Want a Boost to Your Fitness? Try Periodization Training
There is a common saying: “failing to plan is planning to fail”. The basic meaning is clear. If you don’t have a clear plan for what you’re doing, you won’t meet the objectives that you have in mind. The same is true whether you’re trying to lose 20 lbs or train for the Olympics. Many of us go to the gym with a general idea of what we’re going to do for a workout, but we often don’t have a good grasp of how that workout relates to our overall goal, and the plan that will help us achieve that goal. Should I be lifting heavy? Should I go lighter and do more reps? Should I do more cardio? Should I take some time off?
Periodization is a concept that answers these questions when we consider how we build our fitness program. I also like to note that this doesn’t just apply to a fitness activity. Periodization also applies to diet. Simply stated, periodization is the organization of an activity into blocks of time for the express purpose of gaining a different benefit through changing the emphasis within the time blocks.
For those of us who aren’t training for the Olympics, I like to think of my fitness periodization across an entire year. I have 6 month block where I focus of strength training and gaining muscle. I limit the amount of cardio that I do so that I can maximize my body’s ability to recover and grow muscle. Then I have a three month block where I maintain the strength aspect, but I dramatically increase the cardio in order to burn fat. This cut allows me to show off the fruits of my 6 months of lifting labour. Finally, I have a three month period where I’m maintaining my fitness, balancing strength training with cardio. The goal isn’t to gain muscle or lose fat, it’s to stay where I am, and let my body recover before I move on to the next cycle.
My diet also varies within these periods as well. When I’m lifting for muscle, I want a diet with more calories to facilitate this growth. When I cut fat, I need to limit my calories. I don’t just drop the calories, I gradually decrease them over the period with the aim being to prevent my body from adapting to the dropped calories and minimizing the fat loss. During my maintenance phase, I return to a balanced diet, meeting the needs of my fitness routine, without taxing the body through additional dieting.
Within these basic periods, I organize my program into daily workouts across the week. I also factor in the need for rest, ensuring that there are rest days within the week, and rest weeks within a period. Not scheduling rest is a recipe for disaster. A tired body tends to be an injured body, and nothing stymies your health and fitness goals like being stuck nursing and injury.
A periodized program also gives set intervals with which to evaluate your program. Figure out what’s working, what isn’t, and what needs to change when you move to the next cycle, and when you repeat theNe current cycle. Maximum success comes from stringing these cycles from one year to the next. Nobody realizes their potential in a month or two. It’s consistency across days, across training blocks, and from one training cycle to the next that will determine your performance ceiling.
