Everything successful and sustainable starts with a plan, and training is no different. Having a long term plan for your training is called Periodization. Periodization is breaking up your training cycles into smaller “blocks” to allow for a long term development plan. You are essentially training with your end goal in sight, but breaking it down into smaller short term goals. Throughout this article we will talk about three different types of Periodization: Linear, Undulating, and Block Periodization. But before we do that we need to discuss the different ways long term periodization is broken up.
Cycles of Periodization
How long each phase of periodization lasts can vary depending on goals, injury history, time allotted, etc. But no matter what a plan will be broken up by three things: Microcycle, Mesocycle, and Macrocycle.
The smallest one of these is the Microcycle. This can be as short as one training session, up to about a week of training sessions. The next smallest is the Mesocycle, there is some debate on how long Mesocycles are, but I consider anything from 1-12 weeks a Mesocycle. Each Mesocycle is made up of a bunch of Microcycles. The last and biggest cycle is the Macrocycle. This is usually considered to be a full year of training, or even longer depending on your goals and when your competition is. The Macrocycle is made up of multiple Mesocycles.
Each one of these fits together like a puzzle. Being able to put everything together piece by piece will make life easier for you when it comes to creating a long term athletic development model for your athletes.
Why Use Periodization?
We will be looking at this predominantly through an athletic development lens. The most important reasons I use it are to manage fatigue, and to plan backwards. What I mean by planning backwards is knowing when the lights are the brightest. If you are aware of when gameday is, when long breaks are, when days off are then you can avoid scrambling the day of. Failure to plan is planning to fail.
Within periodizing for teams should live a High/Low Model. This is a topic that would be hard to cover within this article. It deserves its own article, and it will get it. But just for a baseline of understanding the High/Low model is referring to a high CNS day (jumping, sprinting, olympic movements, heavy lower body movements) and a low CNS day (extensive med ball work, upper body lifting, mobility). I had to provide a brief baseline knowledge of this model to help paint the picture of fatigue management. Looking at Periodization from a short term lens think about it this way, you have a game on Saturday, but you are supposed to lift on Thursday. Which do you think would be the best use of that lift, high day or low day? Low day obviously. Gameday is the highest of high days, so we want athletes to be at their freshest when the lights are bright.
Planning backwards may seem like a daunting task, but it really is very simple. It is the basics of Periodization. Decide what your end goal is, in this case peaking for competition, and put the steps in place to get there. If you know when you need to be at your best, then you can ensure that is the case. You can also avoid pitfalls along the way, like long breaks. Winter Break and Spring Break can derail a great training program if not accounted for. I handle these long breaks much like most other strength coaches do. We create a take home workout for the athletes with the expectation that they will do it, but know that optimistically 50% will complete it. I have had success using these long breaks as built-in deload weeks. We finish the hardest training of our block right before break so when the majority inevitably do not do the workouts it is a deload, and if they do complete the workouts it is nothing groundbreaking so it will not hamper their readiness for when we get back to scheduled training.
General Adaptation Syndrome
General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS) is our body’s physiological response to stress. The basis behind GAS is to stimulate not annihilate athletes. Within GAS there are four stages: alarm, resistance or exhaustion, and supercompensation.
When stress is first introduced to someone the first stage is the alarm phase. This is the body recognizing the new stress and realizing something has to be done about it. During this time soreness, fatigue, and decreased performance can occur.
The next phase will be either resistance or exhaustion depending on what happens during the alarm phase. If training is properly dosed then this is where the adaptations will occur. If the athlete is stressed too much then the exhaustion or overtraining may occur. If the exhaustion phase occurs it can have incredibly negative effects on the athlete, decreased performance, lowered quality of sleep, irritability, etc. It is incredibly vital to not bury our athletes.
Lastly, the Supercompensation phase occurs if the other stages are done properly. Supercompensation is the new level of performance that is experienced. We will talk more about where these phases occur in the real world in the next section. We must take into account the stress that occurs outside of training. Lack of sleep, fighting with a significant other, failing a test, and many more are all forms of stress. These must not be ignored on our end, exam week and the week before should be looked at with extreme detail due to its stressful nature. This would be one of the moments that planning backwards comes in handy, you know when those weeks are so you can plan accordingly (2).
Linear Periodization
Linear is the most basic form of Periodization and can be argued to be the base of all periodization. As intensity increases from week to week the volume will decrease. Linear periodization is phenomenal for novice lifters. Without a base of training Linear Periodization should be used with beginners, implementing a complex training style has potential to overwhelm the athlete.
Linear is the most popular form of periodization due to its ability to drive a stimulus on everyone except elite lifters. Almost everyone reading this article, and the athletes you work with will benefit from Linear Periodization. More than just being the best for novice athletes it is also the best for novice coaches. It is incredibly easy to progress and make changes.
Typically Linear Periodization will run in the 4-week model that we discussed in the previous article, Principle Over Everything. Intensity increases from week to week before deloading during the fourth week. Week 1 will start with the highest volume of the cycle with the lowest intensity and increase from there. Intensity will continue to increase and volume will continue to decrease until week 4. A deload can occur in multiple different ways. My go to for a deload is to cut 1-2 sets and program anywhere from 50-60% volume depending on the movement. While the intensity is lower that does not mean it is a useless week. A deload week is where we see the recovery and adaptations occur.
Undulating Periodization
Undulating periodization is a training method that varies the stimulus on a more common basis than linear periodization. The two ways to use the Undulating method Daily Undulating Periodization (DUP) and Weekly Undulating Periodization (WUP.) Undulating Periodization varies load and intensity to provide the body different forms of stress to limit plateaus and improve performance.
DUP utilizes altering the volume and intensity on a daily basis. This is done in an effort to prevent staleness and the body from adapting to quickly to a training stimulus. On Day 1 you may train squats with a set/rep scheme closer to 3x3 in order to improve strength. The next day you squat a set/rep scheme of 3x8 may be employed to attack more of a hypertrophy stimulus. This is simply utilizing Vertical Integration like we previously talked about in the Principle Over Everything article.
WUP is following this same model, but rather than daily alteration it happens on a weekly basis. One week may follow much more of a strength emphasis, followed by a week that may be more hypertrophy dominant. Weekly Undulation allows for more than one adaptation to be focused on throughout the cycle. Using the residual training effect we can see how often an adaptation needs to be hit. Weekly allows us to hit one of them hard then back off until they need to be touched on again (4).
Undulating periodization is utilized primarily for its ability to continue emphasizing more than one adaptations through a training cycle. We utilize Undulating periodization for athletes who have a long season, or need to peak more than once throughout their season. Track & Field is one of the best examples for this, there are indoor conference meets, indoor nationals, outdoor conference meets, and outdoor nationals, and for all of those the athletes need to perform their best. Using this it allows us to help athletes peak more than one time in a short time span. It is also great if an athlete needs to peak more than one adaptation at a time, take football for example. Strength or power are not the only things that need to peak. Strength AND power need to be at their highest level during the season. This allows for athletes to peak both of those at the beginning of the season and if needed, as the post season begins.
Block Periodization
Block Periodization is different in the sense that it uses designated block to train certain adaptations. Typically the adaptations will compliment each other, (Hypertrophy into strength). This is done to allow for captilzation on one training effect to another when they are at their highest. More often than not Block will be used within traditional powerlifting compared to any other sport. Blocks are typically broken down into 2-4 week segments and referred to as Accumulation, Transmutation, Realization.
Accumulation would be the hypertrophy phase. This is point of training that the main goal is to create more skeletal muscle. The idea behind this is that with the new added muscle the next phase will allow for the athlete to lift and train heavier. More muscle = more weight able to be lifted. This is creating that foundation that you will continue to build on in the coming phases.
Transmutation is the strength phase of training. This goes into what I was speaking on before, this block is using that new muscle. During this block the goal is to utilize that new found muscle and build up strength in the movements that are vital to success in the sport (squat, bench, deadlift).
Realization is the peaking phase of training from a powerlifting perspective. This is the last phase prior to competition. Intensity is high, volume is lower, and it is the shortest of all the phases. A normal Realization phase is 2 weeks long and is seen as a taper (6).
During this training a deload is only required after the Transmutation and Realization phases, however it is recommended that a deload occurs after every block. This form of periodization is only done with powerlifting athletes typically. This is because in other sports there is usually more than one ability that needs to be peaked, as well as training residuals. If we have not touched any speed stimulus in 4 weeks then it will degrade significantly. Going back to peaking more than one adaptation, in powerlifting the only thing that really matters is strength. In other sports strength is not the only ability that is vital for success.
Conclusion
Everything successful starts with a plan. But how you plan is completely up to you, the above information is simply the basics of periodization. You could spend forever diving into the weeds of which periodization style is best for you and your population. Whether you decide to use Linear, Undulating, or Block periodization just know that each one has its pros and cons. It is up to you to decide which will put you in the best position to be successful.
Kelly, Sean. (2023). Crafting an Efficient Running Plan: Understanding Macro, Meso, and Microcycles. runningtoplan.com
Hoffman, Jay. (N.D.). Understanding the General Principles of Periodization. us.humankinetics.com.
N.A. (2018). An A-Level PE Strength Guide. excelsiorgroup.co.uk
Stefanov, Phillip. N.D. Undulating Periodization Definition, Types, Uses, and Examples. hevycoach.com
Anton. (2023). The Importance of Periodization for Mastering Calisthenics. Primalfitness.shop
Naspinski, Gabriel (2023). A Practical Guide for Implementing Block Periodization for Powerlifting. elitefts.com
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