Oct 12 in General discussion
How to Periodise Your Custom Program
If you’re wondering what periodisation is, it is basically dividing training into different phases and cycles. You might have heard of it before, terms such as “linear periodisation” or undulating periodisation.
There are multiple different versions of periodisation for powerlifting and strength training depending on the person you ask, but they all boil down to the same thing.
They are all just different interpretations and definitions of the 3 phases, known as Accumulation, transmutation and realisation.
Now, they sound pretty magical, especially transmutation and realisation, it sounds like it’s straight out of a yogic sutra, but it isn’t. To put it in simpler terms for you, the accumulation phase refers volume building, building up work capacity and getting used to the movement and technique of whichever lift or exercise you’re doing.
Everyone has different versions of the same three phases. I personally break down the second phase into two distinct phases and leave the other two alone. This makes the most sense to me.
So for me there are four distinct phases When it comes to building strength.
- Phase 1 is accumulation phase it’s the same thing as the OG.
- Phase 2 is the muscle building phase, Which you would employ classic hypertrophy styled training techniques and volumes.
- Phase 3 is the strength training phase, which in this phase you would classically employ strength training techniques.
- And the last phase is the peaking phase, which is the phase where you aim to hit the highest possible number you can for strength or any other peak for any other exercise.
Let’s go through each of them one by one.
- Phase 1: Accumulation
The second reason is to build up work capacity. Bast or Australian Strength Coach talks about this. He talks about building tolerance and endurance to properly handle loads and effort levels. The way you would go about it at this stage of accumulation is through high volume, which builds up your tolerance towards it and also aids in improvement pain tolerance, which you would need in the later phases of this type of periodisation.
2. Phase 2: Muscle Building Phase
Many people forget about this. There are multiple ways of increasing strength. The classic method people think of when it comes to strength training is through, well, strength training, through neural muscular development. But people forget that when the muscle gets bigger, it will most certainly get stronger.
This phase of training emphasises on putting on slabs of meat, which you might do inclined dumbbell bench press, dips, chest flyes etc. Whatever exercises people prescribe for hypertrophy. In this stage you especially have to focus on eating well, sleeping well, and making sure to keep away from anything that might cause a dip in gains, such as cold exposure.
This phase will last around 2 weeks as you increase in load and start to build muscle.
3. Phase 3: Strength training
Why is this phase after the hypertrophy phase? If you were paying attention, I mentioned 2 different ways of increasing in strength. One is through bigger muscles, and the second method is through neuromuscular development.
Through this phase, you would be turning the big muscles you built into truly muscles of unyielding strength through this phase of strength training.
So this phase you would typically see a lot lower reps, around 5 maximum to start building up the strength using the new muscles that you have built up.
This phase will typically last around 1-2 weeks in order to properly get used to lifting heavier loads.
4. Phase 4: Realisation Phase (1 Week)
This is the phase where you would go for your peak power and intensity. This could be going for your 90% 1RM for 2 or even actually going for your 1RM in this realisation phase. This will typically tax you a lot, so after this phase of peak intensity, your would have actually a 5th phase that I haven’t mentioned yet, a restoration phase to chill out. I won’t list this out, but you basically just chill at 50% of your 1RM and just let yourself recover for a week and then repeat the cycle.
This cycle could last between 6 weeks to 8 weeks including the restoration phase, and then the athlete, you in this case, will then repeat the cycle once again.
Keep in mind this is the most efficient method for strength training. If you guys want something on hypertrophy training, then let me know in the comments.
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How to Periodise Your Custom Program
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