Red Deer Life - August 16, 2006

It's only August and already the leaves on the trees are beginning to change. Soon we'll see August fade to September and summer will begin to fade into fall. Our seasons portray one of life's many cycles that continually revolve around us. It was the notion of different cycles that I found inspiration this week. Effective training is often based on cycles as well. If you've been struggling to make steady progress or consistent gains lately perhaps it's time to review your exercise plan and implement a new training cycle.

A typical strength training cycle might consist of phases such as strength phases, growth phases, endurance phases and a detraining phase. Each phase in the training cycle plays a different role in achieving the final goal. The strength phase would encompass greater resistance and longer rest periods between sets. The overall volume of sets or workload during this phase would be reduced because of the extra rest time. The primary focus of this portion of the cycle is to gain strength at a quicker than normal rate. Only in part is this due to added muscle tissue. Explosive or short duration strength is in large part relative to the efficiency of the nervous system; and how quickly and effectively the signal to perform that movement ca be transmitted. The stronger and faster the nervous signal the more fibres will be recruited and the stronger the muscle will be.

A growth phase would encompass an increased number of repetitions then the sets performed in a strength phase. The difference might be sets of 8-12 repetitions as opposed to 2-6 in the previous phase. Rest times may also be slightly reduced. The duration of the entire workout should remain roughly the same but the overall volume of work will now be increased by the extra reps and shorter rest times. It is this phase that we would see the greatest accumulation of new muscle tissue. This tends to be the portion of a training cycle where most people spend most of their time or never leave. The balance between moderately heavy resistance, set duration and rest provide the best environment for the body to increase fibre size through adaptation. However when too much time is spent in this cycle gains slow or stop completely. Many people you see in the gym tonight will be living examples of this.

The next phase of the cycle might be the endurance phase. Encompassing higher repetition ranges and short rest times it provides the greatest workload. For a pure strength athlete it will be by far the most taxing. The body is forced to develop efficiency in its energy systems to survive the longer set duration and short rest periods. What in particular has to happen is the body must find a way to eliminate waste products such as lactic acid and ammonia and try to supply fresh oxygen to the muscles. This process is quite inefficient in most strength athletes. Through this phase if we can develop greater efficiency imagine the impact these improvements will then have on our next strength phase.

Detraining, the final phase, and for some the hardest phase to implement. Detraining is an extended period of rest. It may be active rest where some very casual training is used or it may be complete rest to allow for maximum recovery and growth of all tissues and systems before starting the next phase.

Each one of these phases or portions of the whole cycle are important to making continual progress and achievement of your final goal whether that involves weight loss or muscle gain. Initially you may try using an arbitrary amount of time in each cycle until you know what best suits your body, training style and level of progress.