Strength training ironed out

This article will give you a good insight into my views, opinions and more valuable to myself than anything else is my experiences; of which these have lead me to my ethos and methods that I adopt into my journey competing and hopefully you can do the same.  

Whilst there are many views and opinions into training methods and I appreciate more than one way to skin a cat this particular article will be discussing around why I incorporate strength training into my programmes even though I am training for aesthetics.  

One of the most misunderstood topics in fitness is periodisation. This is not too unexpected really as many people drastically overcomplicate periodization like with many other methods. Periodisation is simply how your training programme is organised over time. So, think of it this way; if your program is the same every week, you have no periodisation. Likewise, if someone's just messing around in the gym, that would constitute random periodisation. Which type of periodisation you need depends on how long you have been training that specific exercise; thus the optimal type of periodisation is exercise dependent. A good program will incorporate various forms of periodisation.

Generally a beginner does not require any form of periodisation, because a beginner should be able to continually increase the resistance without decreasing the training volume. Mathematically it is highly unlikely that any form of periodisation 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 would require that person to add upwards of 10 kg / 20 lb to the bar all at once.

Inevitably at some point, linearly increasing the weight will reduce volume therefore if you just keep trying to increase the weight; you won't be able to sustain your reps per set anymore. This is when periodisation becomes necessary.

Periodisation is based around your increment, the smallest amount of resistance you can add to an exercise. The smaller the increment, the less periodisation you need. It is when the increment is too large of a leap in strength for your body to adapt in 1 session that periodization is needed. 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 strength.

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 periodisation have empirically produced moderate results at best. Whenever someone says volume is an appropriate means of progressive overload does not use optimal programs. An optimal program already utilises the optimal volume, with more volume resulting in overreaching.

Decreasing your rest interval, increasing TUT, all that kind of stuff, it all makes you seem like you're progressing, but several macrocycles later, you're just as big and strong as you were before. Anything that pushes the adaptation more towards the endurance continuum is not sustainable; in my experience. This does not mean that I don’t agree there are time and a place for such exercises but I believe it is impossible to become bigger without becoming stronger (though the reverse is possible). So any program that does not increase your strength is highly unlikely to result in considerable muscle hypertrophy. When training for my competitions I use this approach to home in on the areas I need to improve and grow for the category I compete in. Needless to say; one cannot continue to progress as a superhuman by adding weight continually therefore I will monitor the ‘stalling’ of an individual. i.e. If they stall twice at the same weight, I always change the periodsation/exercise. If they stalled in July and now stall on a much higher weight in August, I will most likely just deload and reset the progression track.
Physiologically; strength training carries many benefits to making adaptations; one of which is the increase in testosterone levels. By your body having to shift a heavier weight results in slight elevations in testosterone levels and should this occur improving your physical gains. For my training I also find that strength and max effort lifts at the beginning of my sessions will usually give me much more mental focus and the endophines released give much more drive for the remainder of the session.

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