Phase Potentiation PDF

CHAPTER EIGHT PHASE POTENTIATION SCIENTIFIC DEFINITION Phase Potentiation is an advanced training principle which in common terms can be defined as the logical sequencing of training phases to promote the best overall long-term outcomes. The more detailed definition requires us to investigate t...

CHAPTER EIGHT PHASE POTENTIATION SCIENTIFIC DEFINITION Phase Potentiation is an advanced training principle which in common terms can be defined as the logical sequencing of training phases to promote the best overall long-term outcomes. The more detailed definition requires us to investigate the physiological realities that underpin Phase Potentiation and also require us to define a needed sub- principle; Adaptive Decay. P H A S E P O T E N T I AT I O N The first step in understanding the logic of phase potentiation is the realization that a certain type of training phase now can improve the gains from a different type of training later. That is, training to accomplish some capability can improve the results of training for a different capability later. Thus, the phase of training for the first capability can be said to “potentiate” (or improve) the results of the second capability. There are many examples of abilities that enhance each other and can benefit from a phase-potentiated training structure. If your goal is to be able to do a crossover and then a layup in basketball, learning how Chapte r N o. 8 Sci en t if ic P r in c ip les o f St ren g t h Tra in in g P 278 to dribble and shoot beforehand will greatly potentiate your success vs. learning to dribble and shoot after learning to crossover into a layup. Building a base of aerobic fitness with longer duration running or cycling can improve output and recovery abilities so that hard interval training can be much more productive. You could say that the aerobic base phase gets the endurance athlete “in shape to actually train hard.” In an example much closer to home, having lots of muscle around to make strong with neural and tissue alignment adaptations lets you get strong a lot easier and makes strength training more productive. All of these examples of the derivation of a phasic structure rely on 3 fundamental assumptions: Specificity, Sequence and Adaptive Decay. Let’s take a look at each condition. A.) SPECIFICITY The principle of specificity tells us that how we train had better reflect what it is we’re trying to achieve. More specifically to phase potentiation, the sub-principles of directed adaptation and training modality compatibility tell us that we can’t train with the most productivity for everything at the same time. Directed Adaptation states that in order to get stronger, we need to train for strength for weeks on end without switching goals to peaking or size in between. Training Modality Compatibility tells us that if we were to train everything at once, some of the methods would interfere with each other substantially and the whole training process would be negatively affected (see previous discussion of the too-frequent use of variation for details). Thus the conclusion from the principle of specificity is that at least in some regard, our training must be composed of distinct phases with Chapte r N o. 8 Sci en t if ic P r in c ip les o f St ren g t h Tra in in g P 279 distinct goals that don’t interfere with each other but must in fact complement each other. This doesn’t have to mean that a pure rigidity must be employed. If you do sets of 6 and 10 in the same workout, the world does not come to an end. But if you do every single rep range with every single goal, you might be missing out on some potential benefits of both specificity/variation and phase potentiation. B.) SEQUENCE From point a.), we can justify the use of dedicated phases. But how do we order the phases? Just do any one phase, then another, then another? It can be done like that, but not for best results. Order matters for two reasons. Firstly, because which phase precedes another determines whether or not potentiation will occur, and secondly because the nature of the final phase is usually fixed, which means not all combinations are logical. The skyscraper analogy works very well to illustrate both reasons. If your goal is to build the biggest possible skyscraper to house the most workers and to support a TV antenna as well, what do you do? You’ve got the base, the main floors, and the spire/TV antenna. First of all, you know that a strong and wide base is actually one of the biggest factors in eventual building height. Some of the world’s tallest buildings have more than 10 underground floors... how interesting that digging down is the first step to building up? Not so much unlike the temporary decrease in 1RM during a hypertrophy phase! You have the base down, and now you can build up for the first time and take the main floors as high as they can go. If you skipped the base, your main floors would never reach as high. If you just propped the spire onto the base, you couldn’t make it high enough without its tiny diameter making it unstable at quite a Chapte r N o. 8 Sci en t if ic P r in c ip les o f St ren g t h Tra in in g P 280 short height. There is also the reason of final-phase fixing involved in our decision about the spire. TV antennas only work best if they are put up as high as possible. Even if your antenna was made of advanced nanomaterials and could somehow hold up the main floors, it would only serve half of its purpose... contributing to height but not TV signal projection. Thus, the main floors are the only logical choice to lay down second. Lastly, the only remaining choice by simply being the only thing left to install is the spire with TV antenna. And just like that, we’ve not only built the highest building possible but have developed a phase- potentiated sequence which we can use to build other tall buildings later! In powerlifting, we have one goal: biggest 1RMs possible and 3 methods; training for size, training for strength, and training to peak. Just like with the skyscraper, our peaking phase is by definition going to be last because we have to be peaked to lift! Now all we have to decide is whether or not to put the strength phase or the size phase first. While strength training can take existing size and make it stronger (get the most force production out of a given unit of muscle), size training actually reverses the neural and tissue alignment adaptations of strength training to some degree. Because we much prefer peaking a strong physique than an equally big but more repetition-suited one, our strength phase must come before the peaking phase and thus our size phase must be first. Thus we have the first formal mention of a phase- potentiated structure in powerlifting; build the size, make it stronger, peak for performance. Chapte r N o. 8 Sci en t if ic P r in c ip les o f St ren g t h Tra in in g P 281 C. ) A DA P T I V E D E C AY We know two things so far. First of all, we need phases because we can’t train everything at the same time for best results. Second, we know that the phases cannot be random in their sequencing and work best if ordered in a particular, phase- potentiated manner. The final assumption we must make (and of course make sure it’s correct) is that of adaptive decay. Since we rely on the adaptations of previous phases to hang around and boost performance in current phases, we have to make sure those adaptations... actually hang around! For example, if we build a base for our skyscraper and then an investment crisis halts construction, can we just resume construction again Chapte r N o. 8 P 282 when we have money? After 5 or 10 years, sure. But after 20 years, the base may have cracked in various places or otherwise be in disrepair... building main floors on it is no longer as straightforward. After 70 years, the entire base may have moved or tilted or cracked to the point of being completely useless, and we must now go through the process of re-building it entirely! In just the same way, if we build muscle to support strength development but start to lose that muscle halfway through the strength phase, we can run into serious problems of declining strength and now our whole phase-potentiated structure crumbles! It looks like we’ll have to dedicate a whole separate in-depth discussion to the sub- principle of adaptive decay to make sure we don’t commit this type of error of ignorance. Adaptive Decay: “If you don’t use it, you lose it” is perhaps the most straightforward and simple definition of the sub-principle of Adaptive Decay. In sport science, this principle has two features: 1.) How long it takes to lose adaptive characteristics with no training. 2.) How long it takes to lose adaptive characteristics with different (various forms) of training. The first feature describes how fast you’d lose muscle, strength, or a peak without training at all. Interesting from an exercise science perspective, but not of much use to us in this discussion since nobody is planning on quitting training altogether as a method of improvement! The second feature is right up our phase-potentiation alley. If we are to do only strength training, how much of our size can we keep and for how Chapte r N o. 8 Sci en t if ic P r in c ip les o f St ren g t h Tra in in g P 283 long? If we hold a peak, can we keep size and strength long enough to benefit from phase-potentiated structure? Luckily, there are pretty good answers to these questions, which we’ll address in the discussion of this principle as it applies to powerlifting. P OW E R L I F T I N G D E F I N I T I O N The literature on adaptive decay outlines several interesting patterns: a.) Muscle size can be conserved indefinitely with only strength and no hypertrophy training. b.) Peaking training can conserve muscle size for between 1 and 3 months until declines begin to affect strength and thus peak performance. Closer to one month for beginners and closer to 3 months for advanced lifters. Several related notes from other chapters can help us pin together an applicable phase-potentiated structure for powerlifting: c.) From variation, we have seen that hypertrophy phases longer than about 3-6 months can benefit from the lower, resensitizing volumes of a strength phase. d.) Within 3-6 months, most neural and tissue alignment adaptations of strength training have been made, and progress without a return to hypertrophy phase is needlessly slow, unless it’s time for a demonstration of gains with a peaking phase. e.) Switching phases more often than every 3 weeks or so violates directed adaptation and does not allow each phase to yield its best results nor allow those results to be conserved into the later phases. Chapte r N o. 8 Sci en t if ic P r in c ip les o f St ren g t h Tra in in g P 284 Based on the observations from the previous sections and the above observations on adaptive decay, we have an emergent structure for phase-potentiated powerlifting training: Hypertrophy Phase: 3 weeks to 6 months long Strength Phase: 3 weeks to 6 months long Peaking Phase: 3 weeks to 3 months long. The above timelines imply 3 possible ends on a spectrum of competition frequency. Some lifters will be able to compete as often as every 9 weeks without really sacrificing any phase-potentiated gains (outside of the occasional active rest that might space some meets out further). Still other lifters may benefit best by putting together 6 months of hypertrophy, 6 months of strength training, and 3 months of peaking training and only compete every year and a half. A third group of lifters might forego competition for longer and focus on moving up or down in weightclass or making some serious gains in ability before competing again. This group might string together hypertrophy phases with strength phases, and thus build muscle and then make it stronger for several 6 week to one-year macrocycles depending on the conditions. Peaking for powerlifting is only a good idea if you’ve got something to show for it... if you aren’t ready to compete after just one hypertrophy- strength sequence, there is nothing wrong at all with repeating that paradigm once, twice, or as many times as you choose. One final note is that the phases can be extended in length and perhaps even productivity if they are not completely unitary in their training method. A small amount of basic strength work during especially the tail end of a hypertrophy phase can make the next strength phase Chapte r N o. 8 Sci en t if ic P r in c ip les o f St ren g t h Tra in in g P 285 transition go more smoothly. A small amount of extra volume during a strength phase may allow for a bit more muscle growth without taxing strength developments too much. A small amount of extra strength work especially at the beginning of a peaking phase can allow the peaking phase to be longer, which for advanced, fatigue-prone athletes with longer SRA curves and lower training frequencies may be just the thing needed to make the peaking phase long enough to work up to the heaviest weights required in a safe and progressive manner. That being said, the focus of each phase must still be on the goals of that phase. If you’re doing more than 30% of non-phasic work and less than 70% of phase-specific work at any one time, you are not likely to benefit maximally from phase potentiation. P R I N C I P L E I M P O R TA N C E R A N K Every single author of this book is wildly passionate about phase potentiation. Drs. Israetel and Hoffmann both spent 3 years getting PhDs in the field and spent months in quiet labs solely studying phase potentiation. Chad Wesley Smith has been gathering texts and speaking directly to scientists, authors, coaches and athletes about phase potentiation for the majority of his strength career. But passion is not objectivity, and the facts must be plainly stated; phase potentiation is the second-least important principle of training described in this book. How much of an advantage does phase potentiation really net? Probably on the order of several percent. While the European literature on phase potentiation (as applied in block periodization) is voluminous, the American studies looking into it are few. In all studies no matter their source, the net effect of phase potentiation is small. Why? Because Chapte r N o. 8 Sci en t if ic P r in c ip les o f St ren g t h Tra in in g P 286 training hard and heavy gets you very strong and very big. Add volume to get bigger, take it away to get stronger, and do the right thing to peak and you’re well on your way to a superbly effective program. If you really screw up phase potentiation, you might not do as well as possible in powerlifting. But if Ed Coan in his prime walks into a meet right during a hypertrophy phase, he’s still going to beat everyone by a long shot, phasing be damned. But can we really say the same for the earlier principles? If Ed violated overload and trained light all the time, would he still be so dominant? No way. What about no fatigue management? Uh uh. What if he never went over to powerlifting and did bodybuilding for good just like when he started, would he still be “the Ed Coan?” Unlikely. Phase potentiation may be much more important for team sports and highly technical sports, but not as much for powerlifting. Phase potentiation is important because it can help make training run smoothly and more optimally. It matters plenty for especially advanced lifters who now count their gains in single digit percentages per year, but it’s just not the most important thing for beginners to either know or apply. Chapte r N o. 8 Sci en t if ic P r in c ip les o f St ren g t h Tra in in g P 287 I M P L I C AT I O N S & E X A M P L E S O F P R O P E R A P P L I C AT I O N O F P H A S E P O T E N T I AT I O N 1.) PHASE GUIDELINES While we can use “phase” as a general term, more often in this discussion and hereafter we will be using the term “block” or “training block” to reflect the standard use of “block” in modern periodization literature as a sequence of several mesocycles designed to prioritize one goal, such as hypertrophy, strength or power. It’s the blocks that are sequenced to phase-potentiate each other. Chapte r N o. 8 Sci en t if ic P r in c ip les o f St ren g t h Tra in in g P 288 The following list will illustrate each phase and the following relevant information regarding the training recommended during that phase: adaptation goals preservation goals primary modalities sets/reps/intensities durations(very rough average, as more detailed discussion on phase length variation will be addressed in the individual differences chapter) Hypertrophy/Work Capacity Block Adaptation Goals: gain muscle size and build work capacity for later strength training Preservation Goals: do not let fiber type and neural characteristics drift too far away from strength performance. This means that sets far over 10 reps may not be recommended Primary Modalities: variations of the compound movements with limited isolation work, overload training sessions being presented often, between 2 and 6 times per week, per muscle group in most cases. Focus should be on the muscles the lifter needs to get bigger, like pecs for the bench, for example Sets/Reps/Intensities: 15-30 overloading sets per muscle group per week for most lifters, reps of 6-10, average intensity between 60 and 75% 1RM Durations: 3 weeks to 6 months long, but usually around 2-3 months for most intermediate lifters Chapte r N o. 8 Sci en t if ic P r in c ip les o f St ren g t h Tra in in g P 289 Basic Strength Block Adaptation Goals: gain general muscle strength Preservation Goals: maintain muscle size Primary Modalities: variations of the compound movements with limited isolation work or none at all, overload training sessions being presented between 2 and 4 times per week, per muscle group in most cases. Focus should be on the movements the lifter needs to get stronger, like stiff legged deadlifts for posterior chain strength, for example Sets/Reps/Intensities: 10-20 overloading sets per muscle group per week for most lifters, reps of 3-6, average intensity between 75% and 90% 1RM Durations: 3 weeks to 6 months long, but usually between 3 and 4 months for most intermediate lifters Peaking Block Adaptation Goals: sharpen technical and neural abilities to execute limit (1RM) loads Preservation Goals: maintain muscle size and basic strength Primary Modalities: mostly the competition lifts themselves with little additional compound variations, overload training sessions being presented between 1 and 3 times per week, per muscle group, in most cases with high possibility of additional light sessions. Focus should be on mastering the execution of the competition lifts at high loads Sets/Reps/Intensities: 5-10 overloading sets per muscle group per week for most lifters, reps of 1-3, average intensity around 75%, but almost always split between light sessions of 50% 1RM and overload sessions between 85% and 95% 1RM Chapte r N o. 8 Sci en t if ic P r in c ip les o f St ren g t h Tra in in g P 290  Durations: 3 weeks to 3 months long, but usually between 1 and 2 months for most intermediate lifters Details on active rest phase requirements will be presented in the chapter on the big picture periodization of powerlifting. 2.) CONSERVING PROGRESS BETWEEN PHASES Preserving established gains is much easier than making new ones. This is a fundamental reality that allows the very concept of phase potentiation to occur. If the lower, easier volumes of strength training did not at least maintain gains in muscle, both hypertrophy and strength would have to be trained simultaneously for any long term adaptations to meaningfully sum up. However, while less work is required to retain adaptations, especially adaptively-resistant areas (trouble areas or hard-gaining areas) are going to require more work than usual, even to maintain. Thus, the choosing over appropriate transitional exercises and volumes may help. For example, if your quads have been a weak point with squats, you may choose to add leg press and front squat volume during your hypertrophy block to increase their size. Once you transition into the strength block, just going back to standard training may not be sufficiently simulative to retain the new quad size and strengthen it. A better option may be to add a bit more front squat or high bar squat volume than usual in order that the quads continue to get stimulated enough to retain their size. In the peaking block, keeping in just a bit more high bar squatting may just be the trick to get the most adaptive conservation and thus performance that was first added during the hypertrophy block. Chapte r N o. 8 Sci en t if ic P r in c ip les o f St ren g t h Tra in in g P 291 An example with the bench press can further illustrate this idea. If you want to bring up your triceps, skull crushers may be an excellent tool in the hypertrophy block. However, if you simply switch next to more of a chest emphasis through the first mesocycle of the strength phase by employing more wide grip and incline work, that stimulus may not be enough to conserve the newly minted triceps size. Instead, focusing on more general pressing without any bias away from the triceps or even better, focusing a bit more on close grip moves, may ease the transition and retain more adaptations. Once a whole macrocycle of relative focus on a weak or needy muscle group or movement pattern has been completed, the adaptations made are much more resistant to decay than when they were new, and less attention can be paid to them without their regression. 3. ) TA P E R I N G & P E A K I N G F O R C O M P E T I T I O N At the end of every peaking phase is a taper. The goals of a taper are very straightforward: Maintain Fitness (muscle mass, strength, and ability to execute 1RM loads with good technique) Drop Fatigue The result of dropping fatigue as much as possible while keeping fitness as high as possible can be re-stated as the maximization of preparedness, since preparedness is defined literally as the sum of fitness and fatigue. The ideal peaking phase would have fitness infinitely high and fatigue at zero, but in the real world, the higher the fitness, the lower the fatigue and thus the higher the preparedness, the better. Chapte r N o. 8 Sci en t if ic P r in c ip les o f St ren g t h Tra in in g P 292 F i g u re 2 5 : P re p a re d n e s s In general sport tapering, volume is the biggest contributor to fatigue and intensity is the biggest contributor to retaining fitness, so that a standard taper usually involves lowering volumes and maintaining intensities as a competition approaches. But since higher intensities do contribute to fatigue and powerlifting is by definition the highest possible intensity sport, we’ll also have to bring down intensity at some later point if we’re going to design a proper taper. An additional concern especially with more advanced lifters is the use of functional overreaching. Concentrated loads beyond MRV of very high intensities can depress and then elevate nervous system force Chapte r N o. 8 Sci en t if ic P r in c ip les o f St ren g t h Tra in in g P 293 production SRA curves so that they are peaked at or close to the time of competition. Thus, an intentional overreach within several weeks of the meet can set this process us and yield a net benefit. Brining all of these factors together, we can begin to visualize a three- part sequence for the tapering process: Part 1: Normal volume training with classic peaking recommendations OR Functional Overreaching volume with classical peaking recommendation. Functional overreaching volumes can range between 1.5 and 2x normal peaking volumes. Part 2: Reduced volume but maintained or even elevated intensity training. Volume can be reduced to between 90% and 50% of normal peaking training. Part 3: Reduced volume and intensity phase, averaging 50% volume and 50% intensity of the normal peaking phase. An extra series of rest days may be taken after part 3, and then, the meet! Chapte r N o. 8 Sci en t if ic P r in c ip les o f St ren g t h Tra in in g P 294 There is quite a bit of variation within those guidelines mostly because of the three major contributors to differences in peaking structure: 1) Lifter Size 2) Lifter Strength 3) Lifter Experience LIFTER SIZE Lifters with larger muscles and connective tissues tend to be able to do more homeostatic damage during training, and thus require concomitantly longer to taper. Muscle soreness in larger muscles almost always lasts longer and is more profound than soreness in smaller muscles. Lifters who are prone to add size to high extents also tend to be more fast twitch in muscle composition. Faster twitch muscles usually have longer recovery curves than slower twitch muscles, mostly because they can generate more force and take more damage, but also because they are not as well vascularized as slower twitch fibers and thus don’t receive nourishing bloodflow as quickly to match slower twitch healing rates. LIFTER STRENGTH Stronger lifters tend to have a faster-twitch muscular composition, so all of the slow fatigue dissipation tendencies of faster twitch muscles apply. But even obviating for size and fiber type, stronger lifters can exert more force and thus disrupt homeostasis more profoundly and for longer. An 800lb double in the deadlift may take days longer to recover from than a 400lb double, even if the relative intensity is the same (the lifters have maxes of 900 and 450, respectively). At some point, absolute Chapte r N o. 8 Sci en t if ic P r in c ip les o f St ren g t h Tra in in g P 295 intensity is not completely surmountable by adaptations, and stronger lifters just have to be able to program around this. You can’t just scale up a program or a taper based on percentages. If Andy Bolton hit a 900+ deadlift the week of the competition (like many weaker lifters do with their 90% pulls just fine), he’d barely be able to get 850 off of the ground, never mind 1000. LIFTER EXPERIENCE The more experienced a lifter is, the closer to his/her adaptive limits they are. Approaching adaptive limits carries both a negative and positive implication. Negative because the body’s ability to recover homeostasis after disruption is slower. The muscles and nervous system have grown so advanced and able to present such massive stimuli that the other systems (digestive, immune, etc...) will have a tougher and tougher time aiding in recovery. This creates the need for longer tapers. On the positive side, highly trained systems close to their peak tend to have a high degree of decay resistance. This means that they don’t lose much or any capability with even very small levels of stimulation. If you’ve benched over and around 405 19 times in competition, it’s going to take a lot for you to fall very far off that mark. Thus, even though high lifter experience necessitates longer tapers, these lifters can easily tolerate such increased taper lengths due to their high level of decay resistance. S E L E C T I N G TA P E R S We can spread the recommendations for peaking protocols into 3 general categories of lifter type, and readers can further tailor their own peaking programs based on which category they find themselves closer Chapte r N o. 8 Sci en t if ic P r in c ip les o f St ren g t h Tra in in g P 296 to or combinations of category they find themselves between. Genetic and other differences of course make this only a rough guide. Category 1: Lifters under 165lbs, totaling class 2 or under for their weight, and/or those who have been training for less than 3 years. Category 2: Lifters between 165lbs and 220lbs, totaling class 1 or better for their weight, and/or those who have been lifting for 3-6 years. Category 3: Lifters weighing more than 220lbs, totaling elite or pro (aka “International Elite”) for their weight, and/or those who have been lifting for more than 6 years. Which category can you place yourself in? Use the following guide as a rough start: F I N D I N G TA P E R I N G C AT E G O R Y B O DY W E I G H T T O TA L EXPERIENCE 1 Under 165 Class 2 or lower Under 3 years 1 P O I N T E AC H 2 165-220 Class 1 or Master 3-6 years 2 P O I N TS E AC H 3 Over 220 Elite or Pro Over 6 years 3 P O I N TS E AC H Once you’ve assigned yourself points from each of the factors above, sum the point totals to find your tapering category: Chapte r N o. 8 Sci en t if ic P r in c ip les o f St ren g t h Tra in in g P 297 Category Classification 3-4 points: Category 1 5-7 points: Category 2 8-9 points: Category 3 One your find your recommended category, see the instructions on taper duration below. Before that, a review of taper parts Part 1: Normal volume training with classic peaking recommendations OR Functional Overreaching volume with classical peaking recommendation. Functional overreaching volumes can range between 1.5 and 2x normal peaking volumes. Part 2: Reduced volume but maintained or even elevated intensity training. Volume can be reduced to between 90% and 50% of normal peaking training. Part 3: Reduced volume and intensity phase, averaging 50% volume and 50% intensity of the normal peaking phase. Typical taper guidelines for each category: Category 1 Total Taper Duration: 1 week Duration of Part 1: 0-3 days Duration of Part 2: 1-4 days Duration of Part 3: 0-3 days Chapte r N o. 8 Sci en t if ic P r in c ip les o f St ren g t h Tra in in g P 298 Category 2 Total Taper Duration: 2 weeks Duration of Part 1: 4-5 days Duration of Part 2: 4-5 days Duration of Part 3: 4-5 days Category 3 Total Taper Duration: 3 weeks Duration of Part 1: 1 week Duration of Part 2: 1 week Duration of Part 3: 1 week An example on using the above. If you’re a lifter of 2 years’ experience, compete in the 198 weightclass and total masters class poundages (1436-1558 in USPA, for example), then you accumulate 5 total category points, which lands you in the “Category 2” taper recommendations. That mean you’re going to take about two weeks total to taper and split your time evenly in those weeks between normal training/overreaching, reduced volume training, and reduced volume/intensity training per the percentage 1RM recommendations listed in the “taper parts” discussion above. Boom! Try this out on your own numbers and see if it adds up to a reasonable starting recommendation. Chapte r N o. 8 Sci en t if ic P r in c ip les o f St ren g t h Tra in in g P 299 U N D E R - A P P L I C AT I O N O F P H A S E P O T E N T I AT I O N 1. ) E XC E S S I V E H Y P E R T R O P H Y B LO C K L E N G T H Training for hypertrophy is an absolutely great way to enhance powerlifting performance. Especially in beginners and intermediates, hypertrophy training adds so much muscle size that strength levels and thus powerlifting performances skyrocket. Even in advanced lifters, a certain loss of size during the longer peaking phases needs hypertrophy training to re-stablish lost muscle, and even advanced lifters towards the top ends of their weightclasses can benefit from intelligently directed hypertrophy of certain muscle groups. But as the principle of variation implies, like all methods, hypertrophy training is not as effective if trained all the time or for too long at a time. When subjected to chronic high volumes (as during hypertrophy training), the very molecular regulators of muscle growth tend to desensitize and thwart much further growth, even with the inclusion of proper fatigue management. Practically this means that once every several months, low volume training must be employed for at least a mesocycle in order to re-sensitize the molecular regulatory systems to further hypertrophic potential. Even under the best circumstances, it is unlikely that training with high volumes steadily for more than 6 months or so continues to elicit the same growth stimuli as shorter bouts of hypertrophy training. This physiological reality likely limits the maximal duration of a hypertrophy phase at the top end and creates the first underpinnings of phase-potentiated structure. From the cumulative coaching and educational experience of the authors, the tentative advice is that most lifters will be constrained to Chapte r N o. 8 Sci en t if ic P r in c ip les o f St ren g t h Tra in in g P 300 poor hypertrophy results much sooner than 6 months into continual hypertrophy training. 3 months or so is our recommended timepoint on average for the consideration of inserting at least a short (month-long or so) mesocycle of lower volume training, if not moving on altogether into the strength block. 2. ) E XC E S S I V E S T R E N G T H B LO C K L E N G T H Excessively long phases of exclusively general strength training are also problematic. Though generally effective, very long strength phases can be enhanced if limited to no longer than 6 months of exclusive strength training, and perhaps closer to 3 months for most lifters. The big issue with prolonged strength phases is that they are, like hypertrophy phases, inherently self-limiting. Strength increases to the same amount of musculature rely entirely on neural (force production and technical) and muscle architectural changes. While these are powerful mediators of strength, within several months they have pretty much run their course and further improvements come at a snail’s pace, if at all. Once several months of strength training is performed on a muscle mass that is not increasing, neural and architectural changes are mostly maximized, and thus further increases in strength are minor or non-existent. At this point, there are two options; run another hypertrophy phase to build more muscle to strengthen (or to improve work capacity) or peak for meet performance and re-start an entire macrocycle. Stories about people gaining strength for long periods of time without doing anything but general strength training usually turn out to include gains in weight and muscle, which is another way of saying that hypertrophy occurred. If you’re going to grow muscle, you might as well do it maximally and Chapte r N o. 8 Sci en t if ic P r in c ip les o f St ren g t h Tra in in g P 301 with your best efforts in a dedicated hypertrophy phase, rather than by hypercaloric accident during a prolonged strength phase. Efficient use of career time notwithstanding, the dedicated hypertrophy approach will at the very least keep you leaner by only allowing hypercaloric dieting during high volume training. 3. ) E XC E S S I V E P E A K I N G B LO C K L E N G T H Because peaking phases require such low volumes of training, they present an insufficient stimulus for indefinite muscle retention. Peaking for longer than 3 months may begin to risk muscle and thus strength, and most lifters should err on the side of 2 months maximum. Additionally, there is questionable value as to the purpose of peaking even if muscle loss was hypothetically not a concern. Training in heavy sets of 1-3 reps does not provide even the volume needed for strength enhancement, especially for intermediate and advanced lifters. After only weeks of maximal lifting, technical adaptations to such exertions have likely run their course, which begs the question of why continuing to peak is remotely a good idea. After 2-3 months of peaking, even if muscle loss wasn’t a concern, you’d have to have a very good reason to miss out on the possible size benefits of a hypertrophy phase or the strength benefits of a strength phase. Oh and in the real world for almost all lifters, muscle loss is a concern on a peaking phase! Chapte r N o. 8 Sci en t if ic P r in c ip les o f St ren g t h Tra in in g P 302 O V E R - A P P L I C AT I O N O F P H A S E P O T E N T I AT I O N 1. ) T R A I N I N G A L L A B I L I T I E S I N E AC H S E S S I O N It’s a very good thing that certain adaptations like size and strength can hang around when they are not being trained specifically. If that were not the case, we might try to train all three main powerlifting systems (size, strength, peaking) within the same workout. It’s a very good thing that abilities hold because such a feat would be incredibly difficult to pull off, if not entirely impossible. First of all, such training would require an impressive amount of work. Just doing a single set of heavy weight is not enough to learn peaking technique, just two sets of 5 at 85% is not enough for strength and just 3 sets of 10 is not enough for size in most cases. Each ability needs enough volume within its own specific weight/intensity ranges to meet overload and meaningfully adapt. Thus, a typical session would be 3 sets of 3 at 90%, 5x5 at 80% and 4x10 at 65%... for one muscle group/ lift. Sounds like fun if doing everything all at once is your idea of fun, but after 3 hours, it might prove to be unsustainable from a fatigue management perspective. Let’s say that such sessions are in fact doable. After all, dedicated hypertrophy-only training comes close to those volumes if not intensities. The next problem we run into is that of adaptive interference via directed adaptation and training modality compatibility. The very technical and neural force production abilities trained in that day’s peaking and strength sets are reversed in the later hypertrophy training! So then why do the first peaking and strength training on that same day at all if the hypertrophy training will reverse some of those adaptations literally within the next hour? Chapte r N o. 8 Sci en t if ic P r in c ip les o f St ren g t h Tra in in g P 303 Ok, so we might come to the conclusion that within-session concurrent training is problematic enough to be avoided. How about we dedicate a whole workout in each week or several times per week to each ability? While this is definitely a better option, we still run into some of the same problems, addressed in the next section. 2. ) T R A I N I N G A L L A B I L I T I E S I N E AC H W E E K In our earlier discussion of DUP in the chapter on variation, we outlined some of the limitations of such an approach. Directed Adaptation is violated by the daily switches in priority. The adaptations of one workout can largely decay by the time the next workout of its kind is performed again. As well, Training Modality Compatibility implies that alterations made to physiology in some workouts (peaking, strength) may be largely replaced with opposing alterations of later workouts (hypertrophy). Chapte r N o. 8 Sci en t if ic P r in c ip les o f St ren g t h Tra in in g P 304 Additionally, fatigue management problems can be an important part of training modality compatibility concerns. Doing heavy triples within days of high volume hypertrophy work may be so difficult as to be unlikely to provide an overload. If the “extreme DUP” of training all abilities within the same week is not the best approach, perhaps training them in a more dedicated fashion for just several weeks at a time is more effective? 3. ) A LT E R I N G P H A S E S E V E R Y S E V E R A L W E E K S When training blocks of the major abilities are only several weeks long each, not enough time may be given for the individual adaptations to run their full course. Meaningful gains in muscle take weeks to accomplish, and meaningful alterations to neural function and technique at high loads take at least that long. Needless switching in too short a time when gains in these abilities are being well made from no changes to the focus are hard to justify. Why stop growing muscle if muscle growth is still going strong? Why switch to peaking so soon that most strength gains are simply cut off ? Changing phases too quickly (less than about three weeks at least for each phase) may be effective, but needlessly complicates the training process by introducing phasic variation too often than is maximally beneficial. SUMMARY Behind all the technical jargon, phase potentiation is quite simple to understand. Powerlifting requires 3 types of improvements: increases Chapte r N o. 8 Sci en t if ic P r in c ip les o f St ren g t h Tra in in g P 305 in muscle size, in general strength, and in the ability to handle maximal loads. We can’t train each one of these at the same time because they interfere with each other, so have to train them in different phases. Luckily, adaptations made in some of these phases hold robustly through other phases in which they are not being trained, so the phasic approach is not negated by fitness decay. Lastly, some of the phases are enhanced if preceded by some others. Muscle mass makes strength training more productive and a strength base makes peaking much more straightforward. Because of these physiological realities and some others, the emergent structure of phase potentiation is revealed as: Put on muscle over several months Make the new muscle stronger over several months Take a month or two to peak for powerlifting performance, and repeat! So long as that basic framework is followed, phase potentiation can be effectively employed to enhance powerlifting performance in the long term. Key Points Phase potentiation is the systematic sequencing of training phases that result in the summation of fitness characteristics and abilities for optimal performance at pre-determined time points For powerlifting the general model of phase potentiation will be to grow the muscle mass needed for success, make that muscle stronger, and translate that new strength into an improved 1RM performance Chapte r N o. 8 Sci en t if ic P r in c ip les o f St ren g t h Tra in in g P 306  Although most fitness characteristics are subject to reversibility and adaptive decay over time, as long as minimal training volumes and intensity are held, powerlifters can effectively sequence different training phases together without the risk of losing fitness from earlier phases. Ex: Peaking for a meet will not result in meaningful muscle atrophy (assuming normal training is resumed shortly after) SOURCES & FURTHER READING Phase Potentiation Defined Principles and Practice of Resistance Training Periodization 5th Edition Theory and Methodology of Training Science and Practice of Strength Training Phase Potentiation in Practice Interplay among the changes of muscle strength, cross-sectional area and maximal explosive power: theory and facts Periodization paradigms in the 21st century: evidence-led or tradition-driven New horizons for the methodology and physiology of training periodization Block periodization versus traditional training theory: a review Peaking & Tapering Tapering and Peaking for Optimal Performance Chapte r N o. 8 Sci en t if ic P r in c ip les o f St ren g t h Tra in in g P 307