Trust Your Training Program

Periodizational training can be a hard sell because each time you change training blocks you take a small step backwards. But these steps “back” are there for a reason and, eventually, you lose less strength during each transition leading to larger cumulative gains near the end of your program. If you alter your program so that you never regress you hamper to ability to ultimately improve. This requires trust.

Every 90-day (or longer) Beachbody program comes with a periodizational strategy designed to do this. As you’ll see if you click here, mutiny is a rational consideration when you aren’t moving towards your goals. But you should trust these schedules because they work, which I know because I’ve spent the last 30 or so years of my life trying to perfect them.

And while I know how to set up periodizational schedules for a broad demographic my own personal plans are more of a crap shoot because I’m always tweaking, or experimenting, with something theoretical. Each time I set up a new scenario I’m never 100% certain it’s a good idea.

Yesterday my training took me back into the gym (well, garage) for the first time in six weeks, where I was somewhat surprised, and quite happy, to find I’d lost little, if any, strength doing Asylum Strength. I say surprised because six weeks is about the outside of time you can hang onto strength gains. It’s not like I’ve been doing nothing, far from it, but outdoor sports don’t usually allow you to keep strength gains made in the gym. This is a sign that my training plans are going according to plan.

I began this schedule back in January. Back then transitions weren’t so smooth. In the deep off season you should focus on areas of weakness. This means your strengths will suffer, which is fine, since you know (or should know) that you can get them back. But it’s still hard to wrap you head around the fact that you might be training harder than ever before only to be getting worse at your main objectives then you would be if you didn’t train at all.

Closer to your objectives these peaks and valleys merge. You don’t take big steps back during transitions and each step of your training leads to a little peak. Eventually, if you get it right, it all cumulates with a major peak in fitness.

The lesson of the day is to trust your program and let it work. We get tons of mail (literally if it weren’t electronic) from people wanting to alter their program, or quit, as soon as they get weaker, gain weight, feel tired, or hungry, or anything that’s not what they consider to be the direction they want to be going. But you’ve got to trust us; those steps back are going to lead to improvements that you never would have believed to be possible.

Period-i-zational

This word still doesn't show up in the dictionary, yet, it's probably the most important technical term in physical training. Lack of adherence to the principles of periodizational training means that your training program ends in one of two ways: plateau or injury.

Periodizational training is simply breaking up a training program into targeted blocks of time where you focus on one aspect of training. It can be fairly straight forward when training for one sport. When training for multiple sports at one time it becomes tricky. This, hopefully, is my forte. At least it should be by now. The aim of this cycle is to put my theories to the test.

A cycle of training can be as short as two weeks and of an indefinite length. Most do not exceed one year, though coaches will make up loose programs for athletes to progress over the years. Over the last decade all of my cycles have been short. In the 90s, when I was climbing pretty much full time, I'd often set up cycles that took up most of a year. That's what I'm attempting to do here. This will be a loose format--so it can be amended based on how real life is going--but it provides a structure so that my training has a purpose. The end of this cycle will be November, 2009, to target my birthday challenge next year.

Sticking to a training program is hard for any weekend warrior that likes to do various sports. This is because with limited time, and many activities, it's so much easier just to do whatever sounds fun at the moment. In general, this is how I roll. However, in order to remain passionate about any endeavor it's good to make some amount of progress. I'm not one who cares much about results. But I do care about experience. Increasing your level at an activity provides you with the ability to create new experiences. For example, I've always wanted to climb the Eiger. I could do this now but if I'm going to spend the time, effort, and money it will take I'd like to make an attempt that will be meaningful. The list of routes that would fit this bill will require me to climb hard 5.12 in an alpine environment over and over, quickly. I'm not up to that at the moment, and only some focused training will get me there. So, while that's not the end goal of this training program, it's one of the carrots that will help me stick to it. I'm not getting any younger. Some of the things on the "always wanted to do" list need to be addressed sooner rather than later.

Here is an overview of my training blocks. I'll go into more depth about what these mean later. For those of you who've read the 90x book, some of this will look familiar. We designed the X on strict periodizational principles. These often mean that you get worse before you get better. During our initial test group I had to fight for this because people were doing worse at various points. I got my way when Tony backed me up, and we were pretty happy with ourselves when performance began to skyrocket during the third block.

These are macro cycles. There will be shorter more targeted cycles within them. Each shorter block consists of an adaptive phase, a growth phase, and a recovery phase.

Oct, Nov - Foundation - Improving the base

This will be a mini cycle, with short hypertrophy and power segments. The base aerobic foundation is strong but certain aspects are weak. I need to train these in order to train them, if that makes sense. There will be some big days during this period as well.

Dec, Jan, Feb - Hypertrophy/Power - Increasing absolute strength

What limits most weekend warriors is their inability to step away from their sport and train. Only increases in absolute strength lead to dramatic increases in performance (provided technique is already sound). These increases in strength can then be molded into performance.

late Feb to early April - Power-endurance

Teaches the body how to use its newly developed strength over time.

April - May - Performance Round 1

We're traveling in April, so this period will be all playing. This reprogram engrams (neuromuscular patterns) to be efficient.

June - October - The Weekend Warrior Cycle

With the foundation solid, this period will feature short training cycles towards targeted goals. It will mix energy systems trained and targeted to be sports specific. For example, training power for climbing while training aerobically for the bike. The idea is to peak at different times for different things based on the calendar.

pic: The Eiger, dangling on a stick

Periodizational Dieting

Answering a question on the boards this morning I realized that I haven't talked about the P90X diet yet. This is because I haven't addressed my own diet yet at all either. I eat okay most of the time but my diet varies drastically over the year as I train for different sports and events. The bottom line is that you should always eat for what you are doing. Since most of us don't do the same things every day it doesn't make sense to eat the same foods every day.

Periodizational training has been around for a long time and most people are sold on the fact that it's the most effective way to train. You can periodize different ways but the objective is the same: to train one energy system at a time until it plateaus and then move to the next one in a way the reduces the plateau and keeps the perfromance curve moving skyward. The schedule generaly depends upon your goals. A periodized training program can be a few weeks or an entire year. Most fall somewhere in between.

"Training" your diet works the same way. The most famous phase-oriented dieters are bodybuilders but most athletes do some form of it, either planned or serendipitious. The 90X diet is just one plan that was written with our clients and this program in mind. It's not perfect for everyone but every one can use its aspects to suit their needs. Because we don't all have the same level of fitness, goals, or agenda it's impossible to write one diet that works for every single person. With X we used the most generally effective system that had worked for the largest group of our client population. There is leaniency written in, especially in regards to how long to stay in each phase.

A periodized diet, like an training program, targets different areas in each phase. With new clients I generally follow the same path. First reduce carbs until your energy stalls out, then add carbs back in until your energy peaks, and then adjust the amounts of carbs you eat based on exercise. Within the simple plans there are many variables, from obvious ones like reducing junk foods and ensuring you are getting enough nutrients from proper foods to the more subtle, like balancing weight gain/loss with performance goals. No matter what the end goal the phases attempt to work towards that goal an efficient manner. The general path is to establish a good nutrient base, target this towards a desired weight, then get the most performance out of the body at the given weight for the desired goal.

I'll talk more specifically about the X diet, and about my own diet for my upcoming goals, as the program moves along. It will all follow the above principles.