Post 4: Linear Periodization & My Issues With It

          The approach to periodization that is most commonly preached to students and aspiring young Strength & Conditioning professionals is linear periodization. The NSCA grinds this into the ground in the CSCS prep book, and so do college professors and instructors who teach from it. I would probably follow up this post with one about how stupid it is that the NSCA offers "distinguished" and "emeritus" status for coaches and professionals that have held their CSCS for a while, as well as a nice little piece about their distorted understanding of the true plyometric. However, I still have to write the exam this semester and believe that karma has a place in everyone's life.

          Linear periodization uses the principle of "Progressive Overload" to improve athletic strength and performance. This would be appropriate for children or athletes with minimum training history. Children because their strength and performance improvements can be credited to physical maturation, and previously untrained athletes simply because of the fact that they are experiencing the benefits of training for the first time, or for the first time in a long time. Progressive Overload suggests doing an initial athletic profile and some testing to provide a basis for measuring improvement. From there, the athletes are progressed through their loading ranges as they move through the mesocycles of the training year from 50 - 100%, from endurance building, to strength  development, to peak performance. 

         I do agree with the fact that any training plan needs to be organized into short term goals, muscular endurance, hypertrophy, strength, power and conversion are necessary components to a training program but progressive overload needs to occur within EVERY CYCLE. This doesn't mean it's necessary to max out your athletes on squats and bench presses every few weeks. Volume and intensity prescription as well as exercise selection should address your every need in terms of progression and overload. It is my opinion that while training athletes to prepare for a competition they should be pre- and post- evaluated in safe, reliable and valid tests before the first, and after each subsequent training cycle, even during for some cycles that last six or more weeks (depending on training days per week.) 

          For example, if athletes are training for a hypertrophy phase, the word "hypertrophy" should only indicate the primary purpose of that cycle, not the ONLY purpose of that cycle. In this hypertrophy phase there will be core lifts characterized by volume and intensity that manifest muscular hypertrophy. However, before this phase, the athlete should have been subject to an endurance phase. That's where the rest of your workout comes in. All the physical conditioning and "pre-habilitative" measures that had been taken in the start of the training year go to waste if they are not maintained throughout the duration of this hypertrophy phase as well as the rest of the program. Let's say we are in the second week of a hypertrophy phase following a six week mesocycle of GPP (general physical prep) and today happens to be a lower body day. Your workout may consist of bilateral and unilateral compound exercises for your core lifts, like a front squat, a barbell lunge, and a glute-ham raise being the focal points for training effects (hypertrophy, ex: 5-7 sets 6-9 reps each.) To supplement this, you may use several assistance or supplemental exercises to round out the rest of your training session. These should include higher volume movements that can involve functional single leg movements of the lower body (like a single leg RDL or single leg box squat,) and some functional upper body training like a swissball dumbbell press or some pullups. This will help to provide enough volume to stimulate continual adaptation, but also address the training goal of hypertrophy.

           Hopefully my message is beginning to become clear here. Progressive overload and periodization (not linear) is still necessary, if you can perform them within each mesocycle. For athletes that work with classical lifts typically as their core movements, they should be allowed to attempt a new 1RM at least once per mesocycle. This ensures that the progressive overload is always a derivative of a new personal record. For example, if there is a powerlifting competition in June, (Today is January 26th,) and "Steve" performs his current 1RM on the squat this afternoon at 500 lbs, linear periodization has him going through his training regimen progressively overloading his squat from 295 to 500 pounds (~60-100%) by the final week leading up to competition. If "Phil" maxed out this afternoon at 450, but he attempts a new max following his training in each mesocycle (endurance, hypertrophy, strength, power,) he will be perpetually working with fresh percentages of a new 1RM. That 50 pound deficit all of a sudden doesn't seem like such a huge jump. By the start of his last mesocycle, Phil's original 450 pound squat may now only be 80% of his new 565 pound squat, while Steve is still screwing around with 90% (450 lbs) of his original 500 pound squat by the same time of year. You can guess where I would put my money.

          By now, you should have a good idea of how mesocycles (or phases) play a role in training for all competitive athletes, be they powerlifters, weightlifters, baseball players, or anything else you can think of. In addition, you can see how progressive overload is not as totally absurd as I made it out to be, PROVIDING, it does not take the duration of the entire macrocycle (year) to work back up to a PR you set back in the first month of training, it just doesn't make sense.

-Alex