If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail. I’m sure you have heard some iteration of that saying before. In training, that is also true. Good coaches, trainers, and therapists have long-term models for their athletes. And guess what. You should too.

It’s also not hard to make a plan. If you read this blog you’ll know 90% of what I know about long-term training strategy. Who knows, maybe you’ll get paid for it someday.

Fitness professionals work within a model of long-term training called periodization. Periodization is a long-term training calendar. The individual components of which target specific training adaptations. It was originally theorized by Leonid Mayveyev in the 1960s. However, other individuals such as Laslo Nadori, Tudor Bompa, and Yuri Verkoshandsky were exploring the idea as well. American sports scientists also took to the idea later. They adapted these early systems of periodization for strength and power athletes.

Now, we are not all strength and power athletes. Much of periodization theory is geared towards sports athletes. My approach, which also works with athletes, tries to integrate periodization for the everyday individual.

Why Plan?

A good training program does many things. It manages adaptation. Adaptation is the body's ability to adjust to training stimulus. If you lift 95lbs in one training session for a particular exercise, then lift 105lbs the next training session with that same exercise, you have adapted. You have gotten stronger through many different physiological (physiology is the study of the function of organisms and their parts) means.

Planning well means managing recovery. Recovery is your ability to return to normal functioning capacity after training. If your recovery is mismanaged, you may never see benefits from training. Let’s say you lift that 95lbs. Then, through bad recovery management, you only can lift 90lbs the next time you try that exercise. That scenario is what every coach is trying to prevent when they write a program for their athletes.

A good training program is to make any athlete perform better than they previously did. We target specific skills and adaptations that we want athletes to make, and then plan for them. It’s not rocket science.

Responding to Stress

Stress is pressure exerted on your body. Training is stress. Stress, when appropriately applied, can make you perform better. Your body has three stages when responding to stress.

The first is the alarm phase. This is typically after a training session or training cycle (multiple training sessions in a specified group). You know this phase. It is when you are sore, stiff, and fatigued after a hard training session. You don’t even want to look at a dumbbell or plate. ‘Get me out of here,’ you might say, in reference to the gym. You’re probably feeling a bit weaker than when you got into the gym.

Then, there is the resistance phase. You rise up. You regain your strength. You have a fire underneath you. Your hamstring soreness is no longer limiting you from sitting on the toilet. You feel like you are back to 100%. Maybe 100.5%. This is where you adapt to the stress and become stronger.

The third, if you didn’t train effectively, is the exhaustion phase. You train through the alarm phase and past the resistance phase. Now, the stress has overcome your ability to recover. You become weaker, even though you were training to be stronger. This can be caused by excessive loading (too much weight on the bar), monotonous training, or overly varied training. Also, it could be caused by non-training related stress. The obvious ones are work stress, lack of sleep, or relationship stress. So, get your life together if you want to train right.

The goal of properly managing these three phases is so that we, as the program developers, can get to a stage of supercompensation. Supercompensation is when an athlete has taken on training stress, adapted to it, and is now experiencing increased performance. The theory of these phases and their effects is called General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)

Recovering to be Better

The whole goal is to become better, not worse. In order to do that, recovery is absolutely essential. The Stimulus-Fatigue-Recovery-Adaptation Theory helps us visualize what this process looks like.

To get better, we have to briefly get worse. This is when the fatigue, in the alarm phase, makes us weak. In order to experience the positive outcomes of this fatigue, we need to appropriately prescribe recovery. This could be in the form of complete rest, training other muscle groups, or using a light-day for the same muscle groups that are fatigued. Any of these methods can be chosen. It is up to the coaches judgement to apply one, or multiple, of these methods of recovery effectively.

The fear with prescribing recovery is detraining. Detraining occurs when you don’t experience a new training stimulus when your body needs it. The lack of stimulus tells your body that you don’t need to be strong. It decides that instead of wasting your energy on the muscles, bones, and joints you're not using, it’ll use those resources for something else. This can be postponed by giving your body a new training stimulus exactly when you need it.

In this chart, the first dip is from the initial fatigue from training. The rise is a result of increased performance from training. The last dip is detraining from an overprescription of rest.

How Do We Get Better Without Getting Worse?

There you go. Now you know what us fitness people are trying to do when we write you a training program. But, how do we do it? Today, we will discuss it on a macro-level. In the following weeks, we will dive deep into the topic on a micro-level.

Periodization is broken down from the multi-year plan into the individual training sessions. Within the multi-year plan are annual plans. These annual plans often coincide with sports seasons. However, for people not involved in sports, the annual plan structure may vary depending on their different abilities to adapt.

From the annual plan, or macrocycle, we have mesocycles. These mesocycles are typically several months. They’ll be grouped based on which physiological adaptations they are trying to target. In sports, they are grouped into where they fit within the sports season (pre-season, competitive, postseason).

Then, we have microcycles. Microcycles are typically the 4-week blocks you see most training programs sold as. These microcycles are focused on one training adaptation at a time. We will get into those below.

The very last thing is the individual training sessions. It is key that these training sessions are focused on providing a specific stimulus. It is also key that they are structured in such a way as to maximize adaptation and minimize detraining.

What Are The Adaptations We Want?

A well-periodized program starts from the simple, foundational components of training. Then, it builds onto the more complex and highest intensity training adaptations.

The Preparatory Phase

It all begins with the Preparatory Phase. You have probably heard the term endurance before. That is one of the many goals of this mesocycle. Each microcycle within the Preparatory Phase has their own goals. The training in this phase is of low to moderate intensity. The volume (total amount of reps) is usually high. This is to improve endurance. This muscular and metabolic endurance is crucial in the later stages of training. In my opinion, the Preparatory Phase is the most important. It is also where most people will train for most of their lives.

The first of which is the Corrective microcycle. This is typically for injured individuals or individuals with highly limiting movement dysfunctions. I do not often start people here. The exercises in this microcycle are typically isolated to particular muscle groups. The exercises are the least intense while also being the least complex. An example of an exercise in the corrective phase would be a Supine (Knees Flexed 45 Degrees) Hip Extension. The goal here is to restore function. The result will rarely be large increases in strength or capacity.

The next microcycle is Integrated Stability. In this stage, the human body learns how to operate as an interconnected whole. Exercises typically have multiple working pieces. This could be something like a Tall Kneeling Overhead Pull. In this exercise, the pelvis and trunk must be engaged as the shoulders move properly through this motion. Training intensities stay low, but will be higher than the Corrective Phase. However, total volume will be high to begin to develop endurance. Completing many repetitions will also be better for movement pattern development.

The last microcycle of the Preparatory Phase is the Strength Endurance microcycle. If you’ve done a bootcamp type class, some of the training will look similar. High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) circuits will be utilized to improve capacity. Although the load is still low, the intensity goes up by decreasing rest and increasing repetitions even further. Intense exercises like the Squat to Jump may appear. Obviously, it is absolutely essential to establish a strong base of movement before working into this phase.

Then, there is the Hypertrophy/Strength Phase. You can imagine what happens here. Size and strength gainz, baby! In this phase, the load and intensity goes up, while the rest also goes up. The goal here is to increase lean mass and improve strength. The overall volume, in the amount of reps, begins to decrease.

This phase is broken up into two distinct microcycles. One is the Hypertrophy microcycle. The main goal of this microcycle is to increase lean mass.We want to introduce the body to higher exercise loads. The weight will increase on many movements while the repetitions decrease. Exercises may become simpler than when compared to Integrated Stability. A common exercise for targeting leg and glute size gains may be the Barbell Back Rack Squat.

Then, there is the Strength microcycle. Here, the load continues to go up, along with rest. Lean mass gains can still be had. However, the main goal is increasing strength. The exercises will look very similar to those of the Hypertrophy microcycle.

The last phase is the Strength/Power phase. This phase is made up of only one microcycle that may appear in different forms. The goal here is to take the strength generated from the Strength microcycle, and then give it speed. Sprinting, jumping, and other high-speed work will be integral to this phase. Olympic weightlifting may also find its home here.

One microcycle within the Strength/Power phase will be a developmental microcycle. The goal here is to improve strength and power. However, once an athlete has started their sports season, strength and power may only be maintained, not improved upon. Their training volume must be decreased to ensure that they perform at a high level in their sport.

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Once you have completed all major phases of training. You start all over again in the preparatory phase!