Fireheart Fitness Blog

Periodization and Plateaus

10/26/2018

Maybe you made a New Year's resolution. Perhaps you have a special event coming up. You may just have woken up one day and realized that you aren't at the place you want to be with your overall health and wellness. For whatever reason, you start a training plan. It's going great, and you begin losing weight and building muscle. You stick to what works for several months, and end up hitting a plateau. Now the weight stops melting off. Maybe you even gain a little back. Suddenly you're having trouble getting back to that state you were in at first, with the type of strength and endurance gains that you were seeing so quickly at first. This is a natural result of becoming fitter. Your body adapts to the demands placed on it, and it requires new stressors (new movement types, training intensities and styles) in order to yield fresh weight loss and muscle gain.

PERIODIZATION: WHAT IT IS AND HOW IT CAME ABOUT

Periodization is an organized approach to training that involves progressive cycling of various aspects of a training program during a specific period of time.

Periodization is known to have been used in sports as far back 2nd century AD, when Galen and Philostratus developed training theories which laid the foundation for contemporary training periodization in order to excel at the Olympic games. Galen in particular implemented the idea of building strength without speed and speed without strength, and then using intense exercises to combine both elements after they had been trained individually.

In the 20th century, a couple of fresh faces offered up the bones which would eventually meld together to form modern periodization.

A factory supervisor named Frederick Winslow Taylor founded the Principles of Scientific Management which laid out a systematic method of organization and planning in order to achieve the best outcomes in the most efficient manner.

Hans Selye was an endocrinologist who studied non-specific responses of an organism to stressors. He identified two types of stress: eustress, which generates beneficial muscle strength and growth; and distress, which leads to tissue damage and disease.

Selye's General Adapatation Syndrome (GAS) model describes predictable way the body responds to stress, outlined in 3 phases: the alarm stage, where the body isn't sure of what's happening and provides a burst of energy (also known as "fight or flight"); the resistance stage, where the body attempts to fight back by adapting to the stressor (muscle growth and improvement); and the exhaustion stage, when the long-term stressor is not removed and the body has depleted all of its energy (over-training). Speaking in terms of the GAS model, the principle of periodization is used to prevent over-training (the exhaustion stage) and keep the body constantly adapting to new stressors (the resistance stage) in order to consistently achieve beneficial results.

Modern periodization combined the principles of Taylor and Selye with Soviet 5-year plans. It originated in Russia after the 1956 Olympic games and is credited to sports scientist Lev P. Matveyev. After its initial implementation, Romanian sports scientist Tudor Bompa further expanded its scope.

In more recent years, GAS has been criticized as a basis for periodization theory because it describes response to a general stressor and was not created specifically for fitness training. As a result, two new models were developed: the Stimulus-Fatigue-Recovery-Adaptation (SFRA) model which states that training stress is dependent on many factors such as intensity and volume of training; and the Fitness-Fatigue model (also known as the Impulse-Response model), which suggests that fitness and fatigue are inversely related and thus strategies that maximize fitness and decrease fatigue are most optimal.

The SFRA model can be seen in the progressive overloads found in strength training and the implementation of rest days in order to give your body time to recover. A well-known example of the Fitness-Fatigue model is tapering, where training volume is dialed back in order to eliminate fatigue and express maximal strength, power and endurance leading up to a fitness event.

WHY YOU NEED PERIODIZATION

There are several proven benefits to utilizing a form of periodization in your workout cycles, as follows:

Maximizes both general and specific adaptations due to the cyclic structure, meaning that your overall fitness improves as well as the specific attributes you are training up;
Optimizing performance over a specific period of time;
Management of fatigue, reducing risk of over-training and injury;
Individual tailoring for your time constraints, training age and status, and environmental factors;
The cumulative effect of months and years of these cycles produce dramatic results;
Eliminating boredom by introducing variety;
Eliminating the plateau effect by constantly giving your body new stressors to adapt to.

A study performed at the Human Performance Laboratory at Ball State University has shown that a periodized strength traning program can produce better results than a non-periodized program. It was published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise in 2001 and its purpose was to determine the long-term adaptations associated with low-volume, circuit-type training vs. periodized, high-volume resistance training in women. These effects are also seen in periodized cardiovascular training as well, so regardless of the type of training you perform, periodization will accelerate your progress.

THE THREE CYCLES

There are 3 types of periodization cycles: a microcycle is a period up to 7 days; a mesocycle is anywhere from 2 weeks to a few months; and a macrocycle is the overall training period (usually a year).

Training programs placed on an indefinite loop (i.e., for general health and wellness not tied to a specific event) use 1 week for the microcycle, 1 month for the mesocycle, and 1 year for the macrocycle. If you have a hard deadline (such as an event), however, your cycles will change according to your needs.

PERIODIZATION THEORY

Before discussing how to use periodization in your own workout cycles, it's critical to go over some of the fundamental concepts:

A training stimulus needs to be big enough to push you into the "resistance" phase, but not so big or long-term as to lead to exhaustion. Therefore, training stimuli need to be changed periodically.
Each phase of training should be devoted to a single physical characteristic, or a narrow range of characteristics. Training too many physical qualities simultaneously will decrease the rates of adaptation for all of them while increasing risk of exhaustion. This concept also supports the idea of cycling training goals.
Training load can be progressed over time as prior exposure to a stressor allows one to tolerate a larger stressor in the future without experiencing exhaustion.

The National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM) uses the Optimum Performance Training (OPT) model. Clients of a NASM trainer will work on different aspects of physical fitness according to their goals on a periodized cycle. These cycles focus on certain key elements of fitness as shown in the diagram below. As a client progresses through cycles of the OPT training phases, their training intensities and loads increase per the aforementioned concepts.

Stabilization endurance refers to your base fitness and works on improving your balance, coordination, endurance and core stabilizer strength. This is also where corrective exercise is performed in order to ameliorate muscle imbalances, posture and general stability and proprioception.

Strength endurance trains up muscle strength while still working on your core stabilizers and endurance.

Hypertrophy cycles focus on muscle growth using high volume with short rest periods.

Maximal strength increases the recruitment of more motor units, rate of force production and motor unit synchronization. This is more sport-specific and often a main focus for bodybuilders and powerlifters.

Power refers to explosive energy adaptation used in sprinting and powerlifting. This is another sport-specific focus that is not often implemented by those seeking general fitness benefits.

The above categories of training are employed in different periodization models according to preference, need, and how the body responds to each. The most common models are linear (traditional) periodization, block periodization and undulating periodization.

LINEAR PERIODIZATION

This refers to the system developed back in the 50s and 60s by Matveyev and later honed by Bompa. When using this form of periodization, the training volume decreases over time while training intensity and load increase over time with a taper at the end leading into the next cycle.

UNDULATING PERIODIZATION

This is a training structure in which volume and intensity/load both go up and down repeatedly over time. There are two primary subcategories: weekly undulating periodization (WUP) and daily undulating periodization (DUP).

WUP fluctuates in volume and intensity each week. So if in a linear/traditional style you would lift 70% 1RM (one rep max) on week 1, 75% on week 2, 80% on week 3 and 85% on week 4, a weekly undulating approach may instead be 70% on week 1, 80% on week 2, 75% on week 3 and 85% on week 4. Rather than simply increasing each week, the intensity goes up, down, up, down.

A daily undulating periodization style would mean that if your weekly intensity is 75% 1RM, your first session that week might be 70% and your second session 80%. The overall intensity will equal the week's scheduled load, but how you reach that goal within the week is through a series of different intensities.

BLOCK PERIODIZATION

This style of programming was originally designed for sports that had more than one major competition or event per year. It is more generally described as having a block focused on strength endurance, followed by a block focused on hypertrophy, following by a block focused on maximal strength, followed by a block focused on power and velocity (followed by a competition block if a team sport athlete).

For years, periodization theorists (and enthusiasts) have argued about which model is the best (and why other models are inferior), which is why the research has treated them as separate concepts.

USING PERIODIZATION IN YOUR TRAINING

If you're working with a personal trainer or following a pre-made fitness program, you are already working within the periodization model. However, if your workouts are independent of this form of guidance, you can style your plan using periodization methods by considering the factors below:

Choice of exercises;
Order of exercises;
Resistance/load;
Number of sets per exercise;
Number of exercises per muscle group;
Repetitions;
Type of contraction;
Speed of movement;
Rest periods between sets;
Rest periods between training sessions;
Nutritional status

Most sports utilize 12-week cycles, meaning that the training style and focus remains the same for 3 months and then changes using any number of the above-listed variables. If you have a particular event in mind, however, your cycle duration may change.

Depending on your starting fitness level, you may need to cycle between the first two phases of training (stabilization endurance and strength endurance, as described above) a a few times before progressing to the hypertrophy stage. For general weight loss and fitness, you will remain in phases 1 and 2 for most of your training. You may vary any of the aforementioned factors in order to provide variety within that scope, however. A few ideas for starting your own program design can be found here. There are all kinds of periodization samples and mock-ups online, with a variety of theories behind each. Take the time to find what works for you -- or seek out a personal trainer to assist in your personal programming.

WHEN LIFE HAPPENS

Every training plan and trainer says the same thing: consistency is key. The problem lies in the following: For professional athletes, their lives revolve around training. For everyone else, training revolves around their lives.

What I mean by this is simply that life happens and sometimes things come up which interrupts your perfect training schedule: work gets busy; you get sick; your kids get sick; vacation; family joys or crises happen; and so on. Unless you are a professional athlete, this means your training will drop back or be put on hold until things clear up again as working out is not your first priority. Here are a few important things to remember when things come up:

Don't beat yourself up. Guilt is a common reaction when you have a workout schedule -- created by yourself, your trainer, your fitness club, etc -- and you miss something (or several somethings). If you missed because you felt under the weather (refer back to my blog about training when sick), your family needed you, or otherwise your chores and duties kept you away, then you have valid reason for skipping a workout.
If you missed because your heart wasn't in it or you felt bored, it may be a passing issue. If it becomes chronic, you may need to reconsider you plan; you should also look beyond the workout to what in your life is coloring your perspective about your workouts. Wellness isn't just your activity level and nutrition.
DO NOT TRY TO 'MAKE UP' MISSED WORKOUTS. Adding more workouts into a smaller number of days creates the potential for injury, soreness and excessive fatigue, which could lead to another loss of time.
If you miss 3 or fewer days, you can return to training as if there was no lapse.
If you miss 4 days to a week, you will need to consider that lapse as a rest week. Your schedule will need to be adjusted accordingly. If you were to perform peak workouts during the time you missed, especially if your time off was due to illness these will need to be delayed and plugged in later in the training program.
Upon returning to exercise after less than a week off, you may see an increase in heart rate and perceived exertion at common output levels depending on whether your lapse was due to sickness. In this case, your training plan will need to be geared down to build your endurance and strength back up again. The degree of adjustment will vary depending on the severity of your condition.
If you miss more than a week, your training plan will need to drop back as many days as you missed. If you missed 10 days and left off on the 18th of the month, count backwards 10 days and start training over again using the plan for the 8th of the month. In some cases especially if you were sick, you may need to drop back even further; be sure to listen to your body. For longer lapses (2 weeks or more), be sure to perform an updated fitness assessment so that your programming is accurate for your current fitness level.
If you were in a base phase of your program, lapses in training can generally be handled more leniently. The further along in your plan you were when you missed workouts, the more likely you will need to drop training back as outlined above.

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