-: Alright welcome to the unit for periodization,
and we're gonna go through different reasons of why
you would choose to periodize things a certain way.
And different things that need to be included
in the periodization of your program.
So know you understand all these stimulus and
when we're talking about periodization, really,
we're gonna be talking about periodizing the stimulus.
Because now that you understand how these things are
affecting the body, you can see how we could
potentiate the ability to make, you know,
one program more trainable by
increasing the recovery, or increasing our ability to
get a stimulus in a subsequent training program.
So that'll be a big part in terms of determining
the next phase that you wanna get into.
Especially from a results standpoint.
But sometimes what you're gonna actually need to do
is just simply focus on a De-Load.
So the first lesson here is gonna be
periodizing for De-Loads, or these back OFF weeks
or, you know, whatever you wanna call 'em.
But basically a period where we need to
bring down the stress on the system.
So there's different reasons that we would go ahead
and do a De-Load.
So our main purpose is to recover trainability, right.
But that may be like, I'm in a hypertrophy phase
and I wanna extend that but I need to do a de-load
and then get right back to hypertrophy as fast possible,
is my goal.
Or maybe it's metabolic, but I need a de-load
for some of that systemic stress.
And then I can jump into a metabolic thing
that maybe works on a different stimulus,
but I just needed that, I needed a short period to
bring that stress down.
So we need to reduce this training stress
in some way, shape or form,
and that may be, I only need to reduce a specific stress,
or you may need to reduce all sorts of training stress.
It depends on the type of stimulus that you were doing
and how much of a systemic demand that had.
And we tend to do something that is
more on the inflammatory side,
we may need to do a drastic drop in all sorts of stress
on our system to allow us to really recover,
or super-compensate from that particular program.
We need to make sure we re-sensitize to a stimulus.
So what we'll get into is a lot of stimulus
they don't respond forever, we can't put on muscle forever,
you can't lose body fat quickly forever
and there's reasons that our body stops us from doing that.
They are protective mechanisms, they're protecting our,
you know, our cellular function, they're protecting our,
us from getting really imbalanced hormones
and possibly damaging our system.
And some of these are still affective today
and some of them, well,
these aren't necessarily good processes
that we have in our modern life,
but they were really advantageous
when food was limited and we were foraging,
and we lived a totally different lifestyle,
you know, like our ancestors lived.
But regardless, most stimulus, alright, will have a point
at which our body starts to ignore that stimulus,
for either a single or multiples factors.
And those are usually the stimulus that affect energy.
So a lot of the hypertrophy stuff,
that stuff is gonna get shut off really easy.
Things that where it's like
the instantaneous, those fast responses to demands in energy
those tend not have any counter regulation,
'cause you need those just to be able to balance
energy, like, in every single moment.
So things are never gonna get shut off.
But kinda those long term adaptations,
those genetic changes of, that we're gonna get from training
those things are all going to stop happening
after we've been, you know, hitting that stimulus button
for a certain time.
So we need to re-sensitize that.
And then we may need to catch up on what I call
competitive biological processes.
Sometimes while we're doing a product, or a program,
and that type of stress is gonna interfere with
our ability to detox, or it's gonna interfere
with our ability to recover from something else, you know.
Or it's going to be taxing the nervous system
or something indirectly and we need to take a,
take some time to basically focus on something else.
Whether it's like okay, I need to de-load
because the program I was just doing, you know,
while it was really good for my muscles,
it was a little stressful for my GI tract
or my immune system or my ability to detox.
So I'm gonna take weekend, where I'm gonna focus on
a nutritional program and a lifestyle program
that's going to, you know, de-stress me or, you know,
detox my system or repair my gut.
But I might have to do, bring training volume way down,
bring that stimulus way down, the training stress way down.
So that I can do this other process.
Take a little bit of time to focus on something
that doesn't have to do with gym performance.
As we get through, you know, we're look at
the reason to de-load.
One of the main reasons is
we get this decreased trainability over time.
So as a person adapts to a stress, one reason that we,
that becomes untrainable is that
the threshold for that stress is gonna go up.
If I'm, if I'm doing a metabolic program
and my goal is that I'm trying to jack up AMPK,
all of the good things that AMPK does longterm, right,
the amount of AMPK that you're gonna need to stimulate
to get those benefits is gonna go up and up and up and up
the longer you're in that program.
Which makes it harder and harder and harder to achieve
that stimulus that's gonna give you
those positive adaptations.
So that trainability gets smaller and smaller and smaller
the longer we're in that phase and requires more and more
work, more volume, more frequency, more intensity
within that given training program.
So there becomes a point where it's
not very trainable because the amount of work
you need to do the stimulus is just so high, right.
Now it's gonna start overlapping
and stressing out other parts of your system
and the systemic stress is gonna become higher.
Recovery adaptations, right, that we get from doing
different phases, so say you do a metabolic phase
and then you go into a hypertrophy phase.
During that metabolic phase you'll have gotten
some improvements in energy metabolism.
Maybe you got some, you know, increase mitochondria, right.
Now, the longer you're away from that you're slowly gonna
start to lose some of those adaptations because
you're no longer stimulating the need for them as much.
Same thing from a neurological phase,
if you did a neurological phase to improve you're
muscle contractions, to improve your neurological efficiency
or your fast twitch muscle fiber recruitment.
The longer you're away from that type of stimulus
the more we're gonna get away from those, right.
So we can be losing our ability to get the stimulus
or we could be losing our ability to recover.
You know, whatever it may be.
So hypertrophy really helps us
repair, you know, proteins and run protein synthesis,
if I haven't done hypertrophy for a while,
guess what?
I'm not gonna be very good
at protein synthesis, not just for muscle gain
but for all sorts of cellular function and repair.
You know I need to occasionally just get back
into a different stimulus to bring recoverability up.
I need enhance my recovery by training a system that may be
indirect from my goal.
And by doing that I can make that more trainable.
But I spent a long time away from
other types of stimulus, I start to lose the benefits
that those things provide to my ability to recover
or to my ability to achieve a stimulus,
which both ends of that are gonna decrease
my trainability over time.
So what I need to do, if want to recover
my trainability for a give particular phase,
the first thing that I need to do is
I need to take time away from the stimulus
so that I can become sensitive to that stimulus.
I need to de-train a little bit in that particular stimulus,
I need to get my body back to the point
where it's gonna respond to it,
especially at a lower threshold.
So for some things that may be stepping out for a week,
for some things it may be longer,
it may be several weeks, you need to do a whole other phase,
not just a short period.
But for most things, like, you will be able to do a de-load
and then may be go back into that phase
but emphasizing, say a different stimulus within that phase.
So we looked at different types of training for
metabolic rate.
We focused on oxidative stress,
or we could focus more on AMPK.
It's possible to take a break and then go back into
whichever one you weren't really focusing on,
unless your program kind of overlapped.
Then you may have to take a longer break
before you can go back into that.
'Cause you really don't have a different direction to go
within that phase in terms of a stimulus.
An additional may be measure may be that you need to
enhance recovery mechanism.
So in order to go back into that
we may not just need to desensitize, right.
That brings down the stimulus that I need.
But I may also need to bring up my recoverability.
So I may need to train another system.
I may need to either make myself better protein synthesis
or I may need to increase the nuclei or the ribosomes
I may have, I may need to increase my mitochondrion number
so that I can have more energy and increase my tolerance
to stress, or something like that.
So I may need to go out to another phase, right,
in addition to just de-loading.
So if I de-load I can maybe accomplish re-sensitization.
But I may need to bring recoverability up
because if we're making progress
this threshold, this re-sensitization, is still probably
always gonna be going up and up and up a little bit.
It's just it goes up really fast
while we're training in that system,
and then it'll drop down.
But at main, it'll never drop down to the point
that it was at before you'd ever trained before.
So slowly, over the months and years that you're training
and you're pushing this stuff.
These thresholds are gonna get a little bit higher
and if you take a really long time away from them
they'll get pretty low but, you know,
they're almost ever gonna go back to like,
like you've never trained again.
At least very few of them are.
We need to reduce the training stress
in some way, shape or form.
By changing this to a non, to a different stress
that's non-redundant, 'kay, so that means
you need to change to a stimulus that doesn't
overlap in any way, shape or form, right.
So this is why you can't switch from like
oxidative stress and then just jump into lactic acid
base training for AMPK, because what's gonna happen is
you're still gonna be making a little bit of
oxidative stress in that particular program.
There's gonna be a little bit of overlap,
it's gonna be a little redundant, 'kay.
So you often times, you have to get completely
out of that phase and do a stimulus somewhere else.
You can't just switch stimuluses within a phase
and then qualify that for de-loading or re-sensitizing.
And for some things, right, you need to reduce all
training stress.
Especially if you've been doing a program where
the volume or the frequency or with something that's so high
that you're stimulating a lot of other things too,
just not as much, maybe not quite to the threshold,
but you, you may need, you know,
reduced volume frequency, or removal of all training.
So sometimes the best thing to do for a de-load
is to cut down to almost nothing
or completely nothing.
At least for a short period of time.
So if to get that initial re-sensitization
you may need to like,
oh I've got all this information and stuff,
the best way, like, any training right now
will still aggravate that, I may need to take
three, four, five days a week off.
And that's perfectly okay.
People are so paranoid of taking a day off,
let alone a week off.
But several times a year, you should be going a week
without training.
Remember we make progress when we're not training.
So your body needs to spend more time recovering
than training and if you're doing
really intense training year round without taking any
long periods off.
You're taking like, you know, one day off a week,
you know, in 52 weeks a year.
That is not enough time.
You need some long blocks
because other things in your body need to recover,
other things in your body need to catch up,
like your liver, like your pancreas,
like your digestive tract,
those things are all getting stressed out
when we're living kind of this like, you know,
let's train and then I gotta digest all this nutrition
to fuel all that training.
All of those things get stressed out too.
So when we de-load, sometimes we're de-loading so that we
can eat less and let our digestive tract rest.
Or we're gonna do a short fast
or, you know, other things.
It's not just about the muscles or the,
the training goal, sometimes it's to let your body catch up
with all of the things it doesn't get to do
because it's spending so much time
dealing with the training that you're doing
and the recovery from that.
So we look at re-sensitizing.
Many stresses have multiple regulatory systems
to be able to stop it from going on forever.
Because otherwise what would happen if,
say a mutation occurred, or something where one of these
biological processes could just like run indefinitely.
Well then that cell would either waste its energy
or, you know, something very bad would happen,
it's essentially kind of how cancer works.
It's when enough things get broken
where the cell kind of like rolls out of control.
It keeps doing things and it's lost the ability to
stop that or terminate itself.
So we have tons and tons of regulating mechanisms,
if you remember that hypertrophy confuser gram.
And I told you there's more ways to stop hypertrophy
then there are to stimulate it, right.
So we have all of those things that are working to shut
things down if something is being constantly stimulated.
And then because there's so many things,
simply reducing the volume or frequency
may not always re-sensitize.
You may need to take time completely off.
There may need to be a near elimination
of any training or any biochemical or neurological stress.
That would even remotely resemble that, right.
So if you were doing a hypertrophy program
and you just decide to cut the volume down,
but you're still training,
well you're not hitting the threshold anymore
but just that there might be enough to really,
you know, and it could be nutritional too.
So say you do a de-load, right,
but you don't wanna lose your muscles
so you're taking a bunch of BCAAs and stuff.
And you're pounding leucine to stimulate mTOR.
So you're still nutritionally trying hit that signal
even though you're not training for it.
Well guess what?
You're not gonna re-sensitize to that signal.
So when I put somebody on a de-load
from a hypertrophy program, we're technically on like
almost an anti-hypertrophy diet.
Unless we're doing like a super-compensation thing.
So I'll be like, no whey proteins, no leucines,
no BCAAs, no essential amino, like nothing more than food.
Anything more than food might be, quote, unquote
too much anabolic signaling.
Where, now the body's really not gonna re-sensitize
the ability to activate that mTOR
and turn on protein synthesis.
Because it's still kind of, you know,
it's still being pushed towards it.
So the switch is kind of still on and never really resets.
So you have to think of nutritionally and other stresses.
So say you're doing a program and you need to de-load
because you've gotten to the point where your system's
too stressed out.
But during your de-load week
you have a lot of environmental stresses
or relationship stresses or what not.
Guess what?
Your body might not recover.
Your nervous system might not recover
because of those other stresses.
So you may need to do lifestyle things like,
you may need to do meditation and light therapy
and essential oils and, you know, grateful logs
and all sorts of stuff to focus on
getting your nervous system correct.
You might need to do some low intensity cardio,
things like that during your de-load to
make yourself more resilient to stress,
different things like that can account,
it's not necessarily only just taking away
the exact training that you're doing.
Sometimes you need to eliminate anything
that's even remotely similar to that type of
stress or stimulus.
And that can come from lifestyle or nutrition as well.
If we're looking at non-training stuff.
That we would try and boost or different mechanisms.
So one thing we can do during a de-load
is we could focus on super-compensation.
And this usually happens after a hypertrophy program.
Where we're basically, we kind of like,
at the end of the hypertrophy program
we almost put you to a place where
you're creating so much stimulus
and we're doing so much damage
that it's at or exceeding our ability to recover.
But we're getting a really strong stimulus,
we're just not quite able to recover
from it very well at the very end.
So then what we do is we provide
a long recovery period at the end of that.
With excessive nutrition so our body can
really go into a full on recovery phase for a long time.
And kind of super-compensate,
like over adapt to that stress
that it had when it wasn't quite able to recover.
So when you take away the training,
now the ability to recover is gonna go way up.
You add in all this extra nutrition
and we can get a super-compensation effect.
We can put on, you know, a lot of muscle,
run protein synthesis like, you know, all day long
for a few days after an intense program like that.
Obviously the big thing that you need to do is
get inflammation down so that the calories
and the nutrients can go where you want them to do,
want them to go.
But once you establish that like
super-compensation methods are a really good tool
for hypertrophy and advanced training.
As a beginner, like, there's no need
to push somebody to that.
This is something where people's got
a lot of training years underneath them
and it's harder for them to put on muscle.
Then that's a system that you can use,
it can be relatively effective.
Our ANS, so our autonomic nervous system,
alright, that gets stressed out the more
our nervous system has to work in any particular program.
And so we may need to take time to focus on that.
And so things that can help the ANS are actually,
taking time our improve our cardiovascular health,
doing things that are going to lower our stress levels
and neurological adaptation.
That can be things like meditating,
breathing exercises, yoga, and different types of
stretching modalities.
And all sorts of supplements, essential oils,
light therapy, lots of different things to help
calm the nervous down so that you can get into
that recovery mode.
So a lot of times if you're doing a
high volume or high neurologically demanding training
you get to the point where your
nervous system is in the stress state
way may more often than it is in the rest and digest state.
And so we need to get that corrected because
your recovery's not gonna be good until
that nervous system kind of gets
healthy and calmed down again.
We may need to detox.
Especially if you're doing a phase
that's very stressful for the liver.
So like if your doing something
where we're making a lot of lactic acid.
We talked about, you know, that lactic acid recycling
is basically stealing energy from the liver
to feed to the muscle.
So if you're doing that, guess what?
That's gonna affect what the liver can do
the rest of the time, right.
So I may need to go to, go to a phase, go to a block
where I'm doing almost no lactic work at all.
I shouldn't say almost no.
No lactic work at all.
So low reps, plenty of rest, right.
We're not training at all
type of deal.
And then I focus on increasing nutrients to
help the liver, to focus on detox.
Maybe I do saunas, or I get a lymphatic massage,
or different types of things to
help promote detoxification during that period,
to kinda catch up on all of the detoxing
that my liver didn't get to do because I was too busy
dealing with all the metabolized from my training.
We might have nutritional protocols for health markers.
So maybe you need to take time to focus on digestive health.
Maybe you need take time to focus on cardiovascular health
or glucose transport or inflammation
or whatever it may be.
You may need to take time to them,
introduce a very, a very intense nutritional protocol.
Little lifestyle change protocol
to just focus on those type of things.
You know, maybe somebody's got a,
you know, a nagging injury or something,
and so we need to take a week
where they're gonna be doing a bunch of
therapies for muscle recovery.
You know, proteolytic enzymes or whatever it is,
with a lot of soft tissue work,
or you know, chiropractic therapy, MAT type stuff.
All for an intense period to get them to the point
where they can back and training right away,
rather than kind of, you know,
spacing this out and trying to deal with
that injury over a long period of time.
And then the last one I have here, mental health.
And this is the one I think most people are in denial about.
Like some, everybody gets to the point where it's like,
oh yeah, you know, I need to detox
or I need to take some time, you know,
focus on these little things.
You know, 'cause it's, there's something they're doing.
There's like an active thing.
Very often do people think they need a break
just because of the fact that they need a break, right?
And I think that is important because
I think in the fitness industry especially,
there's not just like, oh I don't think I need a break,
there's people that can't take a break.
Like they can't mentally handle life
without the fitness end or the going to the gym
or what not, right.
They don't have any healthy habits
outside of the fitness industry.
Or maybe they don't have any friends
outside of the gym or whatnot.
And so they get into this place where now,
like, taking time off is a stress.
And that's a very unhealthy place to be.
So this can be a break from not just training,
this might be from the diet or a break from
counting things or, you know,
a break from your routine or your regiment, whatever.
You should be mentally flexible at all times.
So if it is very, you know, being consistent
and being disciplined are all very good qualities
for achieving your goals.
But the second that it,
you switch from being disciplined to being dependent, right.
The second you switch from being motivated to
all of a sudden now, I'm not motivated to do these things
I need to do these things, right?
That's now not a good thing.
'Cause actually even though like the,
on the outside it might look like
you're doing these positive things.
'Cause you're going to the gym every day
and you're eating is really clean or whatever.
You're not gonna get as good of results because
secretly you are stressing about those things
and if anything interrupts, you know,
if you don't get to the gym on time or
you miss a workout or meal is off, or something like that.
All of a sudden you start making way more stress.
Because now, instead of you, like doing those things
for benefits, you've gotten to the stage
where it's like now, I have to do these things
or something bad is going to happen.
And so you need to make sure you take routine mental breaks
from different parts of the fitness lifestyle.
And remember like, you know, we are,
we are here on Earth to live life.
But that life is not to workout.
Like, you know.
If you think the purpose of life
is just to, just to exercise and see how much
protein you can accumulate on top of your bones.
And then, an then it all goes away and that's it, right?
And you're missing a lot, you're missing out
on a lot of life.
So if you're not living life
and fitness is apart of that,
if fitness is your life.
You're gonna have a lot of mental stress.
That's always gonna be keeping you
from having optimal recovery.
And always gonna be affecting
your performance, your blood sugar, your body composition,
all of those things.
So it's very important that you make sure you take
mental breaks and you make sure that you are
in a healthy place in terms of
achieving your goals, and your relationship with the gym,
and relationship with food,
and your dependency on supplements,
and the people that you're surrounding with.
You know, take a mental inventory,
take a lifestyle inventory, during these de-load phases.
And you will find that you go in refreshed
not just physically but also mentally
going into a future phase.