Bodybuilding.net - Bodybuilding Forum - View Single Post - Everything you always wanted to know about periodisation, but never dared to ask

EricT · 03-14-2008, 10:15 AM

I glanced over it. Problem I see is it ignores fatigue and only talks about recovery. So that will confuse people if they read it. If you "recover" in a few minutes to a few hours how could you ever "over-reach"? Of course you don't recover that quickly anyway.

It's a little weird to base it on an old-fashioned single factor model of training and then talk about planned over-reaching which is grounded in a dual factor way of thinking. Just confusing.

Talking about CNS effects in regards to the kind of training this author seems to be talking about is probalby pointless. Untill you get into true CNS intensive training you will only see the effects of fatigue and whether they are longer lasting or shorter lasting. Trying to separate them out is a waste of time because, for the most part, if you are truly doing CNS intensive training your basic symptom will be missed lifts, i.e. weaker. Most people reading these boards do not really do this type of training.

Unless you're dong a crap-load of high intensity stuff as a beginner to beginner intermediate you will rarely have occasion to be able to even guess about "neural fatigue" as opposed to any other type of stress. We all remember when we could pull a max deadlift and then repeat it the next day.

Once you get to the point where if you pull a max deadlfit of say 500 you can't repeat it the next day (as a for instance) you probably damn well already know this. If you haven't figured it out by that time...it's a wonder you can actually pull this much. But even then you can't say "it's neural fatigue". You have to learn to look at results and develop a common sense way of sceduling the hardest efforts. This is a subject that has been blown out of proportion.

The effects of stress from all the other factors will just blend together. Your body can't differentiate between them. The only real symptoms you can expect from "neural fatigue" is a decrease in performance. And you could look at missed meals, outside stressors, inadequate sleep, etc. to explain this. The fact that someone would suffer a decrease in performance and keep plugging away day after day without doing anything about it is a whole nother subject. We have to learn from out own training about our body and not try to go by what another person predicts based on factors that cannot be measured. Be aware and take precautions but don't become paranoid.

What you need to do to periodize very high intesnsity training and to periodize the general volume mind-set training can be quite different. People do need to realize that these principles are not based on the different stressors encountered in weight training. The only way you can use the same general plan of periodization across the board is if you treat every lift the same.

A lot of the comments seem to be geared toward western periodization. Not the best way by any means.

As far as periodization in general people seem to think that it in itself is magical. I can't tell you how many times I've read some forum geek going periodization is always superior and everyone must periodize to be sucessful...as if periodization is some standard thing you can just sum up in a few words. Periodization has as much to do with the realities of the athletes competitive cycle as anything else.

When you are not constrained by competitive seasons then ALL that matters is the end result. I don't know what the hell lifting has to do with charts. Is anyone ever aided by these? Presenting charts and statements about what we MUST do is, quite frankly, a crock of shit, imo. I have never discovered what I MUST do, only what works and doesn't work. What worked once a upon a time no longer works now. That is enough to show that there is no way of saying what is a MUST for everyone.