Adachi
Level 7 Valued Member
4) Varying Exercise in each Periodization Cycle is another key. (If nothing changes, nothing is going to change).
Third, deliberate practice is critical to long-term success.
so - I'll take this opportunity to ask a question I had before but, haven't asked.
I've been re-reading the strong endurance manual - I've been reading beyond bodybuilding, for the first time and re-reading starting strength and practical programming for strength training.
these are the materials I'm synthesizing my understanding of lately.
a lot of my spare time goes into being able to peruse writings in the presence of my kids partially because leaving them unattended when I step away to lift weights can be inherently dangerous at this age, and what little time I can dedicate to being alone with the weights - I hop to optimize (at least partway).
the subject I mean to ask about came up in another post of yours @Kenny Croxdale (I believe) and I balked at it. but, I meant to get back to it because I believe part of the reason I balk is that I don't know.
this Variation (within a cycle) thing doesn't necessarily key in immediately for me, given my nascent understanding.
why vary a movement when an adaptation is being sought within a single cycle?
would this not water down and slow the adaptation within that cycle?
if, in a single cycle, I alternate deadlifts, with duck deadlifts, with sumo deadlifts, with partial range deadlifts with deadlifts standing on bumpers, etc.; am I not watering down the training effect, and delaying its acquisition; at all?
and looking at it another way - this reeks of westside barbell programming and all the facets and functions needed to continue to stimulate more adapted, late-stage, more well-developed, elder-training-age strength athletes; rather than novices or intermediates.
so I peruse your posts and I'm not quite clear on what's expected of these variations within the cycle of training. I don't seem to find a limit on the amount of variation that's being posited to benefit the practitioner. there is a maximum dose and a minimum dose to the rate of change that's being sought. there are upper and lower bounds to this function. I'm curious as to what those are supposed to be. because of the way it was framed - MY perception was that you should just rotate all the variations all the time to increase stimulus and elicit a greater response.
and I think about that.
and it could be said that I should work out once a month to delay ever adapting to the workout which would keep me in the novice stage forever. and I'd always get the biggest dose of stimulus bang for the buck right?
I understand that these don't equate but I'm trying to illustrate the strangeness of the claim that one should avoid thoroughly adapting to a stimulus within a cycle of training. there seem to be some unshared enthymemes. some arguments that are pre-known and are so basic that they don't usually require explanation; an accidental shibboleth - as it were.
what do you have to say about the way I perceive this idea of exchanging variations of exercise within a cycle in order to delay adaptation?
am I completely off base?
am I completely missing the point?
the competing logic in my mind's eye is to acquire the adaptation as quickly and thoroughly as possible so that its durability can be built upon in future training cycles like an increased muscle mass in a hypertrophy cycle being retained - for the purposes of increasing its strength 6 weeks later. and then adding additional mass to the strengthened muscle.
I believe that this stands in stark contrast to the statement of - one should actually vary the exercises in order to stave off the acquisition of adaptation. if I vary the exercises in one cycle do I not diffuse the training effect instead of concentrating on it?
I ask these questions - not as a rhetorical device - to reveal anything.
I only ask - because I don't know; I am seeking information.
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