cycles of cycles-part 1 Fresher than that prince

Randomly exercising is a guaranteed way to fail, like the saying goes fail to plan plan to fail. How do you plan your workouts? logging what you do is a good start but planning ahead is better. In designing your program all the variables can be confusing, you can get a good start by seperating your workouts into 5 phases

1-the actual training session

2- your training day

3-microcycle

4-mesocycle

5-macrocycle

maybe a 6th with the Olympic cycle if you are fortunate enough to be that elite of an athlete or train one.


1-The training session: Things to consider during your workout

fatigue is specific to the work you are doing. For example curls will fatigue your biceps (duh). the good news is, the specificity of the fatigue will allow you to do different exercise after fatigue has set it in from exercise A. Depending on the load this concept will reappear with other phases of training.


in strength training you want to do as much work as fresh as possible.

in programming your session consider these three things. 1- rest, 2- exercise sequence, 3 intensity. keeping with the thought of being as fresh as possible, when strength training, the higher the intensity of the load the greater the rest. workout density is not of great importance when it comes to strength training.


As far as sequence, you'd want to put the more coordinated and taxing on your neural output first or as rested as possible. Prioritize your exercises, if possible, dynamic and power moves before grinds, and larger muscle groups before smaller ones.


For intensity, if the maximum effort method is the most efficient and if you want to work as fresh as possible and put the most taxing on your neural output first then you'd put the biggest move and higher intensity first.




Training Day


Not just a Denzel Washington movie, its also the grouping of multiple training sessions. If working as fresh as possible is the golden rule and fatigue is specific to the activity performed it might be a good idea to perform multiple training sessions within the same day.


in fact an olympic weightlifing teams schedule may consist of multiple training sessions none lasting more than hour. However, this is the schedule of an elite athlete.





Microcycle


A microcycle can be described as a grouping of several training days. Factors to consider within a microcycle is the balance of adaptation versus accommodation. Proper rest and exercise sequence can be the difference between continued gains and overtraining and diminishing gains. We are at our strongest after we recover from a workout, according to the supercompensation theory, again we want to do something as FRESH as possible, as often as possible. Since what i said earlier about fatigue effects being specific to the activity, proper exercise sequencing is key to staying fresh. Rotating big movements while resting from the others can you allow you to continue to lift heavy while getting adequate rest throughout training days.



Not all movements are the same, different movements require different recovery time. Minor muscles like plantar flexors or biceps can be trained every day. Bigger muscle groups need more time to recover. For example its not uncommon to rest 3-4 days between heavy squat efforts.



to increase strength you should plan at least 3 heavy days in your microcycle (assuming your microcycle is a week long). With good rotation of of exercises you can recover one movement while training another.



to sum it all up, biggest movements and biggest efforts are most important, so prioritize a bit.
lift as often as possible as fresh possible.



see you next time with medium term planning

more on microcycle's, mesocycle's, and macrocycles