What is Periodization?
Periodization is a fancy word for the planned manipulation of training variables (load, sets and repetitions) in order to maximize training adaptations and to prevent the onset of overtraining symptoms (1).
In other words, consider an entire year of your life. That’s 52 weeks of workouts you could be doing. But it would be unwise to go hard for 52 straight weeks. Not only would it be unsustainable, but it would not yield best results and may lead to burnout.
When you workout at high intensity, your nervous system is tremendously taxed. In this case, active recovery should become a major priority if you are to sustain this level of training. And, even if you are recovering relatively well, it’s nearly impossible to maintain this level of intensity every single training session. So, what do we recommend instead?
We recommend varying the intensity of your training over the course of the year. Your best option is to consult a professional, like us, whose job it is to understand and prescribe appropriate training phases that match your lifestyle and your goals. But, as we always love to share knowledge, we want to educate you on some of the periodization considerations and decisions that we make for our clients.
So, what do we mean by training phases?
Whether you’re training for endurance, power, strength, hypertrophy or rehabilitation, there are training guidelines that will help you focus your efforts in whichever area you are trying to improve.
Phases will be sometimes have different names, but these are the ones we use (in no particular order):
Function & Mobility (could also be used during deload weeks…more on this later)
Conditioning
Hypertrophy
Strength
Power
The specifics of each phase are outlined in the table below.
So, what are Deload weeks?
It’s a good idea to plan a deload week every 4-8 weeks of training to avoid burnout and give your body a break. Deload weeks don’t mean that you aren’t moving during that time, it means you are using light weights or no weights and are adjusting your workouts to be easier and low intensity. If you like lifting weights, use significantly less weight for your workouts (up to 25% of what you usually lift during heavy lifting phases). If you want a break from lifting weights, great, there are plenty of other movement options. You could practice yoga, go for a jog or two, ride your bike, work on bodyweight exercises, or try a pilates class. Just like planning any other training phase, it’s a good idea to pre-plan your deload weeks so you know you’ll have a dedicated break in training intensity which is helpful for keeping the mind and body consistent over the longterm. Sometimes 8 weeks will pass and you won’t feel like you need a deload week. Take it anyway. It’s like waiting until you’re so thirsty to drink water - it’s too late, you’re already dehydrated. Same goes for training, don’t wait until your body forces you to take a break via injury or illness.
Here are the steps we recommend if you are planning out your own training phases:
1) Spend time figuring out what your goal is. This step cannot be skipped as it will inform which phases you choose.
2) Look at your schedule for the next couple months and determine if there are any planned life events that you need to consider working around. If you have a week vacation planned or you’re traveling, maybe you line up that week with your deload week, otherwise organize your workouts to be able to be done possibly with different or little equipment.
3) Remain flexible with the plan. You’re more likely to follow through simply by having your workouts planned out; however, there are usually unforeseen curve balls that arise that may force you to change your plan. Respect your energy and make any necessary changes that you need.
But what if you want to be fast, strong, mobile, and have endurance? It’s okay to want it all. But it’s best to work on one thing at a time to really progress in each area.
That said, if you’re dead set on creating a hybrid training plan, then there are ways to split up your week accordingly. Here is an example:
To circle back, periodization is the process in which we intentionally map out our training phases ahead of time. That could be for the future 3 months, 4 months, 5 months or heck, you could plan out your entire year if you really wanted to, barring the fact that if you’re not an injury-free elite athlete, you may end up changing things as you go (best to mentally remain flexible here).
The other VERY important thing to do if you are planning out your training phases is to include deload weeks.
Here is an example of a 6 month periodization plan for someone who wants to focus on changing their body composition and add muscle mass to their frame.
As you can see, the main training phase in the above example is hypertrophy (muscle building), but it’s a good idea to mix in a couple different phases to change up the stimulus on the body before returning to subsequent hypertrophy phases. In this case, the strength phase allows you to test heavier loads for fewer reps, followed by a lighter conditioning phase to give the body a break from heavy loads and perhaps set some volume records before re-visiting a true hypertrophy phase. Keep in mind, this is just one example of many of how you could map out your training. Also this is only one part of planning your training. We have not discussed exercise selection.
Here is another 6 month example for a long-distance runner:
If you’re training for endurance running, you’ll be following your running program within which you’ll be training in zone 1 most of the time (meaning you could hold a conversation while running), with a smaller percentage of running in zones 2 and 3 (higher heart rate zones). You’ll also ideally be including some strength training to keep your body healthy and strong.
For us coaches, we spend a lot of time creating the appropriate periodization for our clients. It is a thoughtful process that considers the clients goals, current level of fitness, experience with different movements, frequency of exercise, life circumstances, travel etc.
Not having a plan just means that your workouts will be random, which is not a bad thing, it just means that you won’t necessarily experience a lot of progress, besides showing up, moving your body and reaping the mental benefits of exercise. In fact, after following a structured training plan for a while, sometimes it’s actually nice to “freestyle” and just do what feels good on any given day. Having a period of time unstructured can help recharge your motivation to then design or follow another structured bout of training.
References:
(1) Lorenz D, Morrison S. CURRENT CONCEPTS IN PERIODIZATION OF STRENGTH AND CONDITIONING FOR THE SPORTS PHYSICAL THERAPIST. Int J Sports Phys Ther. 2015 Nov;10(6):734-47. PMID: 26618056; PMCID: PMC4637911.
