Undulating Periodization for Bodybuilding
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October 7, 2011
Daily undulating periodization is a form of
planning that occurs over the weekly level (though
in practice the actual cycle may repeat anywhere
from every five to 14 days). This is the most
commonly cited version of nonlinear
periodization, where the actual progress from
workout to workout nonlinear so theres no
HIT-style must add weight every workout
thinking in play.
The easiest way to do this is simply to create
different kinds of workouts say focusing on
different rep ranges, exercises, or both and then
go through them in order. Once youve done them
all, start over. It really is that easy.
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I dont really want to labor the theory side of
things, since this is about laying out a workout,
but Ill touch on a few points.
Undulating periodization, at least using that
terminology, is commonly credited to Charles
Poliquin from a 1988 article he wrote for the
NSCA Journal. In that article, he laid out a
process for waving or undulating your workouts
over brief cycles of 3-4 weeks, moving from
accumulation to intensification training.
Accumulation is simply high-volume training
higher reps, more sets, more exercises, and so on.
Intensification is the opposite, with a focus on
heavier weights, lower reps, and an emphasis on
pushing up your working weights. The idea is that
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by alternating the emphasis every few weeks, you
prevent the body from stagnating and falling into
a rut. The stimulus changes, so you keep progress
going longer. Theres probably something to be
said for slowing down the rate of long-term gains
as well; its fairly easy to push yourself past your
bodys ability to handle gains if youre just
mindlessly focusing on getting stronger. The
variety keeps you from burning yourself out by
pushing too hard, too quickly.
More recent research from different parties has
looked into the concept of daily undulating
periodization, where you rotate between different
workouts over a weekly cycle, instead of Poliquins
weekly cycles. Depending on how you arrange
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things this weekly cycle could be anything from
five days to 14 days.
How does this work? You might pick three or four
different workouts and rotate them across a set
schedule. So if you only want to lift
Mon-Weds-Fri, and you have workouts A, B, C,
and D, youd just do them in that order on the
three days you lift. Youd end up doing A-B-C,
then D-A-B, then C-D-A, and so on. Its a
repeating cycle that doesnt necessarily have to fit
the seven-day week.
Of course, you can do a more normal workout as
well, if thats your thing. What you need to
remember is that undulating periodization is
going to alternate different kinds of workouts over
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a short span of time.
Setting up an undulating workout
If were just talking bodybuilding or general
strength and fitness, the idea with an undulating
routine is to get as wide a range of intensities and
volumes as possible. So you might want a high
volume/low intensity session, a moderate
intensity/volume session, and a high
intensity/low volume session. In practice this isnt
terribly different from the currently popular 55
intermediate workout. However, if you want to
make this more specific for bodybuilding, you can
tweak the philosophy a little the easiest way to
do this is to involve different rep ranges and more
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bodybuilding-specific exercises.
Three Workouts
Workout A 10-12 reps
Workout B 6-8 reps
Workout C 4-6 reps
This particular approach would be a good
introductory routine using full-body workouts
(although a split isnt out of the question). If you
want to do this on a three-day cycle, then youve
got Mon-Weds-Fri workouts. If you want to do a
four day version, then rotate through them
M-T-Th-F. Be advised that four full-body
workouts can be demanding, so you might want to
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alternate upper body and lower body if you go
that route, something like this.
Monday Upper (10-12 reps)
Tuesday Lower (10-12 reps)
Thursday Upper (6-8 reps)
Friday Lower (6-8 reps)
Next Monday Upper (4-6 reps)
Tuesday Lower (4-6 reps)
Thursday Upper (10-12 reps)
Friday Lower (10-12 reps)
And so on like that. You repeat the cycle in order,
as each day comes up.
Four Workouts
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With four workouts youre just expanding things
out a little more, with finer grades between the
sessions. For example:
Workout A 412
Workout B 58
Workout C 46
Workout D 63
In this instance, youve got two lighter,
high-volume workouts and two heavier, lower-
volume workouts. Same rules apply as before if
you want to split things into upper body and lower
body with four workout days, thats fine as well.
In that case, youd end up with a two-week
repeating cycle, where each workout is done once.
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Westside Style: Mixed Workouts
In this approach, youd mix and match a couple of
styles. I think this is a nice approach because it
gets you away from the theory and more into the
practical side of things. Like it or not, the
undulating workouts in the research are more of a
convention than something that would be useful
to someone actually training. I called this
Westside Style because its based on the
methods used by the namesake training system,
combining very heavy weights and light, fast
weights with more typical bodybuilding.
Jim Wendlers 5-3-1 workouts are a fine example
of this put into practice: do some heavy work,
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then move on to pure bodybuilding. Its nice, neat,
and right to the point. The mixed-workout
strategy will fit very well with split routines also, if
you want to get away from the full-body workouts.
Three Days a Week
Three workout days each week assumes youre
lifting on three non-consecutive days, so Monday
Wednesday Friday or Tuesday Thursday
Saturday (which is a great alternative to beat a lot
of the gym rush, Id add).
Option 1 Full Body
The full-body option is easy enough; Ive already
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given an example of the layout.
Monday Workout A (High Volume/Low
Intensity)
Wednesday Workout B (Moderate
Volume/Moderate Intensity)
Friday Workout C (Low Volume/High
Intensity)
If youve got four kinds of workouts to do, then
just stagger them. If you started with the above
layout, then the next Monday youd do workout D,
then Wednesday youd start over at A, and so on
down the line.
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Option 2 Upper Body/Lower Body
If you want to do a split routine, but still can only
train three days a week, just alternate them over a
two-week cycle, like so.
Week One
Monday Lower Body
Wednesday Upper Body
Friday Lower Body
Week Two
Monday Upper Body
Wednesday Lower Body
Friday Upper Body
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Four Days a Week
While you could maybe get away with four
full-body workouts, Id not suggest it. This is best
done with the alternating upper/lower split.
In this case, youd just do the same workouts on a
M-T-Th-F schedule, or Sun-M-W-F if youd
prefer. The former gives you two consecutive days
off, while the latter makes it easier to spread out
harder sessions. Your mileage may vary.
Wow, you really dont care about being
burned out
Although Id really not suggest it for most people,
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in some instances you can actually get away with
doing 4-6 workouts a week, although there are
some caveats involved.
You can get away with a upper/lower split, but the
best bet would probably be brief,
high-quality/low-volume full body sessions. At
least, full body in spirit, as its not what you might
expect; in reality you might only do two, at most
three, exercises. Youd just want to pick some
money exercises that have a large effect and will
benefit from regular practice.
The other option, which I tend to suggest even
less, would be hacking up some kind of
customized split based around upper/lower but
with extra sessions to train specific body parts
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like shoulders, calves, and da gunz.
Monday Heavy Upper Body (Chest/Back)
Tuesday Heavy Legs (Squats, thighs)
Thursday Moderate Upper Body
(Arm-dominant)
Friday Heavy Back (Deadlifts, barbell row,
hamstrings)
Saturday Light Full Body (Shoulders/arms
/calves assistance)
Something like that anyway. Its based around the
upper/lower split routine, but more specialized
towards bodybuilding goals. You can come up
with your own, depending on how many days you
have to train and what not.
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Keep in mind that youre following the same
principles of workout-undulation here: varying
different kinds of workouts across this schedule,
as opposed to just blasting yourself every day
without any change.
Accumulate and Intensify
The big thing that people tend to gloss over is
really changing the goal emphasis of the workout.
Doing a workout thats 412 is a big difference
from 63. The former is high-volume, meant
more to pump up the muscles than anything
else. The latter is a high-load session meant to
expose you to fairly heavy weights. Further, do
you do 412 by adding weight each set, or do you
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use the same weight?
Thats the difference in accumulation and
intensification. Accumulation is all about volume,
so youd do 412 with the same weight.
Intensification would be different, working up to
your best set of 12 reps. However, I would say that
I wouldnt write that as 412. Id just write
pyramid to best set of 12 to avoid confusion; if
you tried to actually do 412 in a pyramid, youd
wear yourself out before you got anywhere close
to your best set of 12.
I think that mixing accumulation and
intensification emphasis is just as important as
changing the set/rep scheme. In fact, you dont
even have to change the rep range, just the
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number of sets and how you go about them. The
accumulation phases will have you doing multiple
sets with the same weight. Intensification would
have you working up to a heavy top set for the day
(pyramiding). Case in point, lets use the
upper/lower split and the four A-B-C-D workouts.
Accumulation
Workout A 412
Workout B 58
Workout C 46
Workout D 63
Each week, youll have two workouts each for
upper body and lower body. So youd do workouts
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A and B the first week, workouts C and D the
second week. That two-week series makes one
cycle, so youd do this a total of four weeks, going
through each workout twice.
Intensification
Workout A pyramid to best set of 12
Workout B pyramid to best set of 8
Workout C pyramid to best set of 6
Workout D pyramid to best set of 3
Now we switch gears; instead of doing all those
sets, youd simply work your way up to your best,
heaviest set of the day. You still do the same
upper body/lower body split routine, and youd
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still keep the same exercises. The only difference
is your approach for the day. Since intensification
is about working with heavier weights (even with
the same rep range) and a focus on getting
stronger, thats what we do here: brief, hard
sessions.
I suggested going through two cycles for the
accumulation phase; you may or may not find that
worth your time here. Some people may be able to
set PRs going through the cycle twice, some may
not. At any rate, its still important not to ignore
the intensification phase simply because it breaks
the monotony and stimulates your body.
Picking exercises
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The exercises you pick are going to be determined
by a few things. Are you doing full-body sessions
or a split? Are you trying to get stronger on a few
key lifts, or are you trying to grow? Are you doing
accumulation workouts or intensification
workouts? These are the things you need to know.
This is important because youll see do a full
body workout, and on this day do 58. Now, to
me, when I see that prescription, Im thinking
OK, Im going to pick three money lifts, a squat, a
press, and a row, for 5 sets of 8 reps. In my mind,
the implicit assumption is that if I do more
exercises than that, I may stick to the 8-rep range,
but Im not doing 58 for everything. Not
everybody thinks like that.
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Ive seen people actually go through and do
squats, deadlifts, rows, chinups, overhead press,
bench press, biceps, triceps, calves, abs, and
anything else Im forgetting all for 58.
Dont do that.
Im a minimalist when it comes to exercises on
full-body sessions. I think most of your results
come from a small number of exercises. One big
lift for each movement is plenty a squat (or
deadlift), a press, and a row (or chinup). If you
want to do beach work after that (calves,
shoulders, arms, etc), pick a higher rep range and
go work them for a few sets. Thats all it takes.
If youre doing a split routine, you can do more
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exercises with a caveat. The advantage of a split is
that it lets you diversify the rep ranges and
exercises somewhat. You might end up doing 52
on your key lift, then go do another exercise for
that part where you do 10-12 reps.
The rule of thumb: for a full-body workout, stick
to a few key lifts and then a little bit of
beach-work if you must; for a split workout, you
can do more exercises but you need to mix and
match the set/rep schemes.
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