If you’re struggling to consistently work out, you’ll probably find this helpful, especially if you find yourself suffering from “Shiny Object Syndrome” and hopping from program to program, without anything to show for it except little to no measurable results and feeling like a failure.
See, most people know that “Consistency Is King” when it comes to getting the results you’re looking for from your workouts…
And yet they still end up looking back at the end of the week disappointed in themselves because they only logged 1 or 2 workouts, fighting off that “failure” feeling.
Sure, most of us know that at the end of the day, it’s not how hard you worked out, but how often you trained over the course of a given period of time.
For example, 3x week for 6 weeks trumps 2x week for the same time period. I think for most of us, that’s a no-brainer, right?
So, what’s the “fix?”
This is where “Periodization” comes in handy.
Specifically, LPP - Long-term Periodized Planning comes in handy.
It’s specifically planning your workout structure over a period of time and following that plan until you get the results you’re looking for.
For example, a typical powerlifting cycle is 12 weeks.
An Olympic hopeful’s training plan is 4 years.
And when I was a college strength & conditioning coach, we’d run annual cycles that looked like the following:
Pre-Season → In-Season → Post Season → Off Season
And to be clear, it’s not just a matter of “adding weight to the bar” or “reps to each set,” although that can work in the simplest of cases.
No, we:
✅ Use exercise progressions
✅ Change exercise selections
✅ Find & fix weak areas
✅ Change outcomes, based on needs of the individual/sport
✅ Use load progressions (from simple to complex)
Here’s a simple KB exercise example:
2H Swing → 1H Swing → Clean + Press → Snatch
And here’s a biomotor ability example:
Maximum Strength → Power → Strength-endurance → Power-endurance
Let me tell you about one of the “best” periodized programs I ever used:
The 1993 Rutgers Football Off-Season Strength & Conditioning Program.
(And yes, I still have it today.)
I was between my junior and senior years of college and had switched my focus to Powerlifting. I heard that Coach Rock Gullickson, the Football S&C Coach, was a former powerlifter.
So, I contacted him and told him about my goals and asked him if he could help me out.
Not only did he invite me over to his office at the Hale Center to talk, he gave me a copy of the Football Team’s Off-Season program and invited me to train with him!
So, 4 afternoons a week I drove over to the Hale Center and trained with Coach Rock, his assistant, Big Evan (a 300lbs+ Man-Mountain) and whoever was training with us.
And every day, I brought my spiral bound 8x11 notebook that he gave me so I could faithfully record my sets and reps for each and every set.
That summer was the first time I ever squatted 315lbs for 10 - and multiple sets of 10 too!
… With Coach Rock spotting me and the guys yelling encouragement at me - it was glorious!
Later that summer, I took that plan out to Colorado State University and trained with one of Coach Rock’s former assistant’s Big John Krasinski, in their football weight room.
It was a pivotal summer:
I learned how to do Hang Cleans (almost properly) and I saw the barbell Snatch for the first time.
(That summer I packed on 20+lbs of beef - going from about 220 to 240lbs.)
And Coach Rock inspired me to become a college strength coach - which I did, ending up back at Rutgers 3.5 years later in January of 1997.
It’s amazing how one simple little thing - like a plan - can motivate you to change by creating excitement in your training, and even set the course for the rest of your life, no matter where you find yourself right now.
If you need a long-term periodized plan to build consistency in your training so you can be stronger, leaner, more muscular, and better conditioned, many of my customers recommend this one.
Stay Strong,
Geoff
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