Periodization components are comprised of:

• Cycling
• Sequential Development
• The optimal volume/intensity relationship
• Delayed Adaptation

So what is ‘Cycling’?

In a perfect world there would be no war, famine or poverty. Flying cars would fill the skies, there’d be no queues at the post office, 80’s music would come back in fashion, and the iron enthusiast could add more weight each gym session until they could bench press a tank.

Dream on. The human body has its limitations, and the Physiological Law of Accommodation states that, after a short period of time, the body stops responding to a certain stimulus. It takes a greater load to get it to improve again. The bummer is, you cannot increase the load indefinitely. It just does not work that way and eventually you will hit the wall – no matter how perfect you believe your current exercise regime to be, it’s effectiveness will inevitably be reduced and eventually nullified.

Why this is so, even the egg-heads don’t really know for sure! Theories range from systemic neurological or endocrine exhaustion, to some unknown regulatory mechanism. Perhaps someday scientists will actually develop ‘Super-Humans’, but until then, the reasons don’t matter. To continue to grow bigger and stronger, you must accept this to overcome a preference to one-dimensional training.

Russian scientists concluded that periodic gain and loss of sporting form is a law of physiology and it dictates a cyclical organisation of the training process. Consider human life as one big wave with climbing, peaking and declining phases. This big wave is comprised of many smaller waves ranging from years to seconds. Rational athletic training takes this cyclical approach into account. Thus cycling of loads was born in former Soviet Russia many decades ago.

This radical concept is simple…

“If your muscles have stopped responding to a training stimulus and rebel against further load increase – just back off to resensitise them” – Pavel Tsatsouline

Essentially, you soften up your muscle for future gains. The cycling principle applies to your training months and weeks and even repeats itself within a workout. Multiple sets with a static weight e.g. 200kgx5x5 are frowned upon by Russian weight-lifters (to say they know what they’re talking about would be an understatement). They have the habit of following up a heavy triple or double with a weight reduced by 5-10% before making another heavy lift.

‘Segments’ is a similar pattern designed by the Bulgarians: work up to a heavy single, then back off some, then push again etc. In addition to being more effective for motor learning reasons, such a wavy workout is a lot less monotonous and more enjoyable. Non-stop variation of volume and intensity reduces the possibility of overtraining and enhances performance peaks.

And don’t fall into the easy trap of settling to change the loads with gradual increments. Although this will happen over the month’s long pattern, taking baby-steps in workouts or training weeks with 1.25kg is not the best way to go. Russian sports scientist Prof. Vorobyev explains: “Although not excluding the principle of gradual overload…

“…we propose sudden changes in load ‘jumps’…this principle of organising the training loads allows one to achieve higher results with a smaller loading volume” – Prof. Vorobyev

Example:

Instead of increasing your bench numbers – within one workout or consecutive sessions – in a linear fashion, e.g. 225-230-235-240-245-250 (lbs), try something wild e.g. 225-240-215-235-220-250. The overall pattern of increasing the intensity is still observed, but irregular jumps back and forth will bring you to your goal faster than pussyfooting towards it. Apply the same principle to the volume, or the total number of reps in your muscle building session.

The ‘60% Rule’…

An experimentally calculated formula, the volume of the lowest training unit (a workout/week/month) should equal approximately 60% of the highest load unit, provided they are of the same length. Every 4th week, try cutting your volume to 60% of your load peak – standard practice in professional weight-lifting teams.

Example:

Working each muscle group once per week. Max reps per muscle group = 100. Calculate volume by adding all reps of all exercises (minus warm-ups) e.g. bench 5x10 = 50, pec fly 5x10 = 50. Total volume = 100.

Evert 4th week @ 60%, workout reduced to 40% max volume (3x10)+(3x10)=60 reps total.

Weekly volume distribution in one month might look like this: 90-70-100-60, 70-85-60-100, etc. The variations are endless, just do not fall for slick sequences such as 60-70-80-90-100. Sharp changes in training volume and intensity are more effective than smooth ones!

Cycling implies that the difficulty of your training will vary greatly. Alternating hard and easy workouts used to be a standard practice in bodybuilding. Heavy-light-medium is a tried and tested method of successful cycling – do not feel like you have to go all out each workout to make muscle and strength gains (although this might require some mental reprogramming on your part).

Always remember: Your body does not adapt to a stimulus immediately because it does not want to go to the trouble if the stressor is a fluke. The more often you practice a lift – the stronger you get at it. This is only possible because you don’t go to the limit each workout. Your body has no choice but to adapt to the consistent loading and unloading of a particular muscle group.

“Don’t be afraid of taking easy workouts or sets every now and then - they allow for ‘active recovery’ to facilitate future gains” – Pavel Tsatsouline

According to Russian doctrine, a complex of weight training exercises provides good results for 1 to 1 and a half months, and then it should be changed. But not more often than that. Changing your exercises more often than this is just a distraction from purposeful, intense training, and your body will hardly respond at all to the training stimulus as it doesn’t have the time it needs to adapt. Nature does not tolerate extremes; either changing your workouts too often or never at all is a buzz-kill when it comes to making gains.

Stay tuned for next weeks blog, where the discussion of Periodisation continues. Train Hard!