Program design: Overload, load and underload

Hi all,

This has been a subject of much thinking recently, and would really like to get some opinions on the subject of cycling load and intensity. In another thread, Coach Sommer stated that:

Coach Sommer said:

Increasing physical strength can never be a simple straight linear progression. The body is not a machine and requires periods of overload (heavy strain), load (medium level effort) and underload (light comfortable recovery oriented). The body has a set physiological window of recovery and recuperation of the various tissues that cannot be exceeded. Most of us tend to focus on maintaining too much work in the overload portion of our training, too little in the load and far too little in the underload.

Would it be possible for someone experienced with these principles to elaborate a little on:

> The timescales/ratios involved for each level of work

> Some examples of how the loads might differ, maybe regards %1RM

> Maybe even some example cycles for illustration?

> Does this just refer to resistance, or also to volume, etc

Would it have to be movement specific, or could this mean simply some active recovery with a similar exercise. For example, if you were training HSPUs, could you spend a few sessions doing some military pressing with a suitable weight during underloading? Would it simply be enough to drop some sets to lower overall volume in training?

Coach Sommer: it would be great to hear your take on the subject, since it was from one of your posts (although we all appreciate how busy you are).

It would also be great to hear the opinions/experiences of the other very experienced and knowledgable coaches on the forum ...I hope that one/some of you have the time and inclination to help out with this one as well!?

Especially as it seems key to making good progress safely!

Many thanks,

George.

I'm not really certified for this, but I think I might understand what Coach was talking about. I believe he's refering to cycling, something I read about in one of Pavel's books. I'm not quite sure how it would translate to bodyweight exercises, unless you can already do them with a fairly decent amount of added weight, but I can explain it for barbell training. Basically you start off with a weight thats around 80% of your 5RM, and use it for 1 set of 5 reps. Then follow this up with another set of 1x5 at a weight 10% lighter. Continue adding 5 pounds each week until you can only perform 2 reps on the first set, then take a day or two off, and drop back to the starting weight, but with an additional 10 or so pounds, and start over. I used to follow this sort of cycle religiously, and made astounding gains

sounds interesting, i would love for some one to elaborate on that, i would defiantly use it

Thanks Raizen,

Doh! I've come across that too, and even used similar principles before, but somehow forgot - my brain didn't match it up with bodyweight exercise... even though I'm applying it to my chin-up training currently!! I guess because I mostly had The Levers in mind while I was thinking it through. The mind is an odd thing. Great to hear you made good gains on it, and thanks for passing on the info, and your experiences with it.

William,

On top of the great example Raizen posted, I'll try and expand a little on some of the ways I've done it/seen it done in the past. You can do this kind of thing any number of ways; cycling the load, cycling the reps, or both ...again using barbell/chin-ups for the examples, since that is what I'm more familiar with currently:

Cycling load ...to increase load:

cycle 1 - 1x5 @ 95kg, 97kg, 99kg, 101kg, 103kg, 105kg

cycle 2 - 1x5 @ 100kg, 102kg, 104kg, 106kg, 108kg, 110kg

cycle 3 - 1x5 @ 105kg, 107kg, 109kg, 111kg, 113kg, 115kg

Cycling Reps/Sets ...to increase reps (e.g. chin-ups):

cycle 1 - 3x3, 4x3, 5x3, 6x3, 7x3 @ BW

cycle 2 - 3x4, 4x4, 5x4, 6x4, 7x4 @ BW

cycle 3 - 3x5, 4x5, 5x5, 6x5, 7x5 @ BW

Cycling Reps ...to increase load: (good if you have only larger plates to add)

cycle 1 - 5x3, 5x4, 5x5, 5x6, 5x7, 5x8, 5x9, 5x10 @ 100kg

cycle 2 - 5x3, 5x4, 5x5, 5x6, 5x7, 5x8, 5x9, 5x10 @ 110kg

cycle 3 - 5x3, 5x4, 5x5, 5x6, 5x7, 5x8, 5x9, 5x10 @ 120kg

As Raizen said, take a few days rest between cycles. If you plateau before you reach your target for the cycle, stick with it for another session to make sure, then rest up as usual. Start back somewhere between the start and end of the last cycle, and maybe adjust your targets and increments to suit. Due to the rep ranges involved, the first example (and Raizen's) are the best progressions for strength, and the others would be more strength-endurance, which is not undesirable.

Hope this is some help,

George.

Haha no problem. My brain enjoys messing with me a lot too

George's examples are basically perfect, especially if you're looking for a way to use cycling with bodyweight exercises. Another great thing about cycling is that if you do it correctly, you can gain strength without gaining virtually any weight (which aids greatly in the pursuit of hard gymnastics holds like planches), and you'll almost never plateau. The only real drawback is that there are few if any lifts that engage as many muscles as the advanced gymnastics holds do, and so you cant expect to make significant progress without also working the mvoe itself (there's balance and coordination issues). Aside from that though, I've alway found that the linear and wave style cycles from Power to the People worked very well for me. (I biotest a lot of different workout strategies)

Raizen's example is a summary of Pavel's "Power to the People" cycling program. It is a simple and effective method, but there are literally dozens of cycling protocols out there. All will work for weightlifting or weight-added bodyweight exercises, but what if you can't add weight? You can still cycle hold time, for example:

Suppose you can't do strict front levers but you can hold tuck front levers for 30 sec. You can apply Pavel's constant-volume cycle as follows, assuming a workout total hold time is 3 min.:

- workout 1: tuck f.l. 18*10 sec holds

- workout 2: tuck f.l. 12*15 sec holds

- workout 3: tuck f.l. 9*20 sec holds

etc.

So the total hold time is "volume", and individual hold time is "intensity". In more complex methods, you would cycle both volume and intensity. Another way to cycle intensity is to play around with resistance (in this case assistance) bands in exercises tht you can't normally do.

Raizen - thanks again.

JoeS,

That helps a lot in terms of what I originally meant to ask! Although I have enjoyed a number of his articles, I have never actually read any of Pavel's books. Sounds like I should!

So, for training holds, it's really the same process of underload, load and overload, cycling the volume and/or intensity. The difference between holds and sets/reps seems to be in the terminology (see below). I imagine intensity is also altered by changing rest times between sets (like you said, there are many protocols out there). One might increase intensity by decreasing rest intervals, or make an effort to keep them consistent, depending on your goals.

Sets/Reps

volume = total reps

intensity = (load x reps) - rest

Holds

volume = total time

intensity = (load x time) - rest

Note: I'm not criticising your explanation, I sometimes like to check my understanding by summing up. That way I hope my misunderstandings might be corrected!

When I wrote underload, load and overload above instead of overload, load and underload it became clear that the simple reversal of the wording altered the meaning of the phrase for me completely. An interesting lesson in itself! At least this thread has thrown up some interesting discussion, and the sets/reps protocol does still apply to dynamic bodyweight exercises.

Cheers,

George.

Not exactly, George.

When you play around with the rest period, you're working with a third metric: density, not intensity. Intensity is strictly percentage of max that you are working with. Density cycling is used with bodyweight exercises where you're trying to increase the number of reps, like pullups and pushups, and also programs for strength endurance/conditioning, and even some bodybuilding/hypertrophy programs. Pure strength programs don't normally cycle density, unless there's a conditioning goal as well.

Pavel's books are easy reads and provide good information. He's been criticized for being too commercial, but we all have to make a living . "Power to the People" is a good intro to cycling, and he describes more complex methods in "Beyond Bodybuilding".

Thanks again JoeS - that's great info. I will definitely get hold of some of those books!

Would I be correct in assuming that for gymnastic strength and conditioning both increases in strength and strength-endurance are important? If I'm working up to holds of 30-60 seconds, or (as you said) increasing my reps in something like HSPU or pullups, I'm going to need an endurance component in there somewhere?

Cheers,

George.

Yes, those are pretty long iso holds, and you could design a cycle with some density work that would help with this. It's a little different, though, the traditional concept of strength-endurance is more dynamic, like doing 200 straight pushups, snatching a heavy kettlebell for 10 min straight, etc. That's where you usually find the density programs.

...time for some extra research around these concepts then! Thanks for your input, guys.

Cheers,

George.

Just a minor update to this thread.

I've gotten my hands on both Power to the People, and Beyond Bodybuilding, and after a quick skim through they appear to be very useful, and I already feel I've improved my understanding of cycling immensely. I am not in a position to comment on how relevant these principals might be to the sport-specific requirements of the gymnast (out of the box, anyway) ...but since I am currently focussed more on ramping up my basic conditioning, I think I will try a few cycles as recommended in the books, and see how they work out.

I'll also try and keep a workout log, for anyone who's interested.

Cheers,

George.

so is one cycle like a week (or month or so) or is it done all in one workout?

after re-reading (many times) I think I get it!

is it something along the lines of, using George's example (cycling sets/reps to increase reps):

monday

3x3

tuesday

4x3

wenesday

5x3

thursday

6x3

friday

7x3

If you are going to cycle intensity by controlling the overall volume, it would be best to extend the total time involved of the training cycle in order to allow adequate physiological adaptation to occur. In plain english, you can follow the 3x3, 4x3, 5x3,6x3, 7x3 format; however my recommendation is to use each of these repetition schemes for an entire week rather than a single day.

At the end of your designated cycle, take at least 3-4 days off and then progress onward to a new exercise variation while dropping down again to 3x3.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Hi Ed,

To quote Pavel:

"Ideal training involves changing just one of many variables,

until that variable reaches a constant. Then you change another,

and then another until you reach your goal."

In terms of merely increasing reps of a certain exercise, I guess you should also sub-cycle the density as well. That way you are adding an extra rep while decreasing the density each sub-cycle, enabling you to ease into the jumps in intensity, and ultimately volume. As Coach said, this will also spread out your jumps in volume over a number of weeks, which will allow time for adequate recovery and adaptation. This will naturally ensure you spend enough time building up to and extending yourself.

In the below example, you decrease the rest durations until you cannot complete the RXd workout, and restart the density sub-cycle whilst upping the intensity (by adding the rep to each set). You also attempt to roughly maintain the volume by dropping a set each time, and at least not increase it significantly (especially toward the end of a cycle when intensity is high).

When you can increase neither, you are at the end of your cycle, and need to rest up before starting another - beginning with values below where you ended your last cycle, maybe around the halfway mark? The idea is to take two steps forward, and then one step back, to consolidate your gains before extending again.

CYCLE 1

5 x 3 ...seconds rest: 60, 50, 40, 30, 20 (failed)

4 x 4 ...seconds rest: 60, 50, 40 (failed)

3 x 5 ...seconds rest: 60, 50 (failed)

2 x 6 ...seconds rest: 60 (failed)

--- REST UP AND START NEW CYCLE ---

CYCLE 2

5 x 4 ...seconds rest: 60, 50, 40, 30 (failed)

4 x 5 ...seconds rest: 60, 50, 40 (failed)

3 x 6 ...seconds rest: 60, 50 (failed)

2 x 7 ...seconds rest: 60 (failed)

--- REST UP AND START NEW CYCLE ---

CYCLE 3

5 x 5 ...seconds rest: 60, 50, 40, 30 (failed)

4 x 6 ...seconds rest: 60, 50, 40 (failed)

3 x 7 ...seconds rest: 60, 50 (failed)

2 x 8 ...seconds rest: 60 (failed)

--- ETC ---

In effect, each main-cycle attempts to increase volume (by increasing intensity), achieved by each sub-cycle attempting to increase intensity (by cycling density). Don't know if this helps? And I hope it makes sense, as it was quickly written ...am home alone with the kids today!!

Cheers,

George.

I think I get it (I do as long what I think it is is right), so coach your saying doing my (or george's really) example cycle except do each part (e.g 3x3, 4x3, 5x3, etc) for one week.

George I'm a little unsure about your last post (mainly cause it went straight over my head and because I think it doesn't really answer my question) is it along the lines of you can include two (perhaps even more?) variables into a cycle in this case sets and density (actually don't you have a third variable in this case, reps?). Still I appreciate your taking the time to answer, so thanks and to you too coach.

Ed

ow by the way with my example it's just an example not something I'm gonna put into my routine (at least for the moment) I selected it because I felt it was the easiest to understand for disscussion

Hi Ed,

Sorry, it was a little confusing - t'was a bit of a rush job, whilst distracted by my children, and in retrospect was rather complicated.

ed x said:

I think I get it (I do as long what I think it is is right), so coach your saying doing my (or george's really) example cycle except do each part (e.g 3x3, 4x3, 5x3, etc) for one week.

Yes, it sounds like that is exactly what Coach is saying. The important addition he made to your example was where the cycling comes in ...after you get to the end of the cycle, you need to step back the volume,and increase the intensity, in this case through a harder exercise variation:

Is this similar to what you meant, Coach??

Cycle1 - HSPU (on floor, half rom): 1wk each of 3x3, 4x3, 5x3, 6x3, 7x3

Cycle2 - HSPU (on floor, full rom): 1wk each of 3x3, 4x3, 5x3, 6x3, 7x3

Cycle3 - HSPU (parallettes, full rom): 1wk each of 3x3, 4x3, 5x3, 6x3, 7x3

If you had a specific goal you wanted to plan for, I would be happy to have a go at designing some target-specific cycles for you. It would give me a chance to gain a little more practical experience, and be a much more useful way of getting some of the ideas across?

Cheers,

George.

P.s. The aim of the example I gave was to increase max reps, where the number of reps would be a percentage of your best effort, and therefore intensity. Intensity can be a bit of an ambiguous one, and can be a percentage of your best effort of: reps, load, hold difficulty, hold time, etc.

Hey George,

well after finding out what cycling was, I realised I'd already actually planned to do it, I was planning to do this for most exercises (a few exceptions):

week 1 (load)

5x1

week 2 (load)

6x1

week 3 (overload)

7x1 (for half)

3x2 (for half)

like I said this would be for most exercises not all and exact reps and sets would change between exercises.

George said:

If you had a specific goal you wanted to plan for, I would be happy to have a go at designing some target-specific cycles for you.

well actually George you might be able to help me. My main exercises are:

-planche (tuck)

-front lever (adv tuck)

-HSPU (hands elevated about 3 inches)

-handstand press (at the moment headstand presses)

-hanging leg raise

-pistol (just a little less than full ROM)

-hamstring curl (bodyweight negatives, assisted conccentric)

like I said these are my main exercises (3-4 times a week). George what would you suggest for theses? personally I feel I should work intensity on headstand presses, a cross between reps and load for pistols, reps (time) for planche and front lever, the others I'm not sure about.

anyway thanks for the generous offer of help and for the birthday blessings,

Ed

I was thinking the other night of ways to train (apart from just regular reps and sets) for the overload phase of a cycle (like the ones caoch suggests, load, overload, underload). I came up with-

1)Ladders, most people will know what these are, each set add one rep

2)HIIT (high intensity interval training), have nearly no rest between exercises also it might be better to do dynamic work (just a thought)

3)Windmill Sets, my very own creation :wink: (I think), the same thing as windmill sprints (sprint for 10 seconds jog/walk for 30seconds) except using a strength movement an example is hold adv (advanced) tuck front lever for 5 seconds (I suggest using between a 1/4 to 1/3 hold of your max) pull into (regular) tuck front lever hold for 10seconds return to adv uck lever repeat for desired reps.

4)GTG (grease the grove), I know this won't overload my systems in fact quite the opposite but I figured a good thing to try on my planche and front lever holds while I focus on things like pseudo planche push ups, jumping font levers etc

so what does everyone think of adding one or more of these to the overload week?

Hey Ed,

Hoping to get back to you in next couple of days about those questions. Been laid up sick for a few days, and got tons of work to catch up on (and still only about 70%, so not feeling too bright either).

Just thought I'd let you know I hadn't forgotten because of the service outage.

Cheers,

George.

thank you George for the courteous heads up, but please don't worry about little old me and just focus on getting better.

Just a bit of an update I've started my cycle (load, overload, underload) it seems to be going well, after lowering my reps and sets for most exercises I see now I was prety much trying to overload every week. I have my main exercises (listed in earlier post) which I try and do 4 days a week (if I'm quite distracted I'll replace hanging leg lifts for ab wheel [i feel it easier to keep good form] for example) and I put 2-4 specific assistor exercises in (handstand/ one-arm pull up work, planche/front lever, paralette series, suupport or dips on ring) I always use opposite exercises (can't think of the word), e.g planche/front lever, HSPU/ pull up. It seems to be going well I feel good and fresh most days and I still feel like training (when I overworked myself I would'nt feel like training after a week or two and would take a break (complete stop) after two weeks.

George I was thinking I might start a workout log like yours, I like your set out and everything plus if I do a workout log I'll have to keep to my schedule and plan. And finally get well soon

No worries, and thanks ...taken a bit of a dive after going back to work too early, but weekend should sort me out!

One thing I would say about a workout log is to remember that you are not a machine and sticking to a pre-planned schedule whatever happens is not necessarily a good idea. Don't be afraid to add a day's rest if you need it, make adjustments mid-cycle, and even end a cycle early if you've overestimated it!

That said, I think it's a great idea to keep a workout log. It will take a few cycles to get a measure of what's right for you, and a record of previous cycles, goals, end-results, issues etc. will all be very useful in dialling it in.

Cheers,

George.

Hey guys,

I recently did a 5 week cycle similar to this and then tested my maxes again. It actually put a ton of stress on my body to keep good form and not go to failure on these days (along with staying withing my recent time constraints). I just wanted to add that you could tone down the intensity on a cycle by doing something like a "basic workout" 2 or 3 times a week and your "advancing workout" 1 time per week. This is what I had to do.

for example

Monday

3x3

Tuesday

3x3

Thursday

3x3

Friday

3x4

Every friday that would go by you could add a set/rep/weight. I found this took the a lot of stress off of the dread of trying to meet my last days goal or go beyond it.

By the way, have any of you tried Westside Barbell style of training? I did for a few months and it was great for my lifts. I know this is a little off subject considering this has to do with gymnastics but what I am really referring to is the "wave method" of overloading.

If nobody knows what I am talking about I will expand on it.

Hi Coach.Sorry I'm a little bit confused.How many times a week should i do one type of exercise. I do a lot of pulling and pushing but never do for example chin ups twice a week, for example: On monday I would do weighted ring muscle-ups and weighted chin-ups, on wensday weighted pull-ups and front lever pulls and on friday one hand pull-ups and iron cross.Do I do too many variation in one week or I could stick to this and still use the one of the cycles?

Best Regards.

Coach Sommer said:

If you are going to cycle intensity by controlling the overall volume, it would be best to extend the total time involved of the training cycle in order to allow adequate physiological adaptation to occur. In plain english, you can follow the 3x3, 4x3, 5x3,6x3, 7x3 format; however my recommendation is to use each of these repetition schemes for an entire week rather than a single day.

At the end of your designated cycle, take at least 3-4 days off and then progress onward to a new exercise variation while dropping down again to 3x3.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer