B I N A R A G A . I N F O

Periodization: Planning to Succeed in your Workout Program
by Dr. Clayton Hyght, DC, CSCS

If you've perfected your physique, strength, and/or sports performance; read no further. This article is for those of us who want to progress. For those of you who are still reading, get ready to learn how to design your workout program to virtually guarantee your training success.

How many times have you entered the gym and said to yourself or your training partner, "what exercises do you want to do today?" Or what about an even worse question, "what do you want to train today?" Both of these indicate that your workout program is haphazardly thrown together and not planned. Even if you do plan your workouts, if you train all out each and every workout, then you're not properly periodizing your workouts. I'm not just picking on you, I've been guilty of the same thing.

Do you think that when the armed forces of any country gets ready for war, they simply show up and see what happens or worse yet, see what they feel like doing? What about a Fortune 500 company? Do they just buy and sell stuff, then count their money at the end of the year? The answer to both of these is obviously NO! Then why do we do that with our workouts?

Let's go over how plan and periodize you workouts for nonstop progress.

According to Periodization: Theory and Methodology of Training by Tudor Bompa, Ph.D. (who many consider to be the father of periodization), periodization is defined as "A process of structuring training into phases." Though Dr. Bompa gets credit for popularizing periodization, his interest seemed to lie in the areas of sport performance, thus most of his texts are geared in that direction. I don't know about you, but my main interest lies in looking good naked - not running the 100 yard dash in under 10 seconds or hitting 50 homeruns a year. For the sake of this article, I'm going to assume that your goal, like mine, is to enhance your physique. Therefore, this article will discuss periodization as it relates to physique enhancement. At a later date we can discuss periodization for sports performance - though they are actually very similar.

The Six-Month Program

Let's say that you have a beach vacation, class reunion, or bodybuilding competition on Labor Day weekend of 2003. That gives you about six months to prepare for the big day. May I also assume that your goal for the six months is to gain as much muscle as possible in that time frame and to be as lean as possible on the given day? Don't worry, if you happen to gain too much muscle or get too lean, those are easily reversible with a program I have developed called "Television and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream". I'll fill you in on the details later.

Let's begin by dividing your six months into three 8-week long cycles or phases. Lets designate the first 8 weeks to primarily strength development. During that time you will train with heavier weights, generally a weight that would cause you to reach failure between four and seven repetitions. The second eight-week cycle will have you training with weights that you can handle for eight to eleven reps. This phase will maximize hypertrophy or muscle growth. The last eight-week cycle will require you to use slightly lighter weights for more reps. 12 to 15 reps for this phase will be the norm. The goal of the last phase is to preserve what muscle you've gained and to rid the body of excess body fat.

Your sample six-month plan would look like this:

Phase Weeks Rep Range
Phase I: Weeks 1-8, 4-7 Reps
Phase II: Weeks 9-16, 8-11 Reps
Phase III: Weeks 17-24, 12-15 Reps

Now let's go over the specifics of each phase.

Phase I
In phase I, let's split the body into four groups and train each group once per week. This will ensure that you recuperate fully from each workout and maximize your strength gains.
Monday: Chest and Biceps
Tuesday: Quads, Calves, and Abs
Wednesday: Off
Thursday: Back and Triceps
Friday: Shoulders, Hams, and Abs
Saturday: Off
Sunday: Off

If you'll notice, I've put abs on there twice as I believe they should be worked more frequently than other muscles. You may also notice that I've divided leg training into two days. The reason is simple: when I train quads hard, I just don't have enough energy left to hit another large body part like hams. I can, however, muster up the energy to train calves and abs. If either of these lag behind, put them before your quad workout.

In general, perform 3 sets of 3 exercises for each body part. (I would modify this a tad by doing four exercises for back and only two exercises for shoulder.) The first set will be a warm-up or acclimation set and the last two should be work sets. I call them work sets because they're hard work! Since this workout plan includes plenty of rest, you should be able to train to failure on each of your work sets and still avoid over-training. Avoid forced repetitions and negatives, however. Try to improve your performance each week by either doing one more rep with the same weight or by doing the same number of reps but with more weight (usually 5 more lbs.).

Rest up to 3 minutes between the more complex lifts like squats and 2 min between the less taxing exercises like curls.

Phase II
During weeks 9-16, we're going to divide the body into four different groups and train using a two days on, one day off schedule. This will have you training each body part a little more frequently to maximize hypertrophy. If my 3rd grade math skills serve me correctly, you'll get in 9 workouts for each body part during Phase II. Here's your workout cycle:
Monday: Chest, Shoulders, and Abs
Tuesday: Back and Hams
Wednesday: Off
Thursday: Biceps, Triceps, and Abs
Friday: Quads and Calves
Saturday: Off
Sunday: repeat cycle

For the first three workout cycles (18 days), I want you to leave the volume the same (3 sets of 3 exercises), and train to failure for the last two sets just as you did in Phase I. On your 4th workout cycle, however, I want you to decrease the weight for each exercise by about 15-20% while leaving the number of reps the same. This will give your body a little (but not too much) rest. This is done to ensure your steady progress and prepare for the up-and-coming work increase. Speaking of work increase, beginning with the 6th workout for each body part (cycle six), I want you to add one work set to each exercise. On workout cycle number nine, the last workout of Phase II, I want you to again decrease the weight by 15-20% just as you did during workout cycle number four.
Rest during Phase II should be 90 - 120 seconds.

Phase III
Finally the last and final phase! At this point you should have increased your strength and lean muscle mass significantly. Now it's time to fine-tune that physique by dropping some pounds of fat. For starters, let's now divide your body into three parts and train using a three on, one off schedule. As bad as I hate to, we're gonna train all of our legs in one session. Here's your workout cycle:
Monday: Chest, Shoulders, and Triceps
Tuesday: Back and Biceps
Wednesday: Legs (Quads, Hams, and Calves)
Thursday: Off
Friday: repeat cycle

During Phase III, let's go back to the tried and true volume of three sets of three exercises for each body part. (Remember my exception for Shoulders and Back.) Because of the increased frequency of workouts and subsequent risk of over-training, I want you to decrease the weight for each exercise by about 15-20% for every 3rd training cycle (in other words cycles 3, 6, 9, 12, and 15). As always, during the other cycles you will train to failure and try to improve the weight or reps on a regular basis - although, to be honest, that's not quite so important during phase III.
Rest between exercises for this phase should be limited to between 45 and 90 seconds.

Putting it all together
I have put together a sample periodized program that should work very well for the vast majority of those who use it diligently. However, variation does occur between individuals. Some trainees who are genetically gifted may be able to get away with more work. On the other hand, those who are genetically challenged may not even be able to tolerate this amount of work. On that note, most people who consider themselves "genetically challenged" or "hard-gainers," usually do not eat enough quality food, or get enough quality rest. Don't sell yourself short by underestimating your potential.

As you could imagine, to make this program work optimally and peak on your given day, your nutrition program must also be squared away. Though well beyond the scope of this article, I would periodize or cycle the nutrition plan that accompanies this training program. To do so, you would basically begin your six-month quest-for-perfection with a fairly high amount of Calories - all from clean food. Then gradually decrease your Calories and increase your cardio as your Big Day approaches.

Feel free to modify this plan to suit you, but adhere to the following guidelines when periodizing your training:
• Alternate rep ranges that you train with (light, medium, and heavy)
• Change your workout split and/or exercises every few weeks
• Don't train all-out every workout
• Take planned rest periods

If you follow this program with diligence, I feel certain you will progress from where you are now - especially if you don't currently give much thought to planning your workouts. After you wow your peers with your new and improved physique, take a week or two off from training. You will have earned it, and it will do your body good!

Till next time, train hard and train smart - Dr. Clay