Cycling Workouts

Several years ago I started cycling my workouts. Anyone that has lifted or ran for a period of time realizes that you can't simply lift more and/or run faster each week. You have to build up to a maximum effort -- then rest and build up again to a new peak. Overall, the goal is progressive improvement. At the end of each cycle you should be able to lift more or run faster than at the end of the previous cycle.

I look at cycling from three different standpoints:

1) some muscles respond better (i.e. hypertrophy or growth) when stimulated either using a different set of exercises or by changing the rep range within an exercise group. As an example of the former, you can do barbell curls to work the biceps for a few weeks then change over to dumbell curls for several weeks. Changing the rep range could be done by working 3 sets of 8 for a few weeks and then coming back with 4 sets of 5 for the next cycle. My most recent cycling program for lifting has three major rep ranges for each muscle group -- and each rep range is done for a 4 week cycle. More on this later.

2) As an athlete becomes more advanced, the intensity of the workouts increases substantially. Growth becomes more challenging and rest and recovery, as mentioned above, are watched just as closely as the actual results. By cycling the intensity of the workouts, you give both your muscles (tendons, ligaments, etc) and CNS (central nervous system) time to completely heal from these grueling workouts.

3) Finally, the third area of cycling is where you work on improving one or two areas for a period of time while training to maintain all other areas. This is something that I want to experiment with and quantify in future trainings. From the perspective of progressive training, is it better to improve a little on all elements of your workout, or attempt to gain a lot on a couple of area's and maintain on the others? If you are training for a specific purpose, say a 5K run -- you may need to only improve on speed work if you have great endurance.

A great resource for how I began cycling my workouts can be found at Lee Appersons website:

leeapperson.com

Although I don't agree with everything he says on all topics -- you can clearly see how his cycling ideas influenced my workout structure.