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Intensity Cycling
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3.1 What is Intensity Cycling?
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Intensity cycling basically means 'going easy' on the weights for a few
weeks (3-5 weeks) so as to allow your body some time to get ready for
more growth in the future (for a period of 6-12+ weeks).
Normally what happens when a person starts weight training is that there
is an initial period of growth (can be rapid in some cases) which gradually
slows down to a point where you can't add 1-2lbs on your exercises each
week. At this stage, your body (and your mind) could use a short break
from the brutal hard work. This recovery period normally last 3 weeks
or more. Of course, you still use weights, but you use less weight and
don't go to failure. Gradually you build back up to your maximums from
the last cycle. And then you'll find (if you give yourself enough recovery
weeks) that you can now add a good bit of weight to the bar each week
(5lbs or more on the big basics, 2lbs or more on the smaller ones) to
reach new personal bests.
Of course this cycle too will eventually stop, when the gains stop. Then
it's time to begin another cycle by doing your 3+ weeks recovery. Using
this method you can make consistent gains bit by bit, week by week, which
will total up to big gains in a relatively short period.
Bear in mind that 'intensity cycling' is different from 'periodization'
where you start a routine with relatively-high reps (e.g. 12 reps) and
after a period of weeks drop the reps by a third, then another third over
another few weeks: the idea being to 'shock' the muscle by varying the
reps and weight used. 'Intensity cycling' stays with the same rep scheme
throughout the cycle, and also for repeated cycles.
The trouble with training flat-out all the time, is that it always ends
up in overtraining.
3.2.1
Why do athletes cycle intensity?
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Today, most professional athletes cycle their intensity. Over the past
few years, techniques have been found to better the athlete's performance,
however they take a much higher toll on the body. The athlete must also
reach PEAK fitness and strength at the right time. For both of these reasons,
athletes will cycle the intensity of their exercise routine.
3.2
Why MUST hardgainers cycle intensity?
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Hardgainers don't have the genetic gifts that easy gainers do. Even if
they did they should include cycling for spurring extra gains when plateaus/stagnation
set in. Remember, once you have overtrained, you can't bully your way
out of it. The only solution is to drop your intensity temporarily. Cycling
is a planned and organized effort to arrange irregular progress into a
regular progression of 'ups' and 'downs', with each new 'up' or 'down'
being a little higher than the previous one.
After a cycle (of 12-20 weeks) one should look at having gained 15-20
pounds on the bench press, 20-30 pounds on the squat and Deadlift. Maintaining
this progress for 12-18 months will give you tremendous gains.
3.3
How do I put a cycle together?
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The easiest way to describe a cycle is to go through an example. Say your
recent best barbell curl was 100x6 and your best squat 280x20. Now you
REALLY want to get to 110x6 on the curl and 300x20 in the Squat. You are
feeling burned-out lately as the hard part of your cycle has been going
on for some time now, and the gains have stopped. If you are foolish you
might try adding a 'shock' 5lbs to the bar each week to get your goals.
But being burned out, and close to overtraining, all that will happen
is that the 105lb curl will feel -way- heavier than 100 and you won't
get 5 reps -- never mind 6.
Don't expect to get to 110lbs in a month -- a few months is what you need.
The following cycle considers only the first work set of the barbell curl
and squat, each done ONE day a week. (There are other exercises in the
cycle, but they are left out for clarity.) The one to two warmup sets
are also omitted from the description. One to two work sets are all you
need, starting with three in the early stage of the cycle and dropping
to two and then to one as the cycle reaches its hardest. You must NEVER
train more frequently than you can cope with as far as your energy level
and recovery-ability are concerned.
IF
IN DOUBT TRAIN WITH LESS VOLUME AND WITH LESS FREQUENCY.
So here we go, how does the cycle begin:
First thing is to get well-rested; this means 7-10 days off, no weight
training and no aerobics. This will give your body a good deal of the
time it takes to recover after burning out/overtraining. Then drop your
poundages to 75-85% of maximum and build up from there slowly.
ARM CURL /SQUAT
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Week 1: OFF OFF
Week 2: 85x6 235x20
Week 3: 90x6 245x20
Week 4: 95x6 255x20
Week 5: 100x6 265x20
Week 6: 102x6 270x20
Week 7: 104x6 275x20
Week 8: 106x6 280x20
Week 9: 107x6 285x20
Week 10: 108x6 292x20
Week 11: 109x6 294x20
Week 12: 110x6 296x20
Week 13: 110.5x6 298x20
Week 14: 111.0x6 300.0x20
Week 15: 111.5x6 301.5x20
Week 16: 112.0x6 303.0x20
Week 17: 112.5x6 304.5x20
Week 19: 112.5x6 306.0x20
In the first workout, we cut back to 85% poundages for the same reps.
Each week we add a little weight to the bar to get back to our previous
poundages, and then we add some more weight each week which become personal
bests. Note that the Squat takes a lot longer to get back to 100% than
the arm curl. This is because the Squat is a very brutal exercise to do
and in the recovery phase adding 20lbs each week (which may only constitute
5-10%) has too much of an impact on recovery. If the poundages in the
Squat are less, then a shorter build-up period of 4-6 weeks may be allowed,
but the bigger your poundages are, the more recovery time your body needs.
- A Mini-Cycle
Cycles need not be very long. A short-but-successful mini-cycle will last
for 6-8 workouts. A sticking point is the stimulus for a new cycle. Take
an EXTRA 4-6 days rest between your workouts before starting this new
mini-cycle. Cut back all poundages to 85%.
The first two workouts (85% and 90%) will be comfortable, as you stay
with your usual reps but with less poundage. The next workout at 95% will
be more demanding. Then comes 97 1/2%, and then the 100% workout that
you ended your previous cycle on. This cycle will be testing but, so long
as you've eaten and rested adequately between workouts, it will be successful.
Next comes a new personal best, by adding 2-5lbs to all your exercises.
Now you might want to add an extra rest day between workouts to allow
more recovery time. This continues until you are stuck at the same poundage
for the same reps for two weeks in a row, then it's time to start another
cycle.
3.4
What happens to a cycle when I get sick?
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Most people get sick at some stage during the year and whether it be a
cold or flu, or worse, DO NOT work out while you are sick. For your own
sake (your illness will get worse if your body can't pool its resources
to fight it if it's trying to recover from heavy squatting) and for others'
(passing illnesses on in the gym is a major NO-NO for obvious reasons).
But say you are only sick for 1-2 days, then what do you do? It's a good
idea to start with 5-7 days of complete rest to ensure the illness is
really gone. Then take 2 weeks to get back to your before-illness poundages
(one week at 90% and one at 95%).
If you are sick for longer, or you feel very drained or tired after your
illness, then take 7-10 days off, and start your cycle over again. If
you made any gains, then you have new 'easy' percentages to calculate.
If you were still in the 'recovery' phase, then stay with the same percentages
when you start over.
3.5
What are the keys to a cycle?
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Be aware of the big misuses of cycling. First and foremost, don't reduce
the number of easy workouts so you can get back into the hard sessions.
This happens a lot because people are too greedy, but it only brings the
cycle to a sudden halt with no gains to show for it. A 40:60 split between
comfortable and hard workouts is a sound place to start. Adding too much
poundage or going for too many reps (even with reduced poundage) will
bring this cycle to a halt too. At the start of a cycle you should plan
your 'new-ground' increases somewhat.
e.g., I'll add 5lbs a week to my squat for 4 weeks, keeping my style good.
Then what usually happens is the gains slow down, so I'll drop to 2lb
a week increases for 4-5 more weeks, and then 1lb increases for 2 more
weeks; it's then I usually have to end the cycle. That will give me almost
30 lbs on my squat in 10 weeks (using a 14-16 week) cycle.
Obviously, you will have to chop and change this somewhat as you can never
foresee every eventuality. Try to stay with the program as much as possible.
But when you feel you can't add 5lbs next workout, then DON'T. Always
make sure you reach your target reps! Don't be greedy by trying to add
5lbs when you can really handle 2lbs. You'll only end up with poor style
(as the extra 5lbs will feel like a ton), giving you pseudo-strength and
worst of all you could possibly get an injury. Stay with increases you
can handle. 2lbs a week may not seem like much but with 26 such increases
in the year (with 26 recovery weeks), you will add 52lbs to an exercise!
Cycling of intensity isn't infallible, as it depends on many variables.
No cycling system works if you do too much work, do it too frequently,
and rep-out to your max too early in the cycle. You need to experiment.
You will make mistakes, but you must learn from them and not repeat them.
Remember: do whatever gives you the most muscle gains in the least time.
** Experiment a bit to find what's best. **
The two biggest variables involved are rest and nutrition. In the recovery
phase, you can get by with two workouts every seven days. But when you
reach the growing phase your body will need some more time to grow and
adapt. In the first two to three weeks you can stay at two whole-body
workouts per week, but then as you lose some momentum, you should add
an extra day of recovery time, working out twice every 8-9 days. Or you
could divide up the whole-body program whereby each exercise is trained
only once a week with half the exercises in one session and the other
half on the other training day. Also try to make sure that you get enough
sleep. In the growing phase simply getting an extra hour's sleep every
night can have a great impact on how long this growth phase lasts.
Nutrition is also very important. You won't become really big and really
strong when you have cola and fries at every meal! You must eat nutritious
foods. By now most people know what these are: Bread, potatoes, lean-meat
(fish, chicken) non-fat yoghurt etc. etc. Try to keep out as much junk-food
as possible.
For drinks, MILK is the best. It has lots of vitamins in it, and is probably
the best 'supplement' available. It's cheap and should be drunk in fair
quantities. Hardgainers should think about drinking a litre of milk every
day. Full milk would be ideal, but as always keep an eye on your waistline,
and balance muscle gains against some small 'acceptable' fat gains. Low-fat
(1% or 2%) or non-fat may be more acceptable to those highly-conscious
of what they consume. Note also, that milk is only good if it agrees with
the consumer. There are products on sale which can help if you have trouble
digesting milk (which is most easily handled if drank by itself when the
stomach is empty).
3.6
Will I lose muscle mass and strength if I cycle my intensity?
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The answer is NO. Many people will want to nay-say this, but one author
has used cycling for over two years and can honestly say he has never
lost any strength during the recovery phase of any cycle as is shown by
good, consistent gains in the corresponding growing phase: in one cycle
adding 85lbs to the stiff-legged deadlift (to go from 108lbsx10 to 193lbs
x10) over a period of 12 weeks. The build-up phase of cycling is short
enough, but gives enough stimulation to keep your muscle from 'forgetting'
what the 100% feels like.
3.7
Exercise X is gaining like a demon, but exercise Y has stopped. Should
I stop my cycle?
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No. If one exercise is gaining a lot, and another is not, then stay with
the cycle. Try to add 1lb to the 'sticking' exercise, or even 0.5lbs each
week (possibly do the 'sticking' exercise once every two weeks to allow
any other faster- gaining exercise to keep on gaining). Pump every cycle
for as much gain as you can. In the end you may only be able to add 0.5-1.0
lbs a week but keep it up and when these gains stop too THEN start over.
3.8
Specialization Routines
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Many of us have a weak bodypart or set of muscles we would like to improve
upon. However, until one is 80% of the way to becoming advanced (the 300-400-500
level), you should concentrate on the Squat, Deadlift, and Bench/Dip poundages.
If, after that stage, you still want to specialize, the key is to decrease
work on other exercises -- still going to failure but using fewer sets
and reps. Make the weak area the first muscle you hit in a workout and
try 2-3 exercises instead of just 1 but keep the volume low. Concentrate
on increasing weight/reps, but don't neglect the squat/deadlift.
Use
brief intensive workouts designed specifically for hardgainers
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