– El proceso de la exploración racional al proceso a través de la acción

Life is not perfect.

In the same way that things go wrong in your job and relationships, things will go wrong with your training cycles.

It is inevitable.

What will determine your success in the iron game is how you deal with a training cycle that is not going perfectly to plan.

Before we talk about how to fix a failing cycle, let’s discuss a few key points…

Firstly, sometimes you will have a perfect training cycle. And when you do, be grateful for it and learn from it.

Secondly, when you are first starting out, you will make some mistakes. If you are a newbie/beginner and have less than a year’s serious strength training under your belt, be sure to follow these rules to minimize your likelihood of failing cycles:

• Use 4 to 8 week cycles (any shorter is a waste of time and any longer is too hard to plan for and unnecessary for the beginner).

• Take small jumps from week to week (or session to session). Think in terms of 5 to 15 pound jumps. Leave the big jumps in the 20 to 50 pound range for the more experienced, stronger athlete.

• Set realistic, but manly targets. If you currently deadlift 225lbs for 5 reps and you are a man weighing 200 pounds, a target of pulling 227.5lbs in 8 weeks’ time (after a training cycle) is not a manly goal. It is a wimp’s goal!

• In contrast, aiming to pull 400lbs for 5 reps in 8 weeks’ time is naïve optimism because it isn’t going to happen.

• If you are thinking clearly and with wisdom, you will go somewhere in the middle and aim for a PR of 235lbs or 240lbs x 5 reps (a solid 10 to 15 pound increase in your 5 rep max from 8 weeks training).

Now, let’s talk about how to fix a failing training cycle…

A couple of years ago a powerlifter came to train with my team and he had an ego that was somewhat bigger than his talent (and his squat).

For reasons unknown to me and my regular training partners, this guy (who was a good but definitely not great lifter at national level), thought it would be a good idea to call himself “Dr Squat” while training with me.

At that point I had a 1,214lbs squat on my resume, and he had squatted just over 900lbs. The guy was deluded to say the least.

Anyway, he comes in every Wednesday (squat and deadlift night at our gym) and he’d get really fired up. And because he caught me early in my training cycle, he got carried away and tried to hang with me.

BIG MISTAKE.

The first three weeks he out squats me by 10 to 15kg each week. I didn’t care because I was sticking to my cycle. But he was loving it because his little brain was telling him that he was “Dr Squat” and that he was now stronger than me.

Oh dear.

He forgets about his training cycle numbers (which looked sensible when he showed them to me on week 1) and he starts trying to beat me every week—he must have forgotten that the meet is what counts, not what you lift at the gym!

Anyhow, by week 4 he’s struggling. He cuts the top set high and out-lifts me by just a few kilos.

We are still several weeks out from competition, so I’m still finding my top sets very easy.

The weeks roll by and all of a sudden he has nowhere to go… So he starts lifting the same top set every week and the squats are getting higher and higher as he fatigues and overtraining sets in.

Needless to say, I stuck to my cycle and blew 490kg away as my opener at the meet.

Unfortunately I got miss-loaded on my next 2 attempts and injured my knee (I called 525kg and they loaded one side to 565kg).

Anyhow, back to “Dr Squat”—well, come meet time he is gassed. Over-trained and good for nothing, and I think he only got 1 attempt out of 3 and it was well off his personal best.

We re-named him “Dr Stupid” (actually, it could have been something worse) and never saw him again.

So, rule number 1 is… don’t let your ego get in the way. There is no point trying to lift with guys who are 30% stronger than you. Sure, get inspired by those guys, but don’t base your train-ing cycles on their traintrain-ing cycles.

Such egotistical behavior has been the un-doing and downfall of many a powerlifter and gym rat alike.

But, what if you are being sensible and your training cycle still goes wrong?

It happens.

Let’s say you have a current 3 rep max of 400lbs on your deadlift.

You plan a solid training cycle with the aim of ending with 425lbs for a triple.

It looks like this:

However, on week 5 you pull 365 x 3 and barely grind out your third rep. On week 6 you get the first rep with 385 and then miss the second.

Clearly something is wrong. But what do you do?

First of all, do not pig-headedly carry on and try to pull 425 x 3. You will get it in the future but not in two weeks time on this cycle.

Instead, you have several sensible options:

1. Take a week off and then come back and try the week 6 weight again. If 385 x 3 flys without a problem, carry on as you were (you clearly just need some rest).

On the other hand, if 385 x 3 is still hard, start a new cycle.

2. Go back a couple of weeks. For example, you missed week 6’s weight, so go back to week 3 and work back up again.

Okay, so it took you a few more weeks to reach your target of 425lbs x 3 reps than expected, but with some careful thought and some sensible planning, you got there in the end. This is a much better approach than most gym rats use—chopping and changing from program to pro-gram every time they have to deal with a little adversity.

3. Change stances. You could be stalling because you have done too much of one type of pulling. So if you have pulled conventional for months on end, start a new cycle and hit the sumo style.

Then, after one cycle sumo, switch back to conventional again—fresh and excited to attack the deadlift with that style.

So you have plenty of options for fixing a failing cycle. The most important thing to remember is that stubbornly plowing forwards despite the cycle not working is a recipe for disaster.

The solution is almost always some sort of rest. Rest can be in the form of a week off or going back to easier weeks in your cycle.

Finally, what happens if your cycle is failing and you have a competition to peak for?

This is somewhat trickier, because the competition date does not change simply because you are having a bad time with your training.

So, what should you do?

Well, it depends how far out you are. If you are very close to the meet (within 2 to 3 weeks) it is probably best to back off and do nothing or just do speed work (50 to 60% for 6 to 10 singles or 3 to 5 doubles) because most lifters do best on their deadlifts when they are fresh.

In other words, a bit less training usually does well, whereas more training can just lead to over-training.

However, if you are 8 weeks out and you have a 12 week run up to the meet and you realize that you are not going to hit the numbers you had planned for the final 4 weeks leading into the meet, your solution is to re-assess your goal and adjust your numbers accordingly.

There is no shame in reducing your poundages each week by 20 pounds if it means that you peak at the meet. In fact, that is the sensible lifter’s approach.

Just remember the story of my friend “Dr Squat/Stupid” and you will not go far wrong.

What a fool.