Learn how the pace of your program can determine the outcome of your weight loss/fitness results.
What?! Does this make any sense at all? Well, if I were talking about any topic besides this one, then it probably wouldn’t make much sense, but with an exercise program, it makes a lot of sense.
In order to set yourself up for a high rate of weight loss/fitness gains, it’s extremely important that you follow what’s called periodization.
What’s periodization?
In reality, other than not staying consistent with your workouts, this is a terrible way to kick off your exercise program.
Think of periodization as a roller coaster; parts of the ride are uphill, parts are downhill, parts are twisty, and so on. That’s basically what periodization is. It’s setting up your program so that you have different sections to it; some of those sections of your program may be intense, uphill battles to complete the workout; some may be easier, downhill coasting; and some sections may have an added twist to them.
Unlike a roller coaster, though, you should never start your program out with the most intense part, the uphill climb. One thing that’s amazing, and yet can be very frustrating, about our body is that it’s very, very smart. Our body has the ability to adapt to what it’s doing or to adapt to the challenges that are on it. Your body adapts to sickness by increasing the amount of white blood cells, it can adapt to starvation by storing and utilizing fat better (better to keep you alive, but not better than if you had food to eat), and it can also adapt to exercise.
Let’s say this. Let’s say that you just read a magazine article that has you fired up to the max about losing some weight. You go out and buy some new kicks, a nice workout outfit, a water bottle … you’re all ready to kick some butt. You’re so fired up that you can’t wait to start working out. You figure that your plan is to go at it as hard as you can and get ready to see the weight melt off your body. So on the first day, you want to start your fitness program off with a bang. You go in and decide to work out for an hour. You do one exercise after another until you feel like your arms are about to fall off. Then, you jump on a treadmill and run for 45 minutes until you’re dripping sweat. After you’re done with your workout, you’re convinced that keeping this pace and intensity up is the fundamental way to get that stubborn fat off your body, so you decide to do the same routine, at the same intensity, for the entire week. “Whew, I’m really tearing it up now!” you say to yourself.
One thing that’s amazing, and yet can be very frustrating, about our body is that it’s very, very smart.
What do you think?
Sounds like you’ve surely accomplished your goal of starting right.
In reality, other than not staying consistent with your workouts, this is a terrible way to kick off your exercise program.
Why?
You can start off super intensely, and you better believe your fat calories will be burning off at an incredible rate, but a few weeks into the program, when your body starts to adapt and you get into that dreaded rut, what are you going to do to get out of it?
Like I said, your body learns to adapt to what you’re doing. If you go all out like this from the get go, your body is going to go all out to keep up. It’s going to start storing up more energy, release more hormones to keep your body feeling strong, process more protein to keep your muscles healthy, improve its efficiency in providing itself with energy to keep you going, all kinds of stuff. This is all good and well, but once your body gets to the point where all of these improvements match the intensity of your workouts, in other words, keeps up with the intensity of your workouts, how much fat is really going to be needed to burn to supply energy for the body? Not much.
Picture it this way; you want to start a campfire to roast some marshmallows, so you decide to throw all the wood in the ring at once. Well yeah, that’s great that you have a huge fire that’s burning brightly at the start, but what happens when you want to roast marshmallows, the next week? You can’t because you don’t have any wood left to throw into the fire ring.
The same can be said for working out. You can start off super intensely, and you better believe your fat calories will be burning off at an incredible rate, but a few weeks into the program, when your body starts to adapt and you get into that dreaded rut, what are you going to do to get out of it? Nothing. You can’t because you’ve already thrown everything at your body. Your body has wised up and figured out how to survive this brutal onslaught that you have thrown against it, and there’s nothing you can do about it. You’ve lost the weight loss battle because you don’t have a comeback.
Back to reality now …
Of course, you’re not going to ever start a program off like this, and you’ve never done it in the past … right? Don’t worry; I’ve been so amped up at times that I’ve sometimes started out with too big of an adrenaline rush too.
So here’s what you want to do … as you’ve probably already guessed it. Start out slow. Not so slow that you’re working out one day a week, but slow enough that you have room to increase your intensity. For example, start by working out for three days per week and just let your body adapt to a lifestyle that includes working out. Go through the different phases of your program (remember the stability phase, the endurance phase, etc.), and add changes to the program such as increasing your intensity or increasing the length of your workouts. Throw in an easier week here and there so that your body has a chance to re-energize for high-intensity workouts again. If you go into a program with this type of planning, you’ll have the necessary tools to pull out of your pocket to ward off any fitness plateaus/ruts.
If you start out slow, you’ll still burn off fat, and then as your body adjusts, you turn it up a notch. You work out an extra day, or you work out a little longer, or you work out harder, whatever it is, it’s something new. Something your body has to re-adjust to. Then, just as you feel your body starting to tire … you feel like it takes you longer to recover between workouts, the energy level during your workouts just isn’t there, these types of changes, go ahead and throw in an easy week of working out. Nothing too intense or too long, just a week to keep you consistent to scheduling time for your workouts. Ideally, you want to have an easy week, like this, right before you start to feel your body tire, but if you do feel like this, you definitely need to ease up a bit.
Going along with an easier week is the amount of rest during your workouts. Depending on your goal/the program phase you’re in, your body needs some level of rest to be able to re-charge its energy level back up for the next set. For example, to build muscle, you typically have a work to rest ratio of 1:2 (30 seconds work:1 minute rest, 1 minute work:2 minutes rest, and so on). An endurance goal would be more like 1:1 or even less for the rest. Strength and power could be anything from a 1:5 to a 1:12 work to rest ratio.1 It really depends on what you’re trying to accomplish with your workout, but no matter what that is, make sure you take that rest period so you can be back to an optimal state for your next set or exercise. (For weight loss clients, I take them through stability, endurance, strength, and power phases.)
Following a level of change like this, not only will you be able to prevent yourself from burning out, but you’ll also be able to have something different to challenge your body with. You’ll be able to cause your body to always be on its toes because it’ll never know what to expect next; it won’t adapt to a point where your workouts don’t challenge it anymore and you don’t lose fat as fast anymore. By starting out slow, and slowly progressing up, your program will be able to set you up for more consistent weight loss results or any other fitness goal you have.
References:
1 The National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM), 2001.
Dan Falkenberg, BA, ACE-CPT, NASM-PES
Dan Falkenberg is the cofounder of Your Live Trainers. He can be reached at DanFalkenberg.com.
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