One of the biggest factors in a successful training program is how the program is planned and laid out. Organizing your training becomes especially important when you become an intermediate or advanced lifter, because gains are going to become harder and harder to achieve.
This is where periodization comes into play. Periodization simply means how a training program is plotted out to a determined end goal.
We’ll be playing with the intensity of our training, as well as our volume and plan how those factors will change throughout our training program.
There are several types of periodization, but I’m going to highlight three in this post and give you some pros and cons of each one.
Linear Periodization
Linear periodization is the most basic type of periodization and can work well for novice and intermediate lifters.
The basic premise of linear periodization is that as our training program progresses, our training volume will decrease, while simultaneously, our training intensity will increase.
Basically, you’ll be going from higher sets and reps at lower percentages of your 1-rep max, and by the end of your training program, you’ll be at very low numbers of sets and reps, but working much closer to your 1-rep max.
So maybe we have an eight-week program laid out that’ll be periodized linearly.
The first two weeks I may be working at around 70-80% of my one rep max for 3-4 sets of 8-12 reps.
Weeks 3 and 4 I’d lower the volume. Maybe we’re up to around 80-90% of my one rep max with 3-5 sets of 3-5 reps.
Weeks 5 and 6 I’d continue this trend. Now I’m working maybe somewhere between 90 to 95% of my one rep max for under 3 reps for 3-6 sets.
In my final 2 weeks I’d be in between 95 and 100% of my one rep max for 1-3 reps and 1-3 sets.
So over the course of 8 weeks, we’ve steadily lowered our volume and simultaneously increase the intensity of our training.
One of the biggest benefits of linear periodization is that it’s very straight-forward and can be a great introduction to periodization as a concept.
But as athletes become more advanced, linear periodization may not work as well because our bodies will become efficient at adapting to this regular cycle of training, which will cause a plateau because to continue making gains, our bodies need constant different stimuli to adapt to.
Block Periodization
So where with linear periodization we were gradually transitioning from general hypertrophy training to strength & power training over the course of our 8 week-training program, with block periodization we might spend that whole 8 weeks working on just one training focus.
And that 8-week period would be one block of training. Maybe for that block I’m focused on pushing hypertrophy gains. So I’d be working with higher volumes of training for this whole block.
You can organize a whole training year this way. Maybe for the first 2 months of the year I'm working on hypertrophy gains. For the next 2 months I’m working on strength gains.
And for the next 2 months I’m working on building power.
And then I can repeat that cycle for the last 6 months of the year.
The biggest benefit to block periodization is that increased amount of time you’ll have to focus on one training goal. Because as you become an intermediate and advanced athlete, it’ll take a lot longer to meet desired training adaptations, so you’ll need that extra time.
The biggest con to block periodization is that it requires a little more organization. Because you’ll need to ensure that each block of training that you enter is designed to build upon the previous block of training.
This just takes some extra planning time to make sure you’re on the correct path to your goal.
Undulating Periodization
With undulating periodization, we’re going to be changing our training focus much more frequently than block periodization.
We may switch off between higher volume, lower intensity training and low volume, higher intensity training on a week-to-week basis.
The benefit of this style of training is that you’re always changing the stimulus the body is forced to adapt to. The idea is that you don’t want your body to become accustomed to a specific training stimulus.
So in this way we’re constantly throwing something new at our bodies so it’ll constantly be challenged.
However, this style of periodization is not very beginner friendly because it can be very complicated. I’d only recommend this kind of training schedule to an advanced athlete.
These are just a few styles of periodization that exist. You also have periodization models like non-linear periodization, conjugate periodization, reverse linear periodization and more.
So find the one that works best for you and stick with it for an extended period of time to see the benefits.
If you’re a beginner or new to the idea of periodization, I’d highly recommend you start with linear periodization.
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