How to Get the Most out of Your Next Training Cycle

If you’ve been with us for some time, you know that we design our programming in cycles, during which we progressively build in loading and intensity on some of our main strength movements.  

There are numerous reasons why we do this, but one of the most important ones, in my eyes, is that it allows us to shift our focus to different variations of movements, so that we can continue to build strength and capacity while lowering our risk of overuse injuries.  

As we often say, you don’t need to understand all of the how’s and why’s in order to get the benefits of training with us here at Full Range, but there are some things to keep in mind that will help you on your journey, especially as we start a new block of training:

1) Dial in your movement first — increased weights come later

The beginning of a training cycle is generally designed for you to be starting with lighter to moderate weights (or at least weights that you are confident you can handle AND recover from), and the design tries to ensure this.  For example, today’s Front Squats have an almost ridiculous amount of time under tension (4-second lowering, 2-second pause on each rep, for 5 reps); because of this, the weights you use need to be well under what you might normally squat for sets of 5, because your form (and/or soul) would fall apart if you don’t.  =

The same goes for our other movements in this cycle, like the Front Rack/Back Rack Reverse Lunge, Push Press, or Semi-Sumo Deadlift.  If it’s not the higher reps or slower tempo that inform us to keep the loading on the lighter side, then it might be our lack of familiarity with the movement itself.

Trust that, as long as you are showing up consistently, you’ll have ample opportunity to increase the weights as the weeks go on, and you will get stronger in a way that is sustainable AND durable (meaning your gains will last, not be fleeting).

2) Keep track of what you are doing

This seems to be a hard one for many of us, as it’s just ONE MORE THING to do, but, I promise you, keeping some sort of log of what you are doing in the gym provides massive benefits in a number of ways.

First (as mentioned above), we are trying to gradually increase the loading and/or difficulty on our lifts, so that our body and brain slowly acclimate — thus, we get stronger.  So, knowing what we lifted last time is going to be key to figuring our what we should lift this time.

Second, there are many, many variables that go into our performance on a given day.  Maybe we slept poorly, or had a hugely stressful day, or we are coming off of 7 days in a row of training.  Noting this can help us keep perspective, and prevent us from getting too wrapped up in ALWAYS being better than we were last time out.

Finally, when we look back on our progress over time, having snapshots along the way acts as a powerful tool in separating signal from noise.  Even when I’m not feeling my best, I can look back on what I was lifting back in 2010 (yes, I have journals from then), and see how, even on my worst day, I’m stronger, fitter, and move much better than I did than (I also have a much fuller life, but I digress).

The easiest way to track is, of course, to use SugarWOD, as we have years and years of workout history in there.  It also makes it easy to see what you lifted in a prior workout, or your time on a conditioning piece that we might repeat every so often.  You can even choose to make your log private, if you don’t want others seeing your results.

3) Take the longview of things

Finally, everything that we are doing in here is to benefit our fitness and health FOR LIFE — not just for the progress that we might see from week to week, or even month to month.

When we train, we are affecting change across numerous systems, including our nervous systems, our muscles, our connective tissues, and even our bones.  And, all of these things operate on different clocks.  So, while you might see changes in your muscle tone and strength in 3-4 weeks, you won’t be able to detect bone mineral density increases for months or up to a year.  And that’s not to mention the skill acquisition that is always ongoing, or our cardio-vascular development that continues for the bulk of our lives.

The point I’m making here is that what we do now in our training can and will benefit us far down the line.  Knowing this, how we approach working out needs to reflect our desire for longevity.  We train now so that we can continue training, and enjoying our training, with minimal injuries, for years to come.  Yes, short term gains are great, but our programming strives to balance getting what we want now with getting what we need for the long haul.

(Note: I could harp on this point for a while, but I’ll leave it at this for today!)

So, have fun with this upcoming block of training; work hard, move well, and share some fist bumps or high fives along the way.