An Introduction to Periodization
Periodization was always something I struggled to understand as someone getting into exercise programming and pursuing some resistance training adaptations. It’s a topic that can get really complicated, especially when you talk to your local strength coach who labels his workouts as “plyo-focused push A.2 From microcycle 4 in mesocycle B in my 3rd power-building macrocycle”.
But, I really don’t think it has to be. Just because periodization is something advanced athletes worry about in their training, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. Even those who are new to exercise can get a lot out of properly organizing their training to keep it fun, effective, and easy to follow. It also allows for programmed rest and recovery periods, which can help make sure you don’t overtrain or burnout in the long-term.
The Simple Definition
In general, periodization is separating your training timeline into sections, where each individual section is dedicated to specific adaptations such as muscle growth, absolute power, muscular endurance, aerobic capacity, flexibility, or whatever else you want to improve.
Timing Your Periodization
Above you’ll see some of the common timelines for seperating different training phases. One of the biggest mistakes I see beginners run into when it comes to periodization is improper timing. If you’re an athlete, you most likely have “on” and “off” seasons when your sport is in play or out of play. This gives you an outline over the year that makes choosing your timeline for periodization much easier. However, average gym-goers do not have this pre-determined outline. Although it can be easy to find a week of workouts online and fill your microcycle, it can be difficult to think big picture and decide what your meso- or macrocycles might look like. Therefore, it’s important you consider what adaptations you’re looking to create, and asign goals to realistic time frames accordingly.
It's important you place your training variables within the proper cycle timing. For example, training for a marathon would go into the macrocycle for someone newer to running. However, an experienced endurance athlete may place it into the mesocycle, as they can train for the marathon in much less time.
A Note for Bodybuilding: For body composition related goals in a bodybuilding context, a good general rule of thumb is you want your periods of muscle-growth to be at least twice as long as your periods of fat-loss. A common theme I see in the self-programming of those with body composition-related goals is that they make their period of prioritizing muscle growth too short. In bodybuilding, a fat-loss phase (if done correctly) can range anywhere from 8-20 weeks. Whereas a muscle-growth phase could last 6 months to a year. Although the training itself may not change between these two phases as much an NHL player or powerlifter, how your training progresses, and the nutritional interventions you prioritize will. In my own training up to this point, I have spent over 75% of it trying to build muscle, and less than 25% trying to lose fat.
Who Can Benefit From Periodization?
Periodization, in my opinion, is relevant for everyone who is training for goals. It is very difficult to train everything at once unless you are very new to exercise. Having a dedicated period to developing one aspect of fitness, such as strength, while other aspects of fitness such as aerobic capacity or body composition are maintained allows you the opportunity to improve the adaptation you are focusing on more rapidly and effectively, especially if you’re limited on time like many of us are.
How Periodization Works
Periodization revolves around three foundational principles. First, that you have a limited capacity for improvement in areas of fitness in a defined amount of time. Second, maintaining newly formed improvements is easier than creating them. Finally, that having allocated rest can prevent overtraining. These principles can be more nuanced than this depending on what you’re training for and other variables, but we’ll generalize it for the sake of understanding. Here are some of the benefits some may experience with proper periodization:
Optimizes results by focusing on one primary adaptation at a time (e.g., strength, hypertrophy, endurance), your body can dedicate resources to improving that specific area more effectively.
Allows for recovery by incorporating planned rest or lighter training phases, such as deload weeks between cycles, which help repair tissues, prevent burnout, and maintain long-term training consistency.
Prevents plateaus by switching training variables (like intensity, volume, or exercise selection) in each phase to keep your body adapting to new stimuli, avoiding stagnation. Also, progressive changes encourage continuous improvement (read more about progressive overload here) rather than hitting a ceiling in performance.
Here’s an example, after our 12-week block of strength-focused training mentioned previously, we could compete in a powerlifting competition or test our 1RM. Then, take a deload week. The goal could then become to maintain the previously developed strength while improving our aerobic capacity. The result after these two blocks would be having improved aerobic capacity and strength to a possibly greater degree than if both were improved simulatneously.
Training Variables
Obviously, some training variables have a lot of overlap, such as strength and hypertrophy, or strength and power. However, some are contradictory to prioritize training for simultaneously, especially at a high level.
For a simple example, an olympic weightlifter prepping for a competition may not be able to perform their best if most of their total training volume leading up to the competition was spent running 15km distance runs. In this competition prep example, running would be contradictory to the power and sport-specific training a weightlifter would undertake.
Makes sense right? Well, the research on this is fairly ambiguous. If you’re interested in improving your aerobic capacity and anaerobic power, click here to read a great narrative review by Dr. Jason Karp.
Now this comes across as you should focus solely on one training variable and neglect the others if you have a specific goal. It’s the reason many bodybuilders neglect cardio while training for muscle growth. But this is far from the truth; many beginners can improve everything in a well-balanced program, and there are always ways to manipulate your training variables to target multiple adaptations. For example, you can lower the intensity of your cardiovascular exercise (switching from running to an incline walk or stationary bike) to be on the safer side of still getting the complimentary benefit aerobic exercise has on muscle growth and resistance training recovery, without dampening your ability to build muscle by using too high of an intensity.
This Is Too Much to Worry About
As you can see, there is a lot to worry about. That is the benefit of having a coach or personal trainer to track and help you make these decisions based on where you are currently at.
But if you want to tackle it on your own, start small. Set an overarching goal for the next 6 months to a year. Break that down into 2-3 training adaptations you need to improve to get there, decide what your weekly workouts might look like, and start training. Every 8 weeks take a small break and switch up your training.