Considerations When Starting a New Workout Cycle
Written by Kyle Ligon - MovementLink.FIT Head Coach
The benefits of structuring your workouts within a larger plan are immense. Within cycles, we can grow general fitness alongside biasing specific adaptations and when strategically ordered, the benefits that come from certain adaptations elicit greater adaptations in the subsequent cycle. An example of this is that the effectiveness of strength work is greatly improved when there’s first a base of muscle mass to strengthen. Improving running paces is much easier once there’s a significant base of endurance, stamina, and connective tissue tolerance. The MovementLink program is designed by breaking up the year into 3 distinct Macrocycles with a week of benchmark testing in between each cycle. Within each of the 3 larger Macrocycles, there are 4 smaller 3-week Mesocycles - 2 base & muscle building Mesocycles, 1 strength Mesocycle, and 1 peaking Mesocycle. As we balance progressing mobility, speed, power, strength, muscle, VO2 Max, lactate/anaerobic thresholds, endurance, and stamina at all times, we also take a periodized approach, producing results that optimally builds on top of one another for even more effectiveness and bigger results.
Within our periodized approach, the beginning of Macrocycles creates an ideal time to review your plans, efforts, and develop technique. Here’s what I’ll cover in this article:
Review Your Results and Update Your Plan
Understand the Technique Mindset
How to Upgrade Technique within a Macrocycle
Developing Mobility
Focus on Body Composition Improvement (For Professional Athletes)
Review Benchmarks and Create a Plan
During Benchmark Week, each “test” provides us insights into your fitness. On each day, for each of the individuation tests,
there are Fitness Levels based on workout scores and
the fitness category that the test falls into.
With this information we can:
Compare your results to your previous test results.
Compare your results in each test to our different score levels to get a general sense of your fitness level.
To identify potential imbalances in fitness, we can also compare your scores across the different levels:
mobility,
speed/power,
strength/muscle,
VO2Max / anaerobic & lactate thresholds, and
endurance / stamina
After reviewing our results, we can reflect back on:
Are we happy with our scores?
How consistent we were?
How many days a week did we workout?
Did we have a balanced program based on our day types or did we bias certain day types?
Did we go through a stressful life event that may impact our results?
How consistent were we with daily habits that have an enormous impact of our results and overall health and wellness?
Sleep
Nutrition
Walks/Movement
Mobility
Did we lose a lot of weight this cycle?
With the full context of our lives, we can adjust our plans and strategies from our last cycle and come up with a new plan or, if things look good, then we can be more confident and re-energized by the effectiveness of our current plan.
Technique Upgrade Mindset
As we make our way towards the end of a Macrocycle, our workouts become more intensity driven and benchmark testing focused. It doesn’t matter how long you have been exercising, it is inevitably that technique issues will present themselves. As you get more and more advanced, the issues just become smaller and more nuanced, but there is always something to work on. There is a balance to be struck here. Almost every technique adjustment will make someone perform worse temporarily, with the promise of better transferability to real life and the hope of higher gym performance in the long-term. The reason here is simple - Better technique will use the right muscles and joints in a better way, but when it’s new, it will put more challenge into muscles that have been chronically underused. It just takes time to develop performance with new technique.
If we are never willing to take temporary steps back to improve our technique, then our potential will be permanently limited and we will be at higher risk of injury because of our technique issues. But, the flip-side is that if we spend the entirety of our training trying to perfect technique and therefore never “send it” or push at a level that challenges our ability to use that technique, then we will not have enough intensity in our workouts to effectively develop the technique or drive adequate results. There’s a balance to be struck which is why instead of taking scores in every workout, most of our workouts are F.I.I.T. - For Intent Intensity and Technique.
To strike this balance in the most effective way possible, although we will always stay focused balancing intent, intensity and technique, we may put more emphasis on one or another as we progress through the Macrocycle.
Let’s say that someone just went through benchmark week, set a new personal best, but their technique broke down at the highest intensities. Our technique is only as good as what it is at the margins and all technique issues will increase their risk of injury while also putting a ceiling on potential future progress. The start of a Macrocycle makes for a perfect opportunity to upgrade technique.
The first step is to identify the issue and determine the fix. Sometimes it will be a movement pattern issue that is going to require practice. Sometimes it is going to be a mobility issue that requires targeted mobility work and then re-integrating it into the movement pattern. Your coaches can help you figure out a plan.
The MovementLink Technique Upgrade Mindset
This is extremely important as it will serve to help you stay committed when things get challenging. When you have identified a technique issue, in your mind you must turn the exercise into 2 district exercises and then remove one from your program. For example, let’s say during benchmark week, my knees caved in on my 5 rep max back squat to a box squat test. To follow the MovementLink Technique Upgrade Mindset, in my mind I would break up squats into these two exercises:
A Squat with Knees Caving In
A Squat
I then imagine how ridiculous it would be for the coach of a class to write a workout that uses squats with knees caving in as the exercise to do that day. I commit to removing that ridiculous exercise from my workout program. If my knees cave in, then it is not a squat.
I cannot stress how important this thinking is...you will need it. When we upgrade technique, a lot of the time we can feel like it is making us worse. But we cannot get caught up in comparing apples to oranges. I can use my old 1 rep max estimate for a squat with my knees caving in for guidance, but I should not compare my performance in a squat to a squat with knees caving in. One matters and one does not. One is an exercise that is included in my program and one is not. Instead of feeling like your squat number went down, think of your new squat as exactly that, new, but with a lot of potential. Not only will it build over time, bit will build much higher than removed variations.
Build Technique Through the Macrocycle
Base #1 and Base #2 Mesocycles
In the first half of the Macrocycle, during the two base Mesocycles, we should de-emphasis intensity to a level that allows us to work on our new technique. We may need to use lighter weights, add pauses in certain exercises, and even may change the exercise to a progression. If we are doing those things or not, at the very least we will surely need to prioritize our new technique over intensity to provide us the practice and experience we need to lay a foundation to solidify it as simply what we do.
Strength Mesocycle
We will remove pauses, go heavier, and take progressions to the next step.
The strength Mesocycle will add more intensity and will surely challenge our resolve to stick with our new technique. It is this moment that made me write this article. This is the crux and where some will give-up on their new technique because of the comparing apples to oranges fallacy discussed above. They will have their old estimated max in their head and if they struggle hitting the old numbers, it will come down to their commitment and trust in the process. We should always limit our weights, exercises, and intensities by the threshold of what our technique can handle. Remember, that old number was for a different exercise, one that you now think would be ridiculous to include in a workout program. Remember, functional transfer into our lives is the ultimate goal and not gym numbers. Technique upgrades will have immediate functional transfer benefits, but may take 1 or more Macrocycles for the new technique to boost our gym numbers.
Peaking Mesocycle
We will continue to go heavier and increase intensity and any progressions should be turned into full exercises.
Intensity further increases and will further test your resolve to commit to your new technique. Just remember it is worth it to take 1 step back to go 10 forward instead of taking 1 or 2 forward just to be stuck there forever.
Benchmark Week
Hopefully, by spending an entire cycle with your new technique it will have a positive influence on your benchmark week scores, but especially for the more advanced athletes, if you have taken a technique that you have done for years and years and made a change, it may take a few Macrocycles for it to show up in benchmark scores.
So, the game of improving technique should happen in waves (or cycles) and the start of a new Macrocycle provides the best opportunity to build technique.
Developing Mobility
I’ll keep this one short - each day during benchmark week has a movement test. Even if you are not attending that day, you can perform the movement test at home to gain insights into what areas may need some work. By coming to class 3+ days a week and by performing 10 minutes of mobility at home every day, you can accumulate 2-3 hours of mobility work every week without much time commitment. This goes incredibly far. If you are lacking in any of the movement tests, dedicate 2-4 minutes of your 10 minutes on most days specifically to the areas that are lacking.
Body Composition Changes (if you have an event at the end of the cycle)
This only applies to professional athletes, but I thought I’d touch on it just to provide the perspective. If you are interested in making changes to body composition, like losing body fat, regardless of where you are in a cycle, it is best just to get your journey started, regardless of how that will impact your short-term fitness. I work with people specifically on this, so if you’d like to explore a program with me, just let me know!
But, if you are a professional athlete, timing body composition changes correctly is extremely important. Professionals cannot risk decreased performance in season, especially near the end of their season. Although there are strategies that maintain as much muscle mass as possible, losing body fat almost inevitably comes with a temporary decrease in muscle mass and performance. I’ll keep this section short:
Base #1 and Base #2 Mesocycles
Off-season or in the base mesocycles are the best place to make body composition changes as they are the furthest away from the playoffs or the event and where the temporary decrease in performance will have the least impact.
Strength Mesocycle
We don’t want to wait too long before we start optimizing training to prepare for the event, so during the strength mesocycle we should go into a maintenance plan.
Peaking Mesocycle
Then, leading into the event, fueling is the priority.
