WODs or periodisation, or both?

Just seen the new blog posts, thanks a bunch coach, its great to see some new content

Now here is what is confusing me. On Coach Sommer's video for negative maltese board presses, Coach makes this statement:

The duration and volume of the sets depends upon whether your current training cycle is focusing on intensification or accumulation. However for general purposes 3 to 5 sets of 3 to 5 reps should be fine.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

However, we are constantly told that the GB WODs are THE training plan, and that the correct way to scale is to always be faithful to rep numbers. This does not allow for manipulating volume as per intensification/accumulation, and the WODs don't appear to be periodised, so the above advice seems a little contradictory :?

Can someone please help me out on this one as I am a little lost. The only possible explanation that I can think of is that Coach periodises the training of advanced athletes but not others.

As always any and all replies are appreciated

Here's what I think:

Intensification is where you're looking to build up strength. Accumulation is where you're looking to practice (some say 'mark') the move so you don't lose it as a skill.

Coaches WODs here have an overload, load, and underload phase all built into it. You do not need change any of his formatting. Follow it and you will do well.

Vincearoo said:

Coaches WODs here have an overload, load, and underload phase all built into it. You do not need change any of his formatting. Follow it and you will do well.

You're basically telling him to shut up and follow the program. I don't like that.

"Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for the rest of his life."

No, I was just informing him that he was assuming wrong. Coach already has phases built into his WOD and that's what he was wondering. I don't know the theory behind it all and I won't try to muddle my thoughts together.

And I was merely trying to be helpful. Besides, in his post it says all replies are appreciated, so i guess it doesn't matter if you don't like how I said it

Thanks for the replies guys, I appreciate it.

Intensification is where you're looking to build up strength. Accumulation is where you're looking to practice (some say 'mark') the move so you don't lose it as a skill.

Interesting, so are you saying that the above advice applies to skill development and FSPs (warmup strength on the WOD template), or to the WODs in general?

I know that on traditional periodised templates that intensification is a phase in training looking to increase intensity on an element, and accumulation is a phase that is looking to increase volume on an element, so in this sense would apply to strength training in general, but what you are saying makes sense too.

Coaches WODs here have an overload, load, and underload phase all built into it

I would really appreciate this being laid out in detail, as it is pretty much necessary to follow the program. By this, I mean that Coach may have programmed overload, load, and underload phases, but how are we supposed to know when these are. For example, if a HS WOD has 1 set of presses instead of 2, then is this an underload? Are we supposed to keep intensity constant, but with less volume, as in traditional forms of deloading? Or, are we supposed to scale up if possible to the hardest element we can virtuously perform? If this were the case then, it may actually become an overload/intensity phase. :?

Thanks for the replies guys, I appreciate it.

As always, thanks for any answers in advance.

Vincearoo said:

No, I was just informing him that he was assuming wrong. Coach already has phases built into his WOD and that's what he was wondering. I don't know the theory behind it all and I won't try to muddle my thoughts together.

And I was merely trying to be helpful. Besides, in his post it says all replies are appreciated, so i guess it doesn't matter if you don't like how I said it

Then I read your post wrong. My apologies.

Intensification looking to build up strength and accumulation where you're looking to build up volume (practice the move). That makes sense. Someone more knowledgeable will have to chime in, though.

This is an excellent question - Coach Sommer's answer for beginning level trainees (that means you and me) is in the second edition and it may surprise a lot of people.

(How's that for a teaser?)

Cole Dano said:

This is an excellent question - Coach Sommer's answer for beginning level trainees (that means you and me) is in the second edition and it may surprise a lot of people.

(How's that for a teaser?)

Screw you, Cole.

The book'd better get published soon. My birthday is in less than a month!

Cole Dano said:

This is an excellent question - Coach Sommer's answer for beginning level trainees (that means you and me) is in the second edition and it may surprise a lot of people.

(How's that for a teaser?)

Cole Dano said:

This is an excellent question - Coach Sommer's answer for beginning level trainees (that means you and me) is in the second edition and it may surprise a lot of people.

Hahaha, any more explicit teasers? If not then I would appreciate your or anybody elses answer to the question as well

Thanks for all replies so far guys (even the frustrating ones :wink: )

Out of interest, are the WODs recommended for all experience levels? I ask because I was recently reading Coach's old posts on the t-nation forum, and he said that his athletes followed full body workouts 3-4 times a week. Granted this was around 2005-6 and Coach's program has evolved over time, but again it is a little baffling. Unless this advice is different for different ability levels, or includes the fact that legs skill work is done on upper body days or such. I do see though, how this full body training is much more amenable to periodisation than the GB WODs, so are we to take it that Coach's periodisation advice is not for inclusion in WODs? This would certainly simplify things.

Thanks for any replies

The WODs follow a cycle and within that cycle are low rep schemes and high rep schemes, it is a form of intensification / accumulation cycle. The various workout come up in such a way as to allow enough rest between which is also intentional and even the way this is laid out has a small stagger to it which creates another wave in the overall cycle.

It is a different form of periodization than a 'seasonal' one with x weeks of intensification, x accumulation, deload etc, but still the WODs are periodic.

Coach does say he uses this with his athletes but I don't know exactly when it came into being, in any case they do many things in addition to the WODs, so it may be they individually are doing extra work on specific elements, or even that they have occasional periods where they do more specific work in lieu of the WODs.

I can repeat that Coach wants someone doing the WODs to do the WODs for full cycles before changing things up, I apologize that I forget the number of cycles he prefers as a minimum, I believe it's two. Any additional strength work on top of that is fully dependent on one's recovery, the extra work shouldn't take away from the WODs.

I can also say that Coach currently prefers beginners to do a Kilroy70 style program or WODs. Notice how many programing questions we get here and that we try to steer them to one or the other. I personally did the WODs for two years or so with a specific cycle after every three WOD cycles. Right now I'm doing a Kilroy70 style (to the best of my ability having recently had arthroscopic elbow surgery). My experience between the two is Kilroy70 is much more concrete, and requires more planning ahead but less thought on the day of the workout. They both work well. However with the current state of my left elbow, doing WODs would be silly, I have to build around my situation which the WODs won't do, couldn't do. This is also a factor for anyone trying to decide which way to go in general, which is why I mention it.

I would love to get more into this on the forum, but it will need to wait until the 2nd edition comes out. Things will be clarified but to get more into it before then will just cause more confusion.

I will conclude by saying that all the current information is available at the seminars, which are constantly being updated as the program evolves.

It's impossible to overstate how useful it is to actually have some real live coaching. Any coach (or yoga teacher) knows this. So Coach Sommer has, wisely IMHO, opted for a two tier system. He WANTS to see people who do the program, people of ALL levels. In fact that's the greatest quality of the program it really is for anyone, anyone who wants to commit to it. I've always been at the bottom of the strength curve here, and Coach, staff, and participants have never made me feel bad for it. Thankfully following the program I've gotten stronger and also learned what a real community can be like.

In fact if you notice the price structure for the seminars you will see that already after the first you get a 50% discount and thereafter 75% discount. Why is this? Because Coach knows this is a long term process and he wants people to stick with it, to come back and get more guidance etc. Look at almost any other program out there, it's a weekend one shot deal, not realistic, not how things work in real life.

As a yoga teacher I've always had a similar model, I don't want people to come to one class, I want to see people for 5, 10, 15 years. These things take that kind of time.

My apologies for the short ramble there, but I do think getting part of the big picture is very, very important.

Thanks for the reply Cole. Hope the surgery went well Unfortunately, I won't be able to make a seminar any time soon, so I'll just have to wait and read the second edition when it comes out, and hopefully in the distant future get out to a seminar.

Thanks again