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PERIODIZATION & PROGRESS

Note: For this week, it is essential that you understand the SAID principle and the importance of
progressive overload. If you don't, revisit to the course topic on understanding muscle growth.

Periodization is one of the most misunderstood topics in fitness. This is not too surprising,
since many people drastically overcomplicate it. After all, periodization is a cool buzzword,
and drawing up fancy tables with lots of numbers with special notations makes you look
really smart. Plus, if you can make people believe you can plan their progress months in
advance, they think you must really be in control of things. To avoid being intimidated by the
topic of periodization, the key is to apply some good ol’ common sense.

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What is periodization and why should we bother with it?

Periodization is simply the organization of your training program over time. If your program
is the same every week in terms of its parameters (volume, intensity, etc.), you have no
periodization. If someone's just messing around in the gym, that would constitute random
periodization.

A beginner does not require any form of periodization, because a beginner on an optimized
program should be able to continually increase the resistance without decreasing the training
volume. It is simply mathematically implausible that any form of periodization can improve
upon linear increases in weight. Most beginners training 3x per week can add 2.5 kg / 5 lb to
the bar every session. To progress faster than this with a periodized training program would
require that person to add upwards of 10 kg / 20 lb to the bar all at once. (Hint: it doesn’t
work.)

And indeed, research has overall found no significant benefits of any type of periodization
compared to no periodization when both groups of beginners push for progress.(the
references are in your recommended reading).

At some point, linearly increasing the weight will reduce volume, i.e. if you just keep trying
to increase the weight, you won't be able to sustain your reps per set anymore. This is when
periodization becomes necessary and research starts finding benefits.

As such, it follows that the need for periodization is determined by your increment, the
smallest amount of resistance you can add to an exercise. If your cable stack moves up like
47, 54, 61, 68, etc. the increment is 7. The smaller the increment, the less periodization you
need. Periodization is needed because the increment is too large of a leap in strength for
your body to adapt to in a single session.

Since the rate of adaptation diminishes as you get more advanced, it now takes multiple
bouts of adaptation to become sufficiently stronger to make that leap in performance.

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Periodization also allows you to incorporate high intensity and high volume work. Your
connective tissue and probably even your psyche/time allowance will not allow you to get
enough work in for optimal hypertrophy with over 90% of your 1 RM.

Variety is still a highly debatable reason to include periodization, but it certainly is true that
different stimuli induce different kinds of stress, just not to the degree that is often claimed
(see the strength vs. size course topic). However, for novice lifters the extra muscle damage
induced by the variety of undulating periodization may actually hamper progress. Most
research has not found any difference in the effectiveness of different periodization models
in novice level lifters.

Progressive overload
At this point you may wonder why I'm focusing solely on weight as a means of progressive
overload. The reason is that all other forms of periodization have empirically produced
moderate results at best. Whenever someone says volume is an appropriate means of
progressive overload, that person does not use optimal programs. An optimal program by
definition already utilizes the optimal volume, so more volume results in overreaching.

Decreasing your rest interval, increasing TUT, increasing the reps; they all make it seem like
you're progressing, but several weeks later, you're no bigger or stronger than you were
before. Any progression model that pushes the adaptation more towards the endurance
continuum is not sustainable by definition, because it drives adaptation towards the wrong
end of the strength-endurance spectrum.

As you learned, it is physically impossible to become bigger without becoming stronger

(though the reverse is possible). So any program that does not increase your strength is
unlikely to result in appreciable muscle hypertrophy beyond the novice level.

Recommended reading
Practical Programming for Strength Training, pp.1-27

If you liked the above excerpt, consider buying both of Rippetoe's books. Mark is
increasingly becoming an anti-scientist as research is falsifying many of his claims, such as the

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magic number 5 or his conservative approach to training volume. However, he’s one of the
few people in the industry that understands how strength training programs should
fundamentally change as a trainee becomes more advanced and his books provide great food
for thought.

Types of periodization

When discussing periodization, it’s helpful to think in terms of cycles of your program
instead of calendar days across the week with e.g. ‘Monday is chest day’.

 A microcycle is one workout; a single training session.

 A mesocycle is equal to the number of days it takes you to complete all
microcycles in it. So a program with a weekly training frequency of 4 and 2
different sessions (A and B) will have 2 mesocycles each week. The first week’s
sessions are then 1A, 1B, 2A and 2B in that order.
 A macrocycle is the total length of a program. This is mostly relevant for athletes
with an in-season and an off-season or strength athletes with competition dates
throughout the season. Bodybuilders don’t have this, hence the term ‘program
hopping’ for when bodybuilders try to copy this practice without results.

These terms are helpful, because they allow you to think in terms of time in a relevant way
for strength training programming. Just like with nutrition, you should not restrict your
thinking to calendar days. If session A was planned for Monday but you couldn’t train that
day, just do it on Tuesday and move up the entire program. It makes zero sense to skip a
microcycle in the program because you happened not to perform it on the same calendar
day as last week.

Now that you understand what periodization is and why it’s needed, watch the following
lecture about the application of muscle confusion, linear periodization and undulating
periodization.

lecture
Muscle confusion, linear periodization and undulating periodization

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 Linear Periodization
Linear periodization is applicable on a macro- but not on a micro- or meso level, since the
optimal training volume and intensity don’t change in a matter of days or weeks. These
variables only have to be manipulated over periods of months as the neuromuscular system
becomes more efficient and more resistant to fatigue. (If you don’t understand this, revisit
the topic on optimal program parameters.)

Linear Periodization may also be useful for strength athletes to peak for an event, but for
bodybuilders it is an outdated and debunked periodization model. Even a simple linear
autoregulated progression model beats Linear Periodization. (We’ll get to autoregulation
later on.)

These same critiques also make block periodization redundant for bodybuilders.

 Undulating periodization
For mesocycle level manipulation of training intensity and volume, we have undulating
periodization. Dual (e.g. upper/lower with a 'hypertrophy' and a 'strength' session) or triple
undulating progression plans (e.g. ‘power’ on Monday, ‘strength’ on Wednesday and
‘hypertrophy’ on Friday) are usually as complex as it gets for bodybuilding. Strength athletes
will require ever more complex forms of periodization, since they are required to keep their
primary exercise selection the same. A bodybuilder has more leeway in this regard and can
replace stagnant exercises when highly complex periodization would become necessary to
induce further progress. In fact, this is preferable for muscle growth due to the regional
activation of muscle tissue.

Undulating periodization allows you to induce different training stimuli and thus different
stressors that you need to recover from across a mesocycle. As such, it is an effective form
of fatigue management. Experienced strength trainees gain more strength on the same
program with daily undulating periodization than with either linear or reverse linear
periodization or without any periodization [2, 3, 4]. Note the emphasis on strength trained
individuals. Untrained and novice level strength trainees generally do just as well sticking to a
consistent training intensity without undulating periodization. For muscle growth, the
literature is less clear, but the trend is in the same direction and it’s likely that over the long

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run greater strength will translate into greater muscle growth due to greater muscle
activation and higher mechanical tension. See the tables below for a literature overview of
daily undulating periodization (UP) compared to no periodization (NP) and linear
periodization (LP) in strength trained individuals. The difference between DUP and WUP is
in whether training intensity and volume varied across training days or only across weeks.

Periodization for trained subjects with strength as an outcome

Study Subjects Method Findings

(n) &
duration

Monteiro et 27 RT men NP vs LP or DUP resistance training Only DUP significantly improved 1RM bench press
al. (2009) 12 wks on maximal strength. Majority free strength.
weight multi joint exercises. Significant improvements in 1RM leg press strength
DUP and LP. No improvement in 1RM leg press for
Tested 1RM leg press and bench NP.
press.
Favors DUP.

Miranda et 20 RT men LP vs DUP resistance training on Significant increase in 1RM

al. (2011) 12 wks strength. A mixture of both free leg press (10%, ES:1.23, LP; 18%, ES:1.55, DUP) and
weight and machine based multi joint 1RM bench press for both groups (15%, ES:0.75, LP;
and single joint isolation exercises. 16%, ES:1.02, DUP).

Tested 1RM and 8RM in leg press No significant differences between groups.
and bench press

Prestes et 40 RT men LP vs DUP resistance training on Significant increase in

al. (2009) 12 wks Maximal strength. A mixture of both 1RM leg press (24.71%, LP;
free 40.61%, DUP), 1RM Bench Press (18.2%, LP; 25.08%,
weight and machine based multi joint DUP) and 1RM standing arm
and single joint isolation exercises. curl for both groups (14.15%, LP; 23.53%, DUP).

Tested 1RM leg press, bench press No significant differences between groups, but
and standing arm curl. numbers favors DUP.

Rhea et al. 60 RT men LP vs Reverse LP or DUP resistance All groups significantly

(2003) and women training on muscular endurance. increased muscular endurance and 1RM strength.
15 wks Single joint, isolation exercises. Muscular endurance increased 55.9, 54.5 and 72.8%
for LP, DUP and reverse LP, respectively. No
Tested 1RM leg extension plus difference between groups. 1RM strength increased
maximum reps on leg extension at 9.1, 9.8 and 5.6% for LP, DUP and reverse LP groups,
50% of body mass. respectively.

No difference between groups.

Rhea et al. 20 RT men LP vs DUP resistance training on Both groups increased strength
(2002) 12 wks 1RM strength. Periodization of significantly. 1RM bench press
loading was increased 14.4% for LP group and 28.8% for DUP
prescribed for the leg press and group. 1RM leg press increased 25.61% for LP group
bench and 55.8% for DUP group.

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press for each group. Additional

exercises identical for each group Significantly greater percent gains for DUP compared
to LP group.
Tested 1RM leg press and bench
press. Favors DUP.

Schoenfeld 19 RT men LP vs DUP resistance training on Significant increase 1RM bench press (7.9%, ES:0.57,
et al. (2016) 8 wks 1RM strength. Majority free weight LP; 12%, ES:0.80, DUP) and 1RM squat (20.3%,
multi joint exercises. ES:1.40, LP; 20.1%, ES:1.47, DUP) and 50% 1RM
bench press (20.2%, ES:1.28, LP; 31.4%, ES:1.91,
Tested 1RM squat and benchpress DUP).
plus maximum reps at 50% 1RM No significant difference between group. However,
bench press. based on the hopkins scale there was likely a benefit
in favor of DUP in 1RM bench press, unlikely any
benefit in either conditions in 1RM squats and likely a
benefit in favor of DUP in 50% 1RM bench press.
Favors DUP.

Baker et al. 33 RT men Non Periodized, vs LP or WUP Significant increase in

(1994) 12 wks resistance training on maximal 1RM squat for all groups (26.1% NP; 27.7% LP; 28.4%
strength and vertical jump. Majority WUP).
free weight multi joint exercises. Significant improvements in 1RM bench press for all
groups
Tested 1RM squat and bench press (12.5% NP; 11.6% LP; 16.4% WUP).
plus vertical jump. No significant difference between groups.

Eifler (2016) 200 RT men LP vs RLP vs DUP resistance training Significant increase in 1RM and 10RM in all exercises
and women. on maximal strength. Majority free for all groups. Summarize the effect sizes (mean value
weight multi joint exercises. of the effect sizes for each exercises) for 10RM
(24.6%, ES:0.60, LP; 21.83% ES:0.59, RLP; 34.2%
Tested 1RM and 10RM in all ES:0.79, DUP). Significant difference between LP and
exercises. DUP, and RLP and DUP.

Summarize the effect sizes for 1RM (18.49% ES:0.52,

LP; 18.9% ES:0.52, RLP; 28.18% ES:0.69, DUP).
Significant difference between LP and DUP, and RLP
and DUP.
Favors DUP.

Hartmann 40 RT men LP vs DUP resistance training on Significant increase in 1RM bench press for LP (14.6 ±
et al. (2009) 14 wks strength and power in the bench 11.0%) and DUP (10.0. ± 4.5%) groups. Significant
press. difference for both experimental groups compared to
Intervention consisted of training control group who
bench press exercise only. achieved no significant change
(1.38 ± 5.84%).
Tested 1RM bench press. No significant difference between groups.

Mann et al. 23 RT men LP vs autoregulatory progressive Significant increase in estimated 1RM for LP and
(2010) 6 wks resistance exercise (APRE) on 1RM APRE. Significant difference in favor of APRE in both
strength. Majority free weight multi estimated 1RM bench press and squats, plus AMRAP
joint exercises. bench press.

Tested 1RM bench press and squat Favors APRE.

estimated on 5 or fewer repetitions
to failure. Plus 225lb bench press
AMRAP.

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Hoffman et 51 RT men NP vs LP or DUP resistance training All groups significantly improved 1RM squat and
al. (2009) 15 wks on strength and power. A majority bench press strength. All groups significantly
of free weight multi joint exercises. improved vertical jump performance.
Also included a number of single
joint isolation exercises.

Tested 1RM in squat and bench No significant difference between groups.

press plus vertical jump and seated
medicine ball throw.

Hoffman et 28 RT men LP vs DUP in-season resistance Significant improvement in 1RM squat for LP but not
al. (2003) 12 wks training on 1RM strength. Majority for DUP.
free weight multi joint exercises. No significant improvement for
either group in 1RM bench press.
Tested 1RM squat and benchpress.
Favors LP

Periodization for trained subjects with body composition as an outcome

Study Subjects Method Findings

(n) &
duration

Baker et al. 33 RT men Non Periodized, vs LP or Significant and similar increase in LBM in all groups. Body fat
(1994) 12 wks WUP resistance training on remained unaltered.
maximal strength and vertical
jump. Majority free weight
multi joint exercises.
No significant difference between groups.
Calculated LBM based on
percent body fat measured
with harpenden skinfold
calipers using eight sites.

Rhea et al. 20 RT men LP vs DUP. Periodization of No significant change in body composition or circumference
(2002) 12 wks loading was prescribed for the measurements were found in either group.
leg press and bench press for
each group. Additional
exercises identical for each
group No significant difference between groups.

Measured body composition

with Bod Pod plus
circumference measures were
taken at the chest and mid-
thigh.

Prestes et 40 RT men LP vs DUP. A mixture of both No significant change in body compositions were found in
al. (2009) 12 wks free weight and machine either group.
based multi joint and single
joint isolation exercises.

Measured body composition No significant difference between groups.

with Lange skinfold caliper
with the equation Siri.

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Monteiro et 27 RT men NP vs LP or DUP. Majority No significant change in body compositions were found in
al. (2009) 12 wks free weight multi joint either group.
exercises.
No significant difference between groups.
Measured body composition
with skinfold calipers taken 4
sites.

Schoenfeld 19 RT men LP vs DUP. Majority free Significant increase in elbow flexors muscle thickness (5%,
et al. (2016) 8 wks weight multi joint exercises. ES:0.57, LP; 6.6%, ES:0.72, DUP) and triceps brachii muscle
thickness (4.2%, ES:0.48, LP; 6.4%, ES:0.77, DUP) and vastus
Measured muscle thickness lateralis muscle thickness (8.6%, ES:1.12, LP; 7.6%, ES:1.04,
with ultrasound at 3 sites, DUP) No significant difference between group. However,
elbow flexors and extensors based on the hopkins scale there was a possible benefit in
and vastus lateralis. favor of DUP in elbow flexors, likely a benefit in favor of
DUP in triceps brachii and unlikely any benefit in either
conditions in vastus lateralis.
Favors DUP.

Recommended reading
Physiological responses to two different models of daily undulating periodization in trained
powerlifters, pp.15-44

Whichever type of periodization you employ, it should be exercise specific, just like many
other aspects of programming we’ve discussed. A good program will thus incorporate
various forms of periodization. For example, an advanced lifter may be squatting with a triple
undulating progression model while just having introduced a new type of leg curl that is still
progressing without any periodization.

 Cybernetic periodization
Another type of periodization is cybernetic periodization. Its definition has become blurred
over time; many people use this term interchangeably with ‘autoregulation,’ meaning that it’s
a form of flexible periodization that allows program modifications based on how you feel
during any workout. For example, when feeling poorly going into a workout, you may opt to
make this a light training day even though it was planned as a heavy workout.

This form of cybernetic periodization is, however, not autoregulation by definition. Very
conscious decision making is required, which is not true autoregulation.

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 Autoregulation
True autoregulation is a form of programming that automatically regulates a certain process,
like fatigue. You can think of autoregulation as a system or a ruleset instead of a fixed
prescription.

For example, a non-autoregulated program might have the following workout: ‘Perform 5
sets of 8 reps with 75% of your 1 RM in the squat with a 2 minute rest interval’. An
autoregulated variant of this workout is: ‘Perform sets of 8 reps with 75% of your 1 RM in
the squat with a 2 minute rest interval until your repetition speed decreases to the point
that you experience the sticking point’. The amount of sets and training volume is thereby
autoregulated by the person’s work capacity.
(See the course topic on repetition tempo for the usefulness of using bar speed to monitor
proximity to failure.)

Other examples of true autoregulation have already been discussed in this course, such as
the muscle-specific hypertrophy method (autoregulates training program volume on a
muscle-specific basis) and autoregulated rest intervals (autoregulates inter-set rest intervals).

Autoregulation is an incredibly useful programming method, because it automatically

individualizes the training program. As you’ve seen in the course topic on individualized
program design, there is huge interindividual variability in many aspects of fitness. People
differ significantly in how many reps they can do at a certain training intensity, how much
rest they need for full recovery, how fast they can gain strength, etc. Autoregulating these
factors in the program is thus preferable to the traditional fixed program prescriptions,
which require arbitrary decisions, relying on averages or predicting future performance with
improbable accuracy.

For example, many one-size-fits-all Powerlifting programs base the training of the next
month on the person’s current 1 RMs. On a certain day, the program may call for 6 reps at
85% of 1 RM. Most people can’t do that with a true 85% intensity, but because this is based
on last month’s strength, this is the program’s way of planning progression. Now, what if on
this particular day you can’t reach anywhere near 6 reps because your diet has been less

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than ideal? And what if yesterday you could have done it but the program called for a light
workout?
Many coaches that have tested these programs are aware of these problems, so they often
plan for little progression to ensure almost everyone can achieve the program’s planned rate
of progress. However, this inherently also requires that almost everyone will make less
progress than they could have on a more individualized, autoregulated program.

Distinguishing between true autoregulation , cybernetic periodization and making ad hoc, on-
the-fly programming decisions based on how you feel is important. True autoregulation is a
highly useful programming concept. If you can autoregulate any process, that is almost always
preferable over trying to plan it in advance or making arbitrary decisions because it
automatically individualizes the program.

However, the usefulness of cybernetic periodization is far more debatable. Contrast to

popular belief, motivation to train is not correlated with actual performance in either
professional or amateur athletes. The fundamental idea that your subjective feelings truly
represent your physical readiness to perform or level of recovery is flawed in several ways
as we’ll discuss in the following lecture.

lecture
Mental vs. physical fatigue & RPEs

Benchmarking & Progression Models

Now that you understand how and when to use undulating periodization, there’s the
question of how to implement a specific type of progression model. There are tons of ways
to do this, but as previously discussed, the most successful progression models focus on
increasing the actual resistance of the exercise.

A second feature of successful progress models is that they have a benchmark. You need a
reference point to know if you’re getting stronger when linear increases in weight become
impossible. That’s your benchmark: a strictly defined measure of progress. A benchmark can

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take many forms, but usually you’re looking at measures closely related to RMs and training
volume to make sure you progress in strength and not just endurance. Examples:

 total training tonnage (reps x sets x weight)

 your 8 RM
 your 3 RM at 2 reps to failure
 total reps
 estimated 1RM

Here are some examples of failure due to not having a benchmark.

 Getting stuck on a certain weight because you have no system that tells you
when to change the weight.
 Continuously increasing the weight while your reps per set keep decreasing and 3
weeks later you find out your 10 RM hasn’t changed at all.
 Progressing in weight with 5x5 without monitoring the rest interval. A month
later you spend an hour on those 5 sets, because you’re no longer doing 5x5 @
80% 1 RM but you’re using your 5 RM.
 Progressing in the 10-rep squat without monitoring your inter-rep rest interval.
Your 10 RM barely increases, because you’re just resting longer and longer in
between reps.
 As a powerlifter, training your deadlift for sets of 5 without resetting the weight
each rep. Your deadlift bounce technique improves greatly, but you don’t get
much stronger getting dead weight off the floor (which should always be a
powerlifter’s benchmark for the deadlift).

Here are some examples of viable progression models.

 You progress linearly in weight.

 You progress within a certain rep range, adding weight when you hit the upper
end of that rep range.
 You progress in total reps with a fixed rest interval, adding weight when you’ve
hit your total rep target.

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 You progress in a reverse pyramid scheme, adding weight when you’ve hit your
rep target during every set.
 You progress with a myo-rep protocol, adding weight when you’ve hit your
target number of effective reps.
 You progress in a cluster set protocol, adding weight when you’ve performed
your target number of clusters with a given weight.

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Deloading & Overtraining

Another highly misunderstood topic is the deload, a period where training stress is
decreased to prevent or recover from overtraining. A very common application of the
deload is having one out of every 4 weeks be a week where the training weights and volume
are greatly reduced.

If you understood all the course contents so far, you should already be very skeptical of the
need for deloads (especially the arbitrary kind) for the following reasons:

 Muscle fatigue is largely a local process. Fatigue in your biceps does not affect
your squat. It makes no sense to stop squatting because your biceps isn’t
recovered or your chest is sore.
 You can handle a higher training volume than most people think.
 You generally recover from even extreme training protocols within 72 hours if
you’re no longer a beginner.

Moreover, to my knowledge, not a single scientific study has ever found increased muscle
mass after a period of detraining. In the best case scenario, deloading does not result in
immediate muscle loss. Fortunately, significant muscle atrophy only manifests in a week or
even several weeks in non-advanced lifters.

With this in mind, you may now be asking, “does overtraining even exist?” Before we
answer that question, it helps to understand exactly what fatigue is.

What is fatigue?

Muscle fatigue in exercise science is defined as a temporary decrease in maximum force

production capacity due to changes within the neuromuscular system that occur in response
to muscle use. Basically, muscles lose functionality when they are heavily used. In practice,
you can readily observe fatigue as a loss of strength after stressful exercise.

Both training volume and training intensity contribute to neuromuscular fatigue.

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Neuromuscular fatigue can have two origins: central and peripheral, as illustrated below.

Figure adapted from Boyas & Guevel (2011)

Central fatigue

Central fatigue occurs in the central nervous system: the brain and the spinal cord. It
compromises voluntary muscle activation. There is a reduction in the strength of the signal
to activate your muscles. Fatigue occurs when the excitation supplied by the motor cortex
and/or motoneuron activity decreases.

Central fatigue occurs mostly during long-duration, low-intensity exercises. It primarily

results from activities of the brain’s neurotransmitters and muscle afferents.

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The Central Governor model (CGM) of fatigue even posits that central fatigue is the only
source of true fatigue. This model views fatigue as a mechanism by which the brain prevents
‘catastrophic system failure’: the brain ‘intentionally’ fatigues you to prevent you from doing
excessive harm to your body, like due to hyperthermia (overheating) or ischemia
(insufficient blood flow). The brain or ‘central governor’ thus uses fatigue to maintain
homeostasis.

The classic example of proof of the Central Governor in action is the ability of marathon
athletes to increase their pace at the end to sprint to the finish, in spite of presumably high
peripheral fatigue levels. However, this final sprint could just as well be explained by the
different physiological demands of sprinting compared to lower intensity running, or by
psychological factors.

The Central Governor model has also been extensively criticized, because it doesn’t address
task dependency. It is a well known and easily observable finding that fatigue is task
dependent. As you complete several sets of biceps curls, your biceps fatigue but your quads
generally do not and your performance on subsequent leg extensions is generally unaffected.
Even in exercises involving the same muscle groups, it is clear that fatigue is very task
specific.

Moreover, fatigue is intensity specific. As you’ve learned in the topic on post-activation

potentiation, for example, it is possible to induce fatigue with high intensity exercise that
actually improves performance during subsequent endurance training.

So is central fatigue a concern? Marshall et al. (2015) found that leg extensions in strength
trained men induce considerable peripheral fatigue but no significant central fatigue.

Still, there is some evidence that indicates the presence of central fatigue. Albeit inconsistent
in results, some research has found that high intensity Powerlifting affects the performance
of largely unrelated muscle groups the next day. For example, high intensity squatting or
deadlifting causes a loss of peak velocity in the bench press 24 hours later, even though the
squats and deadlifts themselves are unaffected.

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As such, central fatigue is still largely a theoretical concept at the moment, especially in the
context of strength training, whereas peripheral fatigue is a well established phenomenon.

Peripheral fatigue

Peripheral fatigue, or local fatigue, is the more tangible kind of fatigue that occurs within
your actual muscles. Peripheral fatigue is associated with a decrease in the contractile
strength of the muscle fiber. The impacted areas are the nerve endings, the neuromuscular
junction and the intracellular environment.

A primary source of peripheral fatigue is what is often termed ‘metabolic stress’, as

popularized by Brad Schoenfeld. Before that the bro bodybuilding community simply spoke
of ‘the pump’ and ‘the burn’. Metabolic stress sounds more scientific, but it actually does not
have a precisely quantified definition in exercise science other than that it refers to the
accumulation of metabolites and the deprivation of oxygen in tissue (hypoxia) during
exercise. This particularly relates to high intensity exercise that relies on carbohydrates
(anaerobic glycolysis) to produce energy (ATP).

The specific metabolites that cause fatigue are lactate, hydrogen ions, ammonia and
phosphate. These metabolites have a negative effect on calcium ion release. Calcium ions are
essential for muscle contraction. Lactate in particular is well known to induce fatigue by
causing intracellular acidosis, but phosphate seems to play an even more important role in
this process.

With what we know about peripheral fatigue, current research can already explain 80 – 90%
of neuromuscular fatigue, i.e. force loss during voluntary muscle contraction. Since
peripheral fatigue has clear, tangible mechanisms to explain fatigue and central fatigue is still a
largely theoretical concept, this makes the relevance of central fatigue for strength training
questionable. Which brings us back to…

Overtraining

Back to our question: does overtraining exist? Yes, it does. However, there is no universally
accepted definition of overtraining yet and we don’t know how it occurs. What we do know

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is that overtraining is exceedingly rare and generally not just the result of training but rather
high psychological stress, like that of competing.

Importantly, in science, true overtraining syndrome is usually a term reserved for a period of
weeks or months of severe psychological problems, utter lack of motivation to train and
significantly impaired performance. It’s not just ‘feeling a bit tired’. More short term
decreases in performance are sometimes called overreaching, though it’s actually unclear if
overtraining is simply a more advanced form of overreaching.

Due to the lack of a specific operational definition of overtraining, many people are inclined
to think along the lines of: “Oh hey, I’m not that motivated to train this week. I must be
overtraining.” This is a cop-out, because the most fundamental symptom and the single
necessary and universally agreed upon condition for overtraining of any kind is reduced
performance. Overtraining occurs when you chronically dip below the point of recovery in
the GAS-cycle. So by definition, any strength gains during that period invariably exclude the
diagnosis of overtraining.

Let me reiterate that. If you are gaining strength, you are not overtraining.

The reverse diagnosis is also false: if you are losing or not gaining strength, you are not
necessarily overreaching. You may actually be undertraining. Or your exercise technique
needs work. Or your circadian rhythm is disrupted.

On the other hand, many people have great fluctuations in their performance over time and
it has become bro-lore that ‘you have good and bad days’, suggesting there’s a significant
variability in your strength across days. That’s nonsense. Any such variability can be
explained and people that experience these fluctuations simply don’t have a good program.
In my clients, I rarely see moments where they don’t progress as planned and I see almost
zero inexplicable variations in strength. Randomness is, after all, simply variation that is not
yet explained. As such, overtraining is an unlikely diagnosis just because things aren’t going as
planned.

So when is someone at risk for overtraining? There are actually 2 kinds of overtraining.

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1. Volume overtraining. And we’re not talking about a few sets of squats a couple times
a week here. We’re talking about doubling your distance running volume to 109
miles (175 km) a week within a month, military training or cycling of 2-3 hours a day
and high intensity rowing for 3 hours a day.
2. Intensity-volume overtraining. Though volume is rarely a concern during strength
training in comparison to the above, very high intensities greatly increase the
recovery demand. Again, we’re talking extremes to reach overtraining, like
performing 10 squat 1 RM attempts every day for 2 weeks straight.

Note that in the case of intensity-volume overtraining, both the intensity and the volume
need to be high. Advanced powerlifters can make excellent progress while training their
1RM every day followed by 5 sets of 3 reps at 80% of 1RM for over a month.

Let me put the prevalence of overtraining in perspective. Menno has coached hundreds of
trainees over the years and pushes many of them to their limits. In this group, no more than
a handful of people may have genuinely experienced overtraining, defined as performance
impairment for over a week.

Menno has also experienced with extreme volume training over in 2016. For ~2 months
each, he trained with a daily set volume of 10, 8, 6 and 4. Doing 10 sets for each muscle
every day resulted in loss of performance but no other signs of overtraining; 8 sets resulted
in strength maintenance; 6 sets still allowed progression but no more than 4 sets.

The true order of overtraining is generally as follows:

1. Your mind will give out. Don’t buy into that “the mind is strong, but the flesh is
weak” crap. That’s a metaphor from the Bible based on the quote, “the spirit is
willing, but the flesh is weak.” It actually means that we find it difficult to resist
temptation, to do what is right instead of what our feelings tempt us to do. And
that’s exactly what will happen when things get tough. You’ll start looking for
excuses, shortcuts, and the magic pill. That’s weakness talking and the first step to
becoming strong is to realize that you’re weak. Remember the lectures about mental
vs. physical fatigue.

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2. Your connective tissue degrades. Muscle is more plastic and heals faster than your
tendons and ligaments, so with heavy training, overuse injuries tend to pop up in
your joints long before the actual muscle tissue starts limiting you.
3. You actually become overtrained.

To bluntly summarize:

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Autoregulatory Volume Training

While overtraining is exceedingly rare, occasional overreaching is a realistic problem. Every

training session where performance did not increase, as measured by your benchmark and
assuming everything else was in check, is an indication of undertraining or overreaching. In
the kind of programs designed based on this course, undertraining is unlikely in the short
term, so overreaching is plausible. (Note that, ‘assuming everything else was in check’ is a
major contingency, as discussed previously.)

Often, these moments of overreaching are not due to an excessive training stress. After all,
if the training stress was simply too much to recover from for the body in the allotted
recovery period, it would logically not result in progress at any time point and over time, the
trainee would become overtrained. Rather, the occasional overreached sessions are
commonly due to under-recovery. Recovery capacity can be compromised by deviating from
the diet, sleeping less well, having more stress, etc. than is normally the case in the person’s
lifestyle.

To deal with fluctuations in recovery capacity and prevent overreaching, I often employ
Autoregulated Volume Training (AVT) as explained in the following lecture.

lecture
Autoregulatory Volume Training

AVT is a programming method in which you only plan the weight and number of repetitions
of the first set, e.g. 260 pounds for 8 reps, for a multiple set exercise. This first set is your
‘benchmark set’. The subsequent sets are ‘volume sets’. They’re performed with the same
weight and proximity to failure, but you do not plan how many repetitions you’re going to
do in advance. In fact, you don’t even need to count your reps in these sets.

The purpose of AVT is to autoregulate training volume based on the difficulty of the first set.
The more neuromuscular fatigue the first set induces, the lower the total volume for that
session will be. If the first set had you bust out your tomato face to grind through the
sticking point in the squat and left you feeling so lightheaded you wondered how you even
managed to rerack the bar afterwards, then you will naturally perform fewer reps in the

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subsequent sets. In contrast, if the first set had you progress as planned with more left in the
tank, then you will naturally perform more reps in the subsequent sets.

The result is that AVT normalizes the training stress over time to prevent overreaching yet
also ensure a sufficient training stimulus.

Importantly, AVT is implemented at an exercise-specific level, which is highly preferable to

the more common regulation of training volume at the whole body level. As you’ve learned
in the course topics on the physiology of strength training adaptations, structural balance
theory and what neuromuscular fatigue really is, muscle fatigue is largely a local process and
it makes no sense to take it easy on your biceps curls today because your quads haven’t
recovered yet.

Here’s a simple example of AVT. Let’s say we’ve got a novice lifter who can still put 5
pounds on the bar every squat session and perform 8 reps with that. He squats on Monday
(because screw national bench press day) and Friday (because screw ‘early weekend’) with a
volume of 3 sets. Last Friday he performed 200 pounds x 8, 7, 6 reps. Next Monday he was
feeling frisky because he got laid for the first time in months and had slept like a baby that
weekend. So he was very well recovered, he hit 205 pounds x 8 reps with ease and he
managed to do 8 reps in the 2 subsequent sets as well. On Friday that week he was mildly
sleep deprived and more stressed from the work week, so he hadn’t recovered that well
and it took everything he had to hit 210 pounds x 8 reps. In the subsequent sets he only
managed 3 reps, which is fine, because the near-failure squat set induced a lot of fatigue
already.

Note how AVT ties in with benchmarking, progression models, the interindividual variability
in work capacity and the autoregulated rest intervals discussed in this course.

Another benefit of AVT is that individuals learn to mentally break free from the constraints
of performing each set while counting the repetitions, mentally as well as physically. This
allows you to focus more on your exercise technique.

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Physically, AVT can also increase force production throughout the set. During exercise with
a defined endpoint, like a certain number of repetitions that you want to achieve, you will
naturally pace yourself by holding back during the early part of the exercise. This is good for
endurance and the achievement of the goal you have in mind in terms of quantity, but when
you don’t need to hit any specific performance goal, it can detract from the quality of the
exercise in terms of muscle activation, exercise technique and force production.

One obvious caveat to the use of AVT is that it only works for serious, motivated strength
trainees that have no problem pushing themselves and won't see not counting their reps as
an excuse to slack off. If your idea of training intensely is experiencing difficulty reading
Shape magazine during your leg extension set, AVT is not for you.

In sum, AVT normalizes the training stress of your program over time by autoregulating the
training volume of your subsequent 'volume sets' based on the difficulty of your first
'benchmark set'. Not having rep targets during your volume sets allows you to focus on your
exercise technique, improves force production and can help reduce performance anxiety to
make your workouts more enjoyable.

Reactive deloading

Sometimes, AVT is not enough to prevent overreaching from occurring. This is when
deloads are applicable. A deload is a reduction in weight to reduce the training stress.
Sometimes the word deload is also used to refer to a more general reduction in training
stress, like a reduction in training volume by reducing the amount of training sets.

Traditional deloading

A traditional implementation of deloading is to take each 4th week of your program off from
the gym or to reduce the weight in this week. This is commonly seen in Powerlifting
programs employing block periodization. Traditional deloading methods vary in the degree
of deloading, ranging from no training at all to only a reduction in the number of sets, and in
the duration of deloading, ranging from single workouts to a full week. But by and large, they
have 2 aspects in common: the deloads are arbitrary and proactive.

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The arbitrariness and proactivity of this type of deloading is that it’s planned in advance at a
set date or time in the program. At best, it’s an educated guess about when overreaching is
likely to occur, but in practice it often just comes down to one-size-fits-all programming in
an attempt to make the program look fancy and sophisticated without more than abstract
theory as its rationale. You can’t accurately predict in advance when an individual will
experience higher stress in their life, sleep less well or deviate from their diet,. Overreaching
in any program can occur at many different time points for different people, if it occurs at all.

Autoregulated deloading: reactive deloading

Autoregulation can solve the problem of the interindividual variability in the necessity of
deloads. The Bayesian Bodybuilding method employs an autoregulated form of deloading
called reactive deloading. As the name suggests, a reactive deload is not scheduled ahead of
time. Just like AVT, reactive deloading is only applied to the affected exercise(s) in a single
training session.

Specifically, a reactive deload is implemented whenever a trainee does not progress as

planned for that exercise and it is deemed likely that this was due overreaching, not an
external factor. These factors reduce performance but not recovery status, like simple lack
of focus during the set or a circadian rhythm disturbance.

Several factors determine whether reactive deloading is warranted for an exercise in your
training program. (See the course topic on exercise selection for more detailed definitions of
these criteria).

 Compoundedness: The more muscle mass and the more joints involved in an
exercise, the higher the total and central neural stress and thus the higher the
potential need for deloads. Isolation exercises generally don’t require much
deloading.
 Terminal consistency: Exercises that score poorly on this principle have an inherently
higher variability in performance. As such, there is a decreased probability that lack of
progress is due to overreaching. Therefore, reactive deloads are not needed as
much.

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 Microloadability: The larger the increment, the less likely the need for reactive
deloading is. If the increment is too large a jump in weight to realistically achieve on a
regular basis, reactive deloading will cause you to enter a cycle of perpetual deloading
and result in undertraining.
 Recovery capacity variability: The more variable someone’s rate of recovery, the
greater the need for reactive deloading. If someone has a very irregular recovery
capacity due to, for example, a variable sleep pattern or circadian rhythm, due to
poor diet adherence or due to concurrent sport-specific training, there is a greater
need for reactive deloading. Reactive deloading will then take care of underrecovery.
For someone with a very stable lifestyle and good recovery capacity, it is more likely
that a plateau signals the need for more fundamental program change than a mere
reactive deload.

Based on the above factors, bilateral deadlift exercises usually benefit from reactive
deloading, since they have excellent microloadability and terminal consistency and they’re
very compounded and neurally taxing. An example of an exercise that rarely requires a
reactive deload is the delt lateral raise. It generally has abysmal microloadability, it’s an
isolation exercise (sort of), it induces very little muscle damage or central fatigue and it has
mediocre terminal consistency.

When you’ve established that reactive deloading is useful for an exercise in your program
and a plateau occurs in any workout, you implement a reactive deload as follows. You
replace your remaining sets with low rep, explosive technique work: 1 to 5 reps per set at
60 - 70% of 1 RM (roughly equal to a weight you could do 12-20 reps with). This type of
speed work allows you to reach high muscle activation levels, perform a decent amount of
work and work on your technique while only inducing a minimal amount of neuromuscular
fatigue. It’s important to realize that to reap these benefits without the cost of high further
fatigue, it has to stay speed work. If your movement velocity decreases noticeably at all
during any set, you are going far too heavy and only digging yourself deeper into your
recovery hole.

In the presence of more severe fatigue, it is better to deload reactively by 100%, i.e. by
skipping all subsequent sets altogether. Speed work is appropriate if you only just missed the

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last rep needed to progress as planned or you feel like you could have hit your planned
number of reps if your technique was a bit better. When you didn’t come close to your
planned performance, when your trained muscles were still extremely sore or when you
experienced pain, speed work may still be too much and you’re better off just moving on to
the next exercise.

Let’s look at some examples. Say an advanced bodybuilder is planned to perform 350 pounds
for 5 reps in the squat this workout, which would be a new best in the program. He’s
already implementing AVT and undulating periodization with a training volume of 4 sets and
progress is generally consistent, so reactive deloading is implemented for the squat. First
work set, he manages only 4 instead of 5 reps. Since he likely hadn’t recovered sufficiently
yet, he reactively deloads to prevent overreaching: for his remaining sets he drops the
weight to 250 pounds and performs 3 more sets of 3 as speed work.

Example 2: Say that same bodybuilder does Bayesian flys later in the same training session.
Here too he doesn’t progress as planned, but since flys have an inherently higher variance in
their performance and they’re not a very centrally taxing exercise, he doesn’t implement a
reactive deload and performs his remaining sets as planned (possibly with AVT).

In sum, reactive deloading allows you to program deloads in your program in a systematic
but individualized manner so that you reduce your training stress only if/when needed. These
reloads are also specific to the muscle groups that actually need it, in contrast to proactively
and arbitrarily scheduling a whole-body deload in your program when you guesstimate it
may be needed.

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Practical Application
To put everything together, here’s a guide with a set of concrete progression guidelines you
can send to your paying clients. They include autoregulated progression models, including
reactive deloading, for straight sets and sets across, undulating periodization and cluster sets.
While you can send these directly to your clients and tell the client which models to use for
what exercise, you should in principle think of these as examples. Don’t limit yourself to just
these models. There are many more viable progression models.

Pt toolkit
Progression guidelines

Whenever a plateau occurs twice at a similar benchmark, such as getting stuck on 300 lb x 8
reps in the squat twice in a row, there is cause for a larger training program adjustment.
Continuing on a program that is evidently not resulting in the desired progression is foolish.

Step one is to check if lifestyle factors were the cause of the plateau. If the trainee was
sleeping worse than otherwise during a week or had stressful deadlines coming up, that may
well have been the cause of any plateaus during this period. As such, the key here is lifestyle
management and possibly reducing the training stress temporarily a la reactive deloading.

If there were no obvious lifestyle factors that could explain the plateaus, it is likely that the
program is no longer optimal for the individual. Now you should look at whether the rate of
progression is decreasing for just that one exercise or also for several other exercises
involving that muscle group.

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If multiple exercises for a muscle group are stalling, you probably need to update the
program parameters for that muscle group by increasing its training stress (volume being the
easiest change) or frequency.
If it is only that single exercise, it is often more appropriate to update only the exercise’s
progression model by either increasing the exercise’s training intensity (intensification) or by
implementing undulating periodization.
However, when an exercise ends up with a progression model that is notably more
advanced than that of other exercises, you may instead want to replace the exercise. There
are diminishing returns to progression on any exercise and not everyone responds as well to
the same exercises. For example, you generally don’t want to let anyone but an advanced
trainee use triple undulating progression.

As always, common sense and coaching experience are vital to making the right decisions to
facilitate continued progression. Whatever you do, always let progression be your first and
foremost marker of the need for program updates.

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