What is Periodization and Why It’s Necessary in Your Training Program
Periodization can be defined as categorizing blocks of time into “periods”. That’s the dictionary definition but that carries over into training the same way. You divide your training program into blocks of time, allowing one to flow into the next in a specific way in order to work towards a desired outcome.
Let’s say you have 12 weeks to get as strong as possible. You would probably want to break your training into 4 weeks of hypertrophy/ work capacity type of training style. Which would then lead you into 8 weeks of strength based training. In these periods, you manipulate sets and reps to achieve short term goals that assist in the pursuit of the main goal.
Bigger muscles pose a greater chance for muscles to produce force by creating a larger pennation angle for the muscle to act on a given joint. Ever see someone with big calves and small ankles, or big arms with deep cuts towards the joints? That’s an easy visual for what muscle pennation looks like.
Work capacity is necessary for allowing your body to be able to tolerate more stress. Which is essential for performance and decreasing risk of injury. The more work your body can tolerate the more you can push adaptations, the less chance you have of fatiguing at critical times and injuring yourself.
