Periodization for non-training reasons

[Mulgere Hircum]

Rip,

I had a thought I wanted to run by you. It occurred to me that some of the periodization discussion in Practical Programming may be useful for a different reason than the physiological ones PP is concerned with. I first lifted (in a silly way) in grad school, and it was always frustrating when other things would interfere. It felt like I couldn't make progress. It would have been useful to basically plan for the obvious interruptions, such as mid-terms, finals, papers, or whatever. What PP suggested to me was that if I'd known anything at that time (which I certainly didn't), I'd have planned like a non-strength athlete, and treated finals, papers, research, whatever as contest season and the early part of a term and maybe after mid-terms as the off-season. I could have planned to try for a PR before mid-terms and finals and then taper off into maintenance mode, not for the intrinsic recovery reasons real athletes periodize but just to plan out a way to make progress in spite of the reality of my schedule.

Anyway, I wondered if that seemed like a reasonable approach to you, since it might be useful to someone else.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Scheduling realities are there. They must be dealt with, since not all of us are Professional Weight Lifters. Alluded to by my first question here: http://startingstrength.com/resource...ad.php?t=27257 When you know you can't do The Program because of conflicting priorities and the decisions they sometimes require, logic demands planning that still accomplishes the general purpose of training. I think very highly of Andy Baker's (KSC on this board) ability to adapt our programming models for his clients and athletes. I'm quite sure he will have some good input into this topic.

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

The unfortuante reality for all of us who have decided to jump headlong into the "rat race" of American society is that time for serious training is often limited....even for those of us who own gyms and do full time coaching/personal training for a living.

At this point in my life training is probably 4th or 5th in the priority list of my life.

I do not disagree at all with the concept of "lifestyle periodization." This is basically what you alluded to in your original post. That is essentially scheduling periods of hard training into those times of your life where schedules are predicatable and free time is available, and then altering the training schedule when life demands that training take a back seat to more important priorities.

I do this for my clients all the time.

Here is a few things to think about for the average joe with wife, kids, aging parents, busy job, etc:

1) Don't intentionally deload. Train as hard as you can when time is available to you. My observation is that life will deload for you. Work will send you on an unexpected trip, kids will want to go camping, parents will need help recovering from surgeries, struggling marriages might need more time at home after work,etc.

2) Don't beat head against the wall trying to force workouts into time spaces that aren't there. I am a big believer in SS. It works. However, after a few months on the program the workouts can become very long. Multiple sets of 5 at near 5RM levels require lots of rest time and workouts can become very very long. Many of my clients don't have this time, and frankly neither do I. I run a studio with lots of clients and I need to get people in and out in an hour or so. Two things we do that works:

-Try the old 5x5 set/rep scheme that Bill Starr wrote about. It works well and doesn't take nearly as long to complete. I use this ALOT with middle aged older clients. His book is available on this site I think.

-Do one or two lifts per day. An example of this would be the way that John Welbourn periodizes the training week at Crossfit Football for novices. This also works and saves on time.

Hope this helps.

[DoctorWho]

Even though this was helpful, I can't get Mulgere's comments about Styx out of my mind. I'm sorry Mulgere, but you're dead to me.

[Mulgere Hircum]

Even though this was helpful, I can't get Mulgere's comments about Styx out of my mind. I'm sorry Mulgere, but you're dead to me.

Well, the Styx thing was trying to riff on someone else's Mr. Roboto reference, but the fact is you don't know the half of it. I have a large repertoire of Sea Shanties, and have been known to sing them in public. Without benefit or excuse of alcohol. That's right, buddy, I said Sea Shanties. Having become inured to the kinds of social catastrophes *that* causes, your approbation is scarcely perceptible to me.

[Mark Rippetoe]

I can attest to MH's disdain for your opinions. He is one of those people that is awfully bright -- intelligent past caring if you understand him. And many people like this approach their social interests at the same level. He was a tremendous help to me during the time we were working out some of the new mechanical exposition in the 3rd edition, and I have forgiven him for the Styx thing.

[Mulgere Hircum]

I can attest to MH's disdain for your opinions....nd many people like this approach their social interests at the same level.

Well, if the shoe fits...that said, I was attempting to go in the mildly humorous direction of "...you think *that* little thing makes me socially unacceptable? You ain't seen nothin', listen..." rather than just being a jerk, which is mostly what actually came through. Who knew that humor over the internet was hard?

In penance, or perhaps Penzance, I shall force myself to sing along with George Rose:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Upl_tje9ZIE

It's like 20-rep squats for the tongue. :-)

I have forgiven him for the Styx thing.

But not the John Cage thing? Uh, oh...WFAC isn't a bastion of probabilistic music? Who knew? So you probably won't like the 12-CD collection of Schoenberg-school atonal works I bought you for Christmas either.... :-)

[Rob Waskis]

Two things we do that works

Andy,
Thanks for your input. Do you have any experience with the Starr Model as shown in the example at the end of PPST? I'm running that now (basically) and my workout times have dropped a bit.

[Mulgere Hircum]

T
I do not disagree at all with the concept of "lifestyle periodization." This is basically what you alluded to in your original post. That is essentially scheduling periods of hard training into those times of your life where schedules are predicatable and free time is available, and then altering the training schedule when life demands that training take a back seat to more important priorities.

That was my idea, but I was using non-strength athletes as a model so I could swipe ideas from PP. But "lifestyle periodization" is a better term than anything I'd have come up with.

1) Don't intentionally deload. Train as hard as you can when time is available to you. My observation is that life will deload for you. Work will send you on an unexpected trip, kids will want to go camping, parents will need help recovering from surgeries, struggling marriages might need more time at home after work,etc.

One problem I recall was that when grad school got tight I'd start living on inadequate sleep. I eventually figured out that when that happened and I kept training, I'd get sick--presumably I was knocking my immune system down even more with the training than I'd already done by not sleeping. From that experience, I'd have thought I needed to deload. Or is there just no hope when you start pulling all-nighters?

I guess that's a question of how to maintain, or at least how to lose as little as possible. Rip doesn't like to give advice about trying to maintain or how best to lift erratically, because such pansies don't deserve to live :-), but how do you handle it? If you've been erratic and aren't sure where your working weight is, do you take a best guess and sometimes probably not make all your reps, or err on the light side?

2) Don't beat head against the wall trying to force workouts into time spaces that aren't there.

I guess one way that would also save time would be to drop movements instead of intensity, until you're doing nothing but squatting heavy once or twice a week. That should be pretty easy to find time for, but I'd probably still have eventually made myself sick. If I'd been better about at least sleeping, though, maybe this would work. Manging to maintain somehow would certainly pay off the next time you can train consistently, because you wouldn't have to work your way back up.

[cjangelo]

One problem I recall was that when grad school got tight I'd start living on inadequate sleep.

Looking forward to this hearing some thoughts on this. I'm a first semester guy on a PhD track, cruising for now, but I can see how brutal it's going to get.

I'd be thrilled to hear some success stories regarding 'lifestyle periodization.'