Lean Bodies Consulting

Periodization, which is basically defined as the planned variation of training variables in an exercise program, is a key component to most effective training programs. An even more simple explanation is simply to say it means you have a plan to your training.

There are a number of different ways to periodize your training, but suffice to say it involves the manipulation of loading parameters – sets, reps, tempo, rest intervals, etc. – as well as a finely tuned management of training volume. Research on periodization versus no periodization has shown that periodized training has a greater effect on strength/power, local muscular endurance, fat-free mass (muscle) and motor performance.

There are a number of coined terms for the various periodization models – linear, alternating, undulating, conjugate, concurrent, etc., but again, they’re all a form of planned manipulation of your training. I’ll touch on the first three.

The classic or traditional model of periodization is the linear model – one popularized in the western world for the last 20 years – in which the reps (volume) are decreased with a simultaneous increase in load (intensity) with each successive mesocycle, which generally last three to four weeks each. It has a number of different drawbacks as it relates to hypertrophy and strength. It becomes very difficult to maintain the gains in an earlier phase once you’re in a later phase of the plan. For most it’s simply far from optimal.

There’s also a model called alternating periodization where higher and lower reps are alternated with each successive phase. The two phases would be characterized by high loads/low volume (intensification phase) and low loads/high volume (accumulation phase) respectively. This model addresses a number of the linear model shortcomings. The primary goals of the intensity phase are improved neuromuscular recruitment of the involved muscle fibers which increases strength. Remember, that the type of hypertrophy associated with maximal strength training is often referred to as myofibrillar hypertrophy. On the other hand, the primary goal of the volume phase is sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, which again is associated with an increase in the fluid volume of the non-contractile elements within the muscle. Think of an intensity phase as more powerlifter/strength training oriented training and an accumulation or volume phase as more of a traditional bodybuilding style of training. You alternate back and forth between each phase, often every 3-4 weeks.

Another non-linear model of periodization known as undulating periodization. In this model you’re actually adjusting the loading parameters every workout instead of say adjusting in longer term phases as you would in the previously mentioned systems.

And finally, a very popular and very effective (particularly for strength development) method of periodization is known as conjugate periodization, in which you’re training multiple strength qualities during the same microcycle.

All that said, there’s really no best way.

We all know we can’t do the same training program forever, and most of us know that we adapt to a given workout after a number of times through it. However, we tend to adapt to the number of reps performed first, and the actual exercise itself last. So it stands to reason that we need to change the rep range more often than we change the exercises. Basically, the big movements, or variations of the big movements, should always be the cornerstone of your training program.

And at the same time, while it’s great to have a ‘plan’ drawn up, you can’t get stuck in the rigidity of the plan either. Some days, you might just not ‘have it’. Some days you might really have it.

Programs often need to be adjusted and modified based on the potential differences between desired outcome and the actual outcome. That is, sometimes you just have to stop and listen to your body and make some adjustments on the fly. You can have the best laid out plan on paper, but sometimes it simply needs some tinkering with. Cybernetic periodization – listen to your body (something you tend to learn to do better the more advanced you become).

Continuing on with the basics of effective training is the need to have a strong emphasis on the use of compound exercises. I know this one tends to be a ‘no brainer’ but it’s worth mentioning again anyway.

Yes, isolation exercises and even machines may have their place, but the major portion of your training should be focused on compound, multi-joint exercises.

Compound exercises use more energy, recruit more muscles, result in a greater acute increase in anabolic hormones, and allow you the opportunity to use maximal weights which will go along way to size and strength development.

Contrast a push press with a lateral raise. Both exercises are typically used for shoulder development, but which one do you think will result in the greatest improvements? A single-joint exercise that you’ll never be impressively strong, on or a compound, strength exercise like the push press?

This all ties into the previous point about needing to get strong. You just can’t get very strong on single joint exercises, at least not relative to the big, compound movements. Yes, laterals might ‘burn’ more, but so what? So do sets of 100 reps.

In fact, for the large majority of trainees, they’d likely be able to build quite a respectable physique with just compound movements - deadlifts and their variations, squats and their variations, rows, overhead pressing, and bench pressing. If you get strong on these movements, ther’s no doubt it’s going to show in your physique.

Save the isolation until you’ve got something to isolate.

Continuing on with the idea that there needs to be heavy component (ie. low reps) to your training …

Training with heavy weights improves something called myogenic tone through growth of the contractile proteins – the aforementioned myofibrillar hypertrophy. Myogenic tone is basically a measure of a muscle’s density. When your body is nice and lean, muscle density and hardness go a long way to enhancing the look of your body. In addition, the greater the loads used, the greater the recruitment of the fast twitch motor units – those with the greatest potential for size and strength.

The problem is that most people don’t spend enough time lifting in the low-rep ranges because they think this kind of training is just for strength development. While low-rep training does obviously promote strength gains, with the right training parameters and program design, it’ll also contribute to significant muscular gains … as anyone who’s trained in these rep brackets will attest to.

Heavy, low-rep training is also associated with neurological adaptations that facilitate strength production. The result is generally a more efficient nervous system which means increased firing rates, an increased rate of force production per motor unit, as well as an increased ability to recruit more high threshold motor units.

This has the potential for great carry over to more traditional ‘pump/typical bodybuilding style’ training. The increased strength and neural efficiency developed with lower rep training will carry over and allow you to use more weight, and therefore subject your muscles to more tension, when training in the more ‘traditional’ hypertrophy ranges.

So … to recap, focus on strength development by ensuring you’re doing enough work in the heavy, low rep ranges.

My next few posts are going to be all about what I think covers the basics of ‘effective training’. It’s amazing how paying a little attention to some basic principles (actually applying some basic principles) can dramatically change the effectiveness of your time in the gym.

How many of us have spent a lot of time in the gym, training, putting in lots of effort, thinking we were doing what was necessary to achieve results, and yet, dissatisfied with the outcome? I think we’ve all been there at one point.

And then we start training ’smarter’ and just like that - more muscle, more strength, better muscle retention while dieting for fat loss, even recomposition.

So, the first point is you need to get strong and focus on training in the lower rep ranges.

It’s really quite simple - if you’re not throwing around more weight at this time next year than you are now, there’s a very high probability that you’re not going to be much more muscular either. You need to add weight to the bar over time. Period.

Look at people in your gym who are strong; they’re generally muscular people as well. (of course there are exceptions).

One of the biggest triggers for muscle growth is mechanical load/tension - that is, heavy weights. Overall mechanical loading is vital to muscle growth. So, in short, you need to ensure there is a strength emphasis to your training. This means spending a good portion of your training in the low rep ranges. (ie. 1-6).

There are two types of muscle growth - the first, myofibrillar, and the second, sarcoplasmic. Each is primarily triggered by a different training stimulus.

Myofibrillar hypertrophy is actual growth of the muscle fibers themselves, that is, through an actual increase in the density or thickness of the contractile proteins. This is typically referred to as ‘functional muscle’.

The primary triggers for muscle growth are mechanical load/tension (as already mentioned), density and total time under tension. Load and tension is simply the amount of weight lifted. The more you lift, the greater the level of intramuscular tension; the greater the intramuscular tension, the great the amount of protein degradation and hopefully positive structural adaptations.

A little more on this tomorrow ….

Mindset … it’s such an interesting thing, especially when it comes to nutrition/dieting, etc.

I’m often reminded of the difference in people’s mindsets when looking at client biweeklies. For the sake of example, I’ll use myself at one end of the spectrum and a random female client at the other.

So, I’m dieting right now. I’m about two months or so in and the good news is that one, I’m ahead of last year’s pace and two, thanks to an unusually effective last two weeks, I’m leaner than I’ve been in a long time. This should be a good thing right? Yeah sure, but … I’m losing ‘weight’. I woke up at 219 (albeit due to being very depleted) today, which is the lightest I’ve been in a long time. I like getting leaner, seeing all the vascularity and definition … but I hate losing ‘weight’. If I could drop fat and not change bodyweight at all, I’d be satisfied. Anything less? Typically unsatisfied. Not exactly realistic over the length of a diet though is it?

Contrast …

Female cleint - submits a biweekly and her observations based on what she’s seeing, tell her that she’s getting leaner, harder, smaller, maybe even a little more vascular. Basically bodyfat must be dropping and progress is there. Measurements are even down. Clothes fit better. However, there’s a problem - she didn’t lose weight, or at least not enough.

Now, when I see this, my first thought is ‘AWESOME’. However, when such results are reported to me, they’re often alongside a feeling of disappointment that the scale didn’t drop. So, I’m happy about this, but the person in question appears unhappy about it.

To me, this is the ultimate result

To her, it’s far from it.

What’s it mean though? It means muscle gain in the face of fat loss - the sweet spot. Does it get any better than this? Muscle gain in a caloric deficit? Sure, it might not be significant gain (as compared to eating in a surplus) but hey, we set out to maintain muscle while dropping fat. Any gain is great. If you’re obviously leaner, by way of observation, pictures, measurements, clothes fitting differently, etc., and you’re weight stable then this is what you’re experiencing.

So it comes back to my point about mindset. Me? I want all the changes associated with getting leaner and losing fat … but do not want the scale to drop, or at least, drop as little as possible. Her? Sure, she wants all that too … but wants to see a big drop on the scale instead.

Interesting isn’t it? Is it a gender issue? A ‘girls want to be small and guys want to be big’ thing?

In my head, even though I know better, if I see a significant drop on the scale over time (even though all other signs of muscle retention are there), I sometimes feel like I’m not getting the right results.
In her head, even though she knows better, if she doesn’t see a significant drop on the scale, even though all else points to progress, she feels like she’s not getting the right results.

In both cases, flawed thinking.

Again, take the focus off the scale.

If you’re after maximum physical changes, you technically don’t want the scale to change much. Losing fat? Improves how you look. Gaining muscle? Improves how you look. Composition of weight is what matters … not weight itself.

How do most people warm up? They might jump on the bike or the treadmill for five or ten minutes for a general warm up, then they might do a few light static stretches and then they’ll move onto some light weight, high rep work before moving onto their first exercise. Then they settle in and they start warming up for their work sets. The problem here is how these warm up sets are conducted.

What’s the purpose of a warm up? Specifically, a warm up serves as a neuromuscular rehearsal of the upcoming lift as well as an opportunity to get your body used to progressively heavier loads.

So how do most people warm up? Let’s use the bench press for example. Most lie down and with just the bar, will rep out 20 reps and then they’ll throw on a bit of weight and do another 15 reps. Then they’ll throw on a little more and do 12 reps, or something similar. This kind of warm up is not only not your best option, it’s actually counterproductive to maximal strength.

The more motor units recruited the more force production is possible. So the goal is to recruit and activate as many fast twitch motor units as possible. And the problem with our high rep warm up? The high reps one, contribute to the build up of residual fatigue and also produce lactic acid. The production of lactic acid is associated with a drop in the pH of your blood and therefore an increase in blood acidity. This is associated with the unfortunate consequence of impaired motor unit recruitment. Lactic acid impairs the nervous system’s ability to recruit and activate the high threshold – those with the greatest size and strength potential – motor units. So, to avoid this we need to focus on low rep warm up sets. A warm up for a 250-pound bench press might look like this:

• 95×5

• 135×5

• 185×3

• 225×1

This serves both warm-up purposes – neuromuscular rehearsal of the exercise as well as getting your body used to progressively heavier weights – as well as avoids the pitfalls of higher-rep warm up sets.

Now this all assumes that a proper dynamic warm up was conducted prior to starting as well. Mandatory? No. Highly beneficial? I believe so, particularly if you’re suffering from some nagging ailments and long-term training health.

There’s another little trick that you can incorporate into your warm up that’ll result in an immediate increase in your strength. Recall that the more motor units you can activate the stronger you’re going to be and the heavier the weighs you’re lifting the more motor units you’re going to activate. This little trick involves doing a heavy single prior to starting your work sets. The key however, is that this single rep is heavier than your work sets. So, taking our last warm up example and assuming you were going to be performing six to eight reps on the bench press with 250, your last warm up set wouldn’t be the 225 that the previous example used, but rather in the neighborhood of 275 pounds. What this heavy single does is potentiate the nervous system resulting in greater motor unit activation. So when you drop back down to start your working sets, you’re going to have more motor units activated and ready to go than if you didn’t perform that heavy single rep as your last warm up set. The result will be an immediate increase in strength on your work sets.

Give it a shot … and start warming up properly if you’re not already.

This is a post I made previously that I thought deserved to be immortalized in my blog. It’s always worth a second look …

Why does bodyweight matter so much to ‘you’?

This is going to turn into more of a rant I think.

What does bodyweight tell you? It tells you what you WEIGH!! Who knows what you weigh? You. Who cares what you weigh? No one else.

What are your goals when it comes to training and nutrition? In most cases, at some point, it will be fat loss … or is it just weight loss? Do you care where your weight loss comes from? Or is the only thing that matters is seeing a lower number on the scale. What if you looked the same? Just a smaller version of your current self? Would that matter?

Ok, so I’ll assume and answer for you - you care about FAT loss, not weight loss.

I mean, if you didn’t care where it came from, then you’re perfectly fine with your weight loss coming from a combination of fat AND muscle right? It’s all good as long as that stupid scale comes down right?

Come on.

What does the scale tell you?

I’m waiting …

Yes, the answer is that easy.

It tells you what you WEIGH!!!

It doesn’t tell you anything about what the composition of that weight is. It says nothing about bodyfat, muscle mass, fat, or anything else. It tells you what you weigh.

Why is it such an important number to you?

Other people don’t know what you weigh; they see what you look like. What are people’s perception of what you look like based on? The composition of your bodyweight - muscle, fat, bodyfat, etc and NOT the number on the scale. People know if you’re in shape or out of shape, if you look good or don’t look good based on well, what you look like … obviously. Not based on the tshirt you have to wear every day that gives a daily update of your bodyweight.

Let’s say you dropped 5 lbs of fat. That’s good.

Let’s say, you happened to gain 5 lbs of muscle. That’s really good.

Uh oh, problem. It would appear to me that if the above were true, you’d register no change on the scale. You weigh the same.

You’re a failure.

Or are you?

That might not register as weight loss on the scale, but that represents a 10lb change in the look of your body. Is that not why you’re training? To LOOK better?

Your waist is smaller, your hips are smaller, your legs are smaller, your clothes fit better, friends and family are commenting on your ‘weight loss’ and asking you what you’re doing … and yet? Your weight hasn’t changed much.

Failure. You realize because of the stupid number your scale spits out … that you’ve made no progress.

Come on!

Is this resonating yet?

Of course you’ve made progress. Plenty of it.

If your measurements have come down, you’re smaller.
If you’re smaller, you’re losing fat.
Fat is weight.
If you’re losing fat you’re losing weight (that is associated with the lost fat)

If the scale says you’re not losing weight in light of the above, well something’s happening.

Something is being added to your body to counterbalance the loss of fat weight.

Guess what? This isn’t a bad thing.

Chances are you’re in the SWEET SPOT of simultaneous fat loss … and muscle gain, which is not easy to do, so if you’re there, be happy and enjoy it!

So the addition of muscle (weight) is counterbalancing the loss of fat (weight).

Is this not a great thing?

What improves how your body looks? Fat loss and muscle gains. NOT just weight loss for the sake of seeing a smaller number on the scale.

Now, get over the scale already, and start paying attention to the signs that your body is improving - measurements, skin fold readings (maybe), how your clothes fit, comments from others, etc.

Got it? Good.

So it’s Tuesday and I’ve had a day to recover and catch up on my sleep. Here’s a recap of the weekend …

Thursday morning I flew into Atlanta and spent the night at Noel’s house. (had a fun time meeting the rest of the family, particularly their three charming little girls).

Friday morning it was up and off for our five-hour drive to Charleston, SC. We had to make four stops due to all the water being consumed. Late Friday afternoon, we headed over to get Noel checked in, practiced some more posing and then headed off to my favourite restaurant - The Outback. Just a simple steak and vegatables meal for me, but Noel got to enjoy steak, french fries, bread and some cheesecake … which I dipped into.

A few hours later, she was looking full, hard and vascular.

Saturday morning started pretty early as we had to get breakfast and continue fat loading before heading over to the prejudging which started at 9am. I was very pleased with how Noel looked Saturday morning. The final week prep couldn’t have worked out better - full, dry, hard, vascular, etc. She was on.

So, we parted ways at the venue and I went and sat in my seat. Man, this was a long prejudging. All in all it took six hours. Brutal. And there were 135 figure competitors divided into 6 classes.

Anyway, figure is an interesting beast these days. When it first started, it was basically fitness minus the routine round. Meaning, that the physiques rewarded were similar to that of fitness competitors. Now that a few years have passed, the ideal figure physique has moved away from that. It’s continually evolving. I think they just want it to be it’s own category, and not just considered ‘fitness minus the routine round’. The problem is, it seems the criteria is different from show to show. It’s really quite frustrating, both for competitors and even for myself as the one responsible for helping to achieve that ‘ideal’ look that the judges are rewarding. You just never know what’s going to get rewarded on any given day. You can go into one show and be marked down for being too lean or too muscular and then do another show two weeks later and take the whole show under a different judging panel. This simply should not happen.

Anyway, we were very happy with what Noel was going to be presenting for this show. She was the 4th class to come outif I recall correctly, and what I was doing leading up to that, was trying to figure out what exactly the judges were favouring. How? I’d try to pick three or four competitors in each round before initial callouts to see if I was picking the same girls the judges would initlally pick.

I was doing pretty well with my picks so I figured I had an idea of what was being rewarded.

So the Tall class comes out for their individuals and I see Noel, and she looks great. Pretty exciting. I go on to pick my four for the first call out - Noel being one of them.

Next thing I know, I’m sitting there dumbfounded. I still did pretty good - the other three I had picked got called out. Noel didn’t. I was surprised, very surprised. And then the next call out - nothing. And the next - nothing. Wow. I’m sitting there just mind boggled at what was going on. It was a very frustrating afternoon. I felt she got completely overlooked.

After prejudging I was trying to come up with possibilities for why she didn’t get a look. I thought perhaps her legs were too hard for starters. I believe they were the most separated in the show.

And interestingly enough, she was told for the second round (two-piece) that the judges would likely just repeat the callouts from the first round (one-piece). That seems fair doesn’t it? Therefore the one-piece basically determined everything. And why was the one-piece the first round? To remove the element of conditioning (abdominal definition) as they use the one-piece to assess symmetry, proportion, etc. So we can conclude that Noel has poor symmetry. Haha. Sure.

Anyway, as many already likely know from reading Noel’s blog, she didn’t place in the Top 15. I still feel she was overlooked and that she’ll get her due at Nationals.

Some things we determined …

1. Posing issues - the girls were given instruction backstage to make sure that your thumbs can touch your thighs in your front and back relaxed poses. No one seemed to follow these rules … except Noel. (Silly Noel playing by the rules). The problem was that she ended up losing all her back width. If you’ve seen her progress pics, you can see she’s got a wide back. If you look at her contest shots on her blog, you’ll see she’s not flaring.

2. I think due to how wide she is through the clavicles that even though she carries quite a bit of muscle, that she needs more in the upper body to fill out her frame. In a few of the pictures, you can see she is getting out muscled by some of the girls. So, a focus on more shoulders, more back thickness, etc is a priority.

3. And bigger, fuller glutes as well.

Conditioning and the prep week are spot on. We won’t change any of that.

So Sunday it was back to Noel’s place, where we all had a good time with the kids, etc. Charmers I tell ya. Oh and I had pizza for the first time in almost two months. Scott and Noel seemed to be a bit put off by my request to have pineapple and mushrooms on it. Silly Americans.

Here’s some pictures from Saturday morning.