In Part I of this series I discussed one of the major types of periodization, periodizing by physical attribute. Basically, this means rotating your training to focus on one major physical quality at a time - building muscle, getting stronger, getting faster, or gaining endurance. You do this by designing workouts that focus on one of those qualities, and either rotating the workouts one after the other or focus on just one type of workout for a block of time - from 3-8 weeks - then switching to another "type."
Periodizing Intensity: This is a very different idea than periodizing attributes (though they can work together). To periodize intensity means to vary how hard you're working at whatever you're doing. Remember, any type of workout - strength, speed, hypertrophy, or energy system - can be very hard, or very taxing, on your body, or comparatively less taxing. People just can't charge full speed ahead week in and week out forever without crashing and burning. To prevent this we build planned de-loads or rests into our training.
There are a few different ways to handle this, and I'll go over the most common.
When do we periodize intensity?
This is a great question. There are roughly two ways to handle this. The first is to do planned deloading periods. That means that you, or your coach, or whoever, figures out ahead of time that you're going to go full blast for, say, 8 weeks, then do a 1 week deload. (There's nothing special about 8 weeks, it's just an example number - fill in your own block of time). This is especially handy when you're working towards a competition or a meet. I've written before (read this and this) that you should prepare for a promotion or a competition by resting in the days immediately preceding the "event."
The downside to this style is that if you're just training - if you're not heading towards any specific goal date, like a contest, but just trying to generally improve - you still need rest occasionally but it's really hard to say with confidence, "oh, I'll work this hard, and I'll definitely need a rest after 6 weeks - not 5 or 7, but definitely 6." If you try that, and you don't have a team of physiologists planning things out for you, you run a real risk of going too long without a break or getting rest you don't need.
So what's the alternative? Many people advocate resting or de-loading when you physically need it. That sounds kind of obvious - rest when you need to rest! But how do you know when you need to rest (as opposed to just being lazy)?
If you've been training for a long time you might be a very good judge of your body's status - you might be able to accurately "feel" whether you're ready for a hard training session or need to back off. That's great! But if you want a more scientific measurement, or if you don't have that level of physical awareness yet, you can go with a couple of other choices.
One common method is to measure your waking heart rate. Get a heart rate monitor or use the finger + stopwatch method and measure your heart rate when you first wake up - ideally before you get out of bed. After a few days you should get a pretty good idea of what's normal for you. If one day you're feeling tired and your waking heart rate is higher than normal, that's the day to rest.
A better (probably) method is to measure heart rate variability. If you're worn out your heart rate variability (how much it goes up and down in response to normal getting up and moving around type of activity) will decrease, and that's the time to rest and recover (high heart rate variability = good). I know of no easy way to measure this without some kind of sophisticated equipment - please post to comments if you do!
If you're kind of in the middle, body-awareness wise, and aren't sure if you're being lazy or genuinely need rest, I like to go to the gym and do the warmup before re-evaluating. If I warm up and still feel like crap I'll de-load. If I'm just not in the mood and don't really need the rest I'll usually find that I'm good to go once I finish my warmup.
How do we periodize intensity? So you've decided that it's time for a de-load. There are roughly two ways to back off on intensity. The first, and probably simplest, is to rest. And by rest I just mean skip workouts or reduce their frequency - take a few days or a week off.
There are two downsides to resting this way. The first is that you lose momentum. I don't know about you, but I find it easier to get to the gym or dojo if I'm going regularly - once I take some time off I find it hard to get back. If that doesn't apply to you, that's great, you can judge that for yourself. The second downside is that you might recover faster doing something than doing nothing. That means you're probably better off with what they call active recovery.
Active recovery means some version of doing relatively easy workouts. You can do the same workout you're resting from, and back off on the weight used (back off a lot, not just 5-10 lbs) but do the same style of workout. If you were working on speed, do some relaxed speed work - don't go all-out. Run hard, but don't sprint, and don't do a lot of volume. If you were working on strength, drop the weight and just "go through the motions." It can be hard to restrain yourself, especially if you're feeling okay and are doing a planned de-load before a competition, but do it anyway!
The trick with active recovery is to move enough to get blood pumping through the muscles - delivering nutrients and clearing away waste products - without doing any additional damage. In other words, don't make new inroads into your recovery system! That means no brand new exercises, lots of full range of motion movement, and nothing so vigorous that you feel like throwing up after the set.
How do we put it all together? I'm going to give you the cheapest possible answer: wait for my next post. I'll describe a periodization schedule that's manageable for the amateur martial artist!
One tough thing about periodization is that in the traditional martial arts we tend to have a go-hard-all-the-time mentality. It feels like wimping out to take time off. Additionally, it's really hard to take it easy in the dojo, in a class. When your instructor tells you to do 25 pushups, few of us have the gumption to say, "actually, I'm only going to do 10 because this is a de-load week for me." I don't have an easy answer to this problem, other than to say that if you need a de-load, cut back on classes if you can (this would be a great time to volunteer to teach, which is usually less physically demanding), and really cut back on your outside-the-dojo training.
If you're teaching classes you might consider the idea of scheduling de-loads into your class structure. Have an easy set of classes every few weeks where you cut back on the conditioning type stuff. That may or may not meet the needs of your students. You don't have to waste the week - focus on skill work, really focus on technical details, etc.
Remember, it's not laziness, it's strategy! You can periodize on purpose or you can be forced into it through injuries and illness. There's nothing heroic about working yourself into the ground.
Osu!
Showing posts with label injuries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label injuries. Show all posts
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Periodization Made Simple: Part I: Periodizing physical qualities
We all know people who train consistently - maybe too consistently - by doing the same thing in the gym every workout, time after time. They might take a break for a holiday or vacation or because of injury, but they generally repeat the same type of workout - the same exercises (generally), similar rep schemes, similar number of sets, and similar tempo, month in and month out. If they're smart they'll constantly strive to add weight, or reps, to their workout, or switch up the exercises once in a while. You can certainly make progress with this style of training, but it's usually slow and boring and often leads to staleness and/or injury.
High level athletes realized a long time ago that if they wanted to peak for an event - say, the Olympics, or even a season of their sport - they couldn't train the same way all the time. They'd do general conditioning for part of the year, then more specific training, and finally sport specific training for the last couple of months leading up to their event. It didn't take long for them to realize that over the long term they'd make better gains by "mixing up" their training this way than if they did similar types of training every week over the year.
Periodization is a term that means changing aspects of your workout in a planned way in order to maximize long term progress. Reading the literature on periodization can be kind of daunting to a beginner - articles about periodization are often filled with technical vocabulary that you really don't have to know in order to use the principles.
So I'll make it simple. I'm not going to define a million different terms for you (partially because I can't remember the difference between conjugate and concurrent periodization), just cover the basic concepts so you can use periodization to improve your training (and you should!).
There are 2 general kinds of periodization: Periodizing physical qualities and periodizing intensity.
You can periodize your training to focus on different attributes or periodize your intensity. Or you can (and should) do both! I'll address the first type here (for no particular reason), and the second type in the next post.
Periodizing Attributes: What this means is that you emphasize different physical attributes in different training sessions. For example, you might do hypertrophy (hypertrophy means muscle growth) workouts (8-12 reps per set, 3-5 sets per exercise, moderate or slow rep pace, moderate rest between sets, extra calories after the workout), speed/ power workouts (plyometrics, very fast movements, ballistic exercises like kettlebell swings or olympic lifts, sprints, 3-5 reps per set, 2-3 sets per movement, lots of rest between sets), strength workouts (4-6 reps per set, lots of weight, moderate rep speed, 3-6 sets per movement, lots of rest between sets), and conditioning workouts (energy system training) (circuit training with moderate weights, little to no rest between sets, lots of sets). None of these workouts are easier or harder, by nature, than the others, they just each target a different type of adaptation.
You could work these into your program in various ways. You could do 3-8 weeks of one type of workout (say, a session of hypertrophy), followed by another "block" of 3-8 weeks focusing on another (say, strength workouts). The potential downside is that you could lose too much in one area while focusing on another - you might lose all the speed you gained during your speed "block" during the other blocks, since you might go 16-24 weeks without training for a particular quality.
You could try to avoid that by mixing and matching in various ways. For example, you could do a little bit of hypertrophy, a little speed work, and a lot of strength work for 8 weeks, then a little hypertrophy, a little strength, and a lot of speed work for the next set of 8 weeks, and so forth. Think of it as having two minors and a major in each block - you'd do enough in each minor area to maintain your ability and you'd make progress in the major area.
Yet another style of periodization (you can see why there's so much terminology around this subject - each method of periodizing has its own name and associated jargon) would be to alternate workouts over the week but focus on each quality equally. For example, suppose you work out three times per week. Do one session of hypertrophy work, one session of speed/power work, and one session of strength work. That way you make consistent progress in all areas.
Which system is best? I think a lot depends on what you're training for. If you're an Olympic athlete who has to "peak" at a certain time of year you need a very different system than regular people - and you probably have a professional coach to help you plan that all out. If you're just like me - someone who wants to keep improving, but has no specific targets - then I'd say try the last system. This is also a situation where we're splitting hairs - a professional athlete, who is in a situation where a 2% improvement could mean the difference between winning and losing, has to be much more meticulous in their choices than a weekend warrior. For us amateurs a simpler system that is easier to comply with is probably more useful than something that could serve as a Ph.D. thesis in exercise physiology.
The "attributes" in question can also vary. Bodybuilders alternate periods of time when they "bulk up" (add bodyweight - usually a combination of fat and muscle), then "lean out" (lose bodyweight, again usually a combination of fat and muscle, but they're hoping to gain more muscle than fat, then lose more fat than muscle, and come out ahead). And you can focus on different attributes for different areas of your body - you could combine strength for the lower body with speed in the upper, and vice versa.
I'll give my recommendations on how to periodize your training - assuming you're a karateka with an actual life - with specific examples and a training plan - after I cover periodizing intensity.
Osu!
High level athletes realized a long time ago that if they wanted to peak for an event - say, the Olympics, or even a season of their sport - they couldn't train the same way all the time. They'd do general conditioning for part of the year, then more specific training, and finally sport specific training for the last couple of months leading up to their event. It didn't take long for them to realize that over the long term they'd make better gains by "mixing up" their training this way than if they did similar types of training every week over the year.
Periodization is a term that means changing aspects of your workout in a planned way in order to maximize long term progress. Reading the literature on periodization can be kind of daunting to a beginner - articles about periodization are often filled with technical vocabulary that you really don't have to know in order to use the principles.
So I'll make it simple. I'm not going to define a million different terms for you (partially because I can't remember the difference between conjugate and concurrent periodization), just cover the basic concepts so you can use periodization to improve your training (and you should!).
There are 2 general kinds of periodization: Periodizing physical qualities and periodizing intensity.
You can periodize your training to focus on different attributes or periodize your intensity. Or you can (and should) do both! I'll address the first type here (for no particular reason), and the second type in the next post.
Periodizing Attributes: What this means is that you emphasize different physical attributes in different training sessions. For example, you might do hypertrophy (hypertrophy means muscle growth) workouts (8-12 reps per set, 3-5 sets per exercise, moderate or slow rep pace, moderate rest between sets, extra calories after the workout), speed/ power workouts (plyometrics, very fast movements, ballistic exercises like kettlebell swings or olympic lifts, sprints, 3-5 reps per set, 2-3 sets per movement, lots of rest between sets), strength workouts (4-6 reps per set, lots of weight, moderate rep speed, 3-6 sets per movement, lots of rest between sets), and conditioning workouts (energy system training) (circuit training with moderate weights, little to no rest between sets, lots of sets). None of these workouts are easier or harder, by nature, than the others, they just each target a different type of adaptation.
You could work these into your program in various ways. You could do 3-8 weeks of one type of workout (say, a session of hypertrophy), followed by another "block" of 3-8 weeks focusing on another (say, strength workouts). The potential downside is that you could lose too much in one area while focusing on another - you might lose all the speed you gained during your speed "block" during the other blocks, since you might go 16-24 weeks without training for a particular quality.
You could try to avoid that by mixing and matching in various ways. For example, you could do a little bit of hypertrophy, a little speed work, and a lot of strength work for 8 weeks, then a little hypertrophy, a little strength, and a lot of speed work for the next set of 8 weeks, and so forth. Think of it as having two minors and a major in each block - you'd do enough in each minor area to maintain your ability and you'd make progress in the major area.
Yet another style of periodization (you can see why there's so much terminology around this subject - each method of periodizing has its own name and associated jargon) would be to alternate workouts over the week but focus on each quality equally. For example, suppose you work out three times per week. Do one session of hypertrophy work, one session of speed/power work, and one session of strength work. That way you make consistent progress in all areas.
Which system is best? I think a lot depends on what you're training for. If you're an Olympic athlete who has to "peak" at a certain time of year you need a very different system than regular people - and you probably have a professional coach to help you plan that all out. If you're just like me - someone who wants to keep improving, but has no specific targets - then I'd say try the last system. This is also a situation where we're splitting hairs - a professional athlete, who is in a situation where a 2% improvement could mean the difference between winning and losing, has to be much more meticulous in their choices than a weekend warrior. For us amateurs a simpler system that is easier to comply with is probably more useful than something that could serve as a Ph.D. thesis in exercise physiology.
The "attributes" in question can also vary. Bodybuilders alternate periods of time when they "bulk up" (add bodyweight - usually a combination of fat and muscle), then "lean out" (lose bodyweight, again usually a combination of fat and muscle, but they're hoping to gain more muscle than fat, then lose more fat than muscle, and come out ahead). And you can focus on different attributes for different areas of your body - you could combine strength for the lower body with speed in the upper, and vice versa.
I'll give my recommendations on how to periodize your training - assuming you're a karateka with an actual life - with specific examples and a training plan - after I cover periodizing intensity.
Osu!
Monday, October 24, 2011
Pain and Fear Reactivity - why you can't do splits and shouldn't squat on a Swiss ball
Regular readers of this blog may remember that I was in a significant car accident this past July. The greatest loss was my beloved Civic (total loss), but I also suffered mild injuries to my sternum and shoulder (mild meaning they hurt like hell but I didn't actually require any medical attention). What made this a good story was that my test for sandan (3rd degree black belt) was scheduled for 3 days after the accident, and I really had no choice but to go through the test.
I learned a lot from this experience - I learned the value of ibuprofen, I learned how much harder it could be to get out of bed than it normally is, and I learned never to post anything about injuries on Facebook unless you're willing to be barraged by commenters insisting you see a physician (what am I, a 6 year old girl? See a doctor just because I'm hurt?) But the most interesting thing was what happened to my punching.
You see, the worst pain I felt was in the muscles along my right shoulderblade. Every morning my right arm would be useless. A few minutes of arm circles and general warming up would give me most of the function back, but I still had pain through some movements. Nothing serious, mind you, but definitely pain.
So here's the funny part. Pushing didn't really hurt - I wasn't setting any world records, but I could do pushups pretty much normally. Despite that, I couldn't really punch with any force (not that my punches are normally anything fantastic). Punching didn't hurt, I just couldn't muster up any snap with that arm. Remember, the muscles used in pushing the punch out - my legs, my core, the pushing muscles in the arm and shoulder - were all fine, yet I couldn't snap out my punches. The damaged muscles should only have really hurt at the end of the punch - absorbing the energy near lockout - yet I couldn't throw a punch hard enough to make that happen.
What was going on? I'm going to steal a term from Scott Sonnon (and I'm probably using it wrong, so please forgive me for butchering the poor guy's theories) and call it fear reactivity. To put it simply, my body was shutting down or interfering with uninjured tissues (the muscles used to throw a punch) to protect the injured tissues (the ones that would have been hurt by the force of a full speed punch).
This is worth restating: in many cases your body (i.e. nervous system) will prevent you from hurting yourself. That means when you try to move through a position that either causes pain, due to existing damage or a structural deficiency, or where you are weak, because the muscles are undertrained in that range of motion, you will have a reduction in activation by your nervous system, resulting in weakness, or a tightening of muscles to prevent you from entering that position.
Another place we see similar things happen is in the hip adductors (groin muscles). If your adductors are weak when your hips are widely abducted (legs far apart), as they are in most people (because really, who the hell trains their hips when their legs are far apart?) the muscles will tighten when you try to stretch them. That's why you probably can't get into a split. Strengthen the muscles in that range of motion and you'll see quick gains in flexibility - not because any tissues are longer, but because they're not tightening up to protect themselves.
There are 3 different ways understanding this principal should impact your training:
I learned a lot from this experience - I learned the value of ibuprofen, I learned how much harder it could be to get out of bed than it normally is, and I learned never to post anything about injuries on Facebook unless you're willing to be barraged by commenters insisting you see a physician (what am I, a 6 year old girl? See a doctor just because I'm hurt?) But the most interesting thing was what happened to my punching.
You see, the worst pain I felt was in the muscles along my right shoulderblade. Every morning my right arm would be useless. A few minutes of arm circles and general warming up would give me most of the function back, but I still had pain through some movements. Nothing serious, mind you, but definitely pain.
So here's the funny part. Pushing didn't really hurt - I wasn't setting any world records, but I could do pushups pretty much normally. Despite that, I couldn't really punch with any force (not that my punches are normally anything fantastic). Punching didn't hurt, I just couldn't muster up any snap with that arm. Remember, the muscles used in pushing the punch out - my legs, my core, the pushing muscles in the arm and shoulder - were all fine, yet I couldn't snap out my punches. The damaged muscles should only have really hurt at the end of the punch - absorbing the energy near lockout - yet I couldn't throw a punch hard enough to make that happen.
What was going on? I'm going to steal a term from Scott Sonnon (and I'm probably using it wrong, so please forgive me for butchering the poor guy's theories) and call it fear reactivity. To put it simply, my body was shutting down or interfering with uninjured tissues (the muscles used to throw a punch) to protect the injured tissues (the ones that would have been hurt by the force of a full speed punch).
This is worth restating: in many cases your body (i.e. nervous system) will prevent you from hurting yourself. That means when you try to move through a position that either causes pain, due to existing damage or a structural deficiency, or where you are weak, because the muscles are undertrained in that range of motion, you will have a reduction in activation by your nervous system, resulting in weakness, or a tightening of muscles to prevent you from entering that position.
Another place we see similar things happen is in the hip adductors (groin muscles). If your adductors are weak when your hips are widely abducted (legs far apart), as they are in most people (because really, who the hell trains their hips when their legs are far apart?) the muscles will tighten when you try to stretch them. That's why you probably can't get into a split. Strengthen the muscles in that range of motion and you'll see quick gains in flexibility - not because any tissues are longer, but because they're not tightening up to protect themselves.
There are 3 different ways understanding this principal should impact your training:
- You might make quick gains in strength (how much force you can actually produce) by doing some mobility work, especially if you're relatively new to training. Move all your limbs through a full and pain free range of motion, and do it often - move slowly, then quicker. This will convince your body (I really mean your nervous system) that those ranges of motion don't hurt, which can release or unlock any restrictions that are inhibiting your performance right now (this is a part of the Z-Health system).
- Make sure you are strong in the ranges of motion you need to use in your martial art (or daily life). If you like to kick people in the head (while they're still standing), then your hip muscles have to be strong when one leg is way high in the air, or your body will reduce the force it can exert while that leg is high. If you train your hips with, say, squats and swings only - movements where your knees are fairly close together the entire time- then you can't expect to be strong when they're not close together.
- If you're trying to get stronger you have to convince your body that it's safe to generate a lot of force. That means STOP SQUATTING ON AN UNSTABLE SURFACE!!! Moving on a bosu ball, swiss ball, etc. - any kind of unstable surface - tells your brain that it's not safe to push hard. If you don't believe me, try to do a max squat while wearing roller skates. If you're rehabbing an injury or working on your balance or trying to activate stabilizer muscles then unstable surfaces are great. If you're trying to get stronger, then the instability will cause an inhibition of the prime movers - the muscles that generate the bulk of the force you're trying to produce - and the exercises will be less efficient.
In the end I passed my promotion and it only took another month and a half for my shoulder to heal pretty much completely. Next time I have a promotion (if there is a next time) I'm going to stay home for 2 weeks before the test!
Osu.
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