This Kills Your Weight Training Results. Let’s Fix It

To periodize, you work in cycles that gradually become more difficult. If you want to build muscle and strength, this is the best way to avoid over-volume, effort, or load.

Essentially, a training cycle (typically 10-12 weeks) will have a gradual increase in load volume. This can come from an increase in sets, load, or the use of more intense training methods. But it must go from a lower level at the beginning of the cycle (still enough to produce profit) and then rise during the cycle.

When the cycle ends, download for 1-2 weeks and start a new one. The new cycle will start again with a lower level of training stress, but slightly higher than the start of the previous cycle, and will build up again.

You do 3-4 cycles of this type per year. This is how you can continue to progress long-term without burning out.

Let’s review some general concepts:

• Concept 1 – Hypertrophy depends more on volume.
• Concept 2 – The force depends more on the load.
• Concept 3 – There must be an increase in the key improvement factor to continue progressing.

To cycle your strength training, gradually increase the load over 10 to 12 weeks. You don’t have to worry about increasing your volume. In fact, it should decrease over the 10-12 weeks, primarily by doing fewer reps per set to allow for higher loads.

To cycle your training for muscle growth, you’ll need to gradually increase your training volume (mainly starting with a higher number of sets) over 10 to 12 weeks. Unlike what you would do by force, you won’t even have to worry about using heavier weights. You can add weight if the previous weight is too easy, but I prefer that you focus on adding sets and/or reps.

Here’s a very general example for both, just for illustrative purposes:

example of strength development

This is a suggestion for heavy exercise only, and I only suggest one per session.

• Week 1 – 4 sets of 8
• Week 2: 4 sets of 8 (heavier than week 1)
• Week 3 – 4 sets of 8 (heavier than week 2)
• Week 4 – 4 sets of 5
• Week 5 – 4 sets of 5 (heavier than week 4)
• Week 6 – 4 sets of 5 (heavier than week 5)
• Week 7 – 4 sets of 3
• Week 8 – 4 sets of 3 (heavier than week 7)
• Week 9 – 4 sets of 3 (heavier than week 8)
• Week 10 – 1 x 5, 1 x 4, 1 x 3, 1 x 2, 1 x 1

example of muscle growth

For hypertrophy work, volume is the total amount of hypertrophy work per week, including all muscles, NOT for each muscle.

• Week 1: 60 total sets/week, no intensity methods
• Week 2: 60 total sets/week, 8-10 of which can use intensity methods
• Week 3: 60 total sets/week, 12-15 of which can use intensity methods
• Week 4: 70 total sets/week, no intensity methods
• Week 5: 70 total sets/week, 8-10 of which can use intensity methods
• Week 6: 70 total sets/week, 12-15 of which can use intensity methods
• Week 7: 100 total sets/week, no intensity methods
• Week 8: 100 total sets/week, 8-10 of which can use intensity methods
• Week 9: 100 total sets/week, 12-15 of which can use intensity methods
• Week 10: 100 total sets/week, up to 20 can use intensity methods

Note that this is the volume for hypertrophy work; does not include strength sets. And it’s up to you to distribute that volume in the way that best suits your goal.

After her cycle, she would do a 1-2 week discharge during which she would decrease her workload significantly. The ideal volume for shocks is to perform a third of the highest volume you reached during your cycle.

No, this will not lead to muscle loss; you can maintain full size and strength for over 12 weeks if you make just a third of the volume you used to grow. More importantly, it will re-sensitize your body to the training stimulus (increased mTOR response), although two weeks of unloading is better than one for that purpose.

It will make you feel better, eliminate fatigue so you can start your next cycle with slightly heavier loads (for strength work) and use a little more volume (for hypertrophy work).

Do that four times a year and you can continually grow and get stronger without feeling like shit.