Principles of Exercise Programming for Continuous Gain

By Pas Kabi
Performance based trainers are a minority. These are the people you'll find in grubby little sweat boxes with no frills, no mirrors, no cardiovascular equipment (except maybe a few skipping ropes) and definitely no posers. Alternatively, they'll be in national/state sporting institutes, hooked up to hardware under the guidance of strength and training coaches with more post nominals than war veterans.

This mode of training relates specifically to results in a target area be it a longer hammer throw or an earth shattering deadlift. In general terms, other trainers are concerned with health improvements/maintenance and slaves to the reflection of a mirror.

What delineates the performance athlete to the average punter? Outstanding exercise programming, specifically, a program that addresses a very long term goal by chunking its attainment into staged benchmarks known as peaks and achieved through cycles.

Peaking Cycles

This is the exercise gospel of performance athletes. Peaking cycles are designed to progressively increase the athlete's performance in targeted components of strength (or other components of fitness). The reason it is performed as a cycle as opposed to a continual improvement is because rest is a key component of adaptation. Accordingly, each cycle is ended by a brief rest period to ensure the new foundational strength levels can be used as an enhanced starting point from which the the next peak is determined.

An example of a complex, long term peaking cycle is the Powerlifter's cycle. It takes, on average, 3 years of 12 week peaking cycles for an athlete to begin lifting close to absolute maximal lifts, or the limits of what an individual's body is capable of lifting. This is not applicable to all sports, Powerlfiting has unique central nervous system demands over a series of complex compound movements. Peaking cycles will be extremely varied for different pursuits and at the elite end of competition, individal differences of athletes will have significant impact on their program.

The theory behind programing a peaking cycle can be considered standard. Essentially, the peaking cycle is designed to achieve higher performance in the desired area by incorporating the fundamentals of exercise programming. These same fundamentals are overlooked all too often resulting in performance stagnation or worse yet, decline in performance.

Principles of Exercise Programming

Progression: Each peak should start at an easily achievable level. This is almost a continuation of the rest period prior to a cycle. An example would be to set 40% 1RM weights at 10 to 12 reps, as mentioned, very easily achievable. This is an outstanding opportunity to hone in technical aspects of lifts and movements. Progression of load, complexity, repetitions etc. increases as the cycle moves on to target the desired gains.

Overload: A key component of adaptation is exposing the body (or targeted muscle groups) to loads exceeding its "normal" capacity. This is specific to the completion or final stages of a cycle where your sets of triples, doubles or singles may start resembling your old 1RM. Consider, you've lifted your old 1RM twice or even three times, theoretically (if the principles of exercise programming are adhered to) the new 1RM should be significantly increased. It is important to note that as strength nears the body's limitations, overload will be harder to achieve making any further strength gains harder.

Specificity: Here's where the average punter gets left far, far behind. Practice certainly does make perfect (especially if practice involves good technique coaching) this axiom is quite relative to the principle of specificity. Will you ever catch a competition weightlifter performing bench press? More likely than not, the answer is no! Besides jeopardising shoulder mobility for snatch performance, it is simply a move that is not specific or even auxiliary to weightlifting. Why the bicep curl remains to be common practice for anyone but rehab patients and body builders is beyond comprehension. Ensuring that your movements are specific to your goals is a good step towards performance gains.

Variation: Destruction of plateaus is generally done by looking at variation. Simply, this means getting out of the habit of three sets of 12 reps at 80%, or whatever it is you've been doing for the past 24 months. Variation can take on several forms, from the Powerlifting perspective, variation comes into play with repetitions. Each Powerlifitng cycle (generally) commences at higher than usual strength reps with maybe tens or twelves and will end on triples, doubles or singles. This then allows for far more play in overload.

Individual Differences: An extremely important component of the principles of exercise programming, individual differences take into account the unique attributes of each athlete. Whether this is technique adjustment to cater for differences in flexibility, physical ability, limb length differences or any number of variables, programing with your attributes (or your athlete's attributes for coaches) in mind is paramount to performance success.

Adaptation: This is the body's response to training. What you may have found difficult at one stage may well become an easy task given that the adaptation is resultant from sound exercise programming. There are numerous reasons for our ability to achieve adaptation; our central nervous system becomes accustomed to a compound movement, our cardiovascular capability (essentially your heart improves as a muscle) increases and we can run, ride, swim, etc further and faster.

Reversibility: Here's the bad news ladies and gentlemen, the human body is master of self regulation and muscle is extremely costly for your body to produce and maintain. If you fail to continually expose your body to exercise stimulation, expect to lose your gains. In short, use it or lose it.

Conclusion

The divide between the average gym junkie and the performance athlete is as simple as a soundly written program. By following the scientific principles of training, one can take the steps to training for tangible and ever increasing goals.

In the contemporary fitness environment where the industry is flooded with 6 week certificate III & IV in Fitness graduates (Australia's minimum requirements to be recognised as a personal trainer) programs are tending away from these principles to cater for the market desire to achieve an image. Peaking cycles will not achieve this goal, but remembering the body to be the keen self regulating genius, bear in mind any frivolous gains made quickly are likely to be lost even faster if you don't keep up the stimulus.

Perhaps some meaningful reflection is in order before embarking on an exercise journey. Are you committed to continual and gradual gains in performance, or are you just after the keen attention of members of the opposite sex at the beach? Chose wisely and remember the final principle of exercise programming, use it or lose it.
Principles of Exercise Programming for Continuous Gain