A Unified Theory of Fitness Programming
A Unified Theory of Fitness Programming
A Unified Theory of Fitness Programming
Unless your bodyweight is way too much or way too little resistance, then there's very little room for external
loading. This is not to say that external loading isn't important. Of course it is, but it has definitely been
overemphasized.
Unless you can perform twenty pushups in good from, get your ass off the bench press. Too easy? The same
rule applies to the single leg squat. If you can't perform 8-10 good reps, then why are you using two legs to
squat with external load?
Train Functionally 3.
"Functional" means training for performance, not for the "pump" or standing on a ball or some other activity.
Multiple joint lifts and combination lifts such as the squat and press are all real world functional activities.
Life and sport take place primarily on our feet. It's how we were designed to work. Our training programs need
to reflect that. It seems to me that I've said this a thousand times, but it doesn't make it any less true: a
muscle group allocation is pointless. Why would the muscles of the chest need their own "day" for training? If
you split up the body into parts, how do you decide what parts to include?
Typically we see splits of chest, shoulders and triceps, back and biceps, and legs. Why don't we see splits like
rhomboids and hip flexors, quadriceps and rotator cuff, sternocleidomastoid and pec minor? Because that
wouldn't make bodybuilding "sense." But in my opinion, any split routine based on a random allocation of
muscle groups to certain days of the week defies all logic.
Consider the following example: Hold a dumbbell in your right hand and raise your arm out to the side until it's
parallel with the floor (a position known as a lateral raise in the fitness world!) Which muscles are working?
The classic answer is the medial deltoid and the trapezius.
True. But maintain this position and just touch your obliques on the left side with your free hand. They're
contracting maximally in order to stabilize your torso and spine, thus preventing you from tipping over. So the
oblique has to contract so hard in order to stabilize your entire upper body (plus your arm and the dumbbell)
that it becomes clear that this exercise forces more work from the oblique muscles, the tensor fascia lata, and
the quadratus lumborum than it can from the medial deltoid!
So is it still a shoulder exercise? Or is it a total core andshoulder exercise? What body part day is this
movement supposed to be trained on? Hopefully this helps you realize that the body will always work as a
unit.
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And I don't mean to "bag" on bodybuilding. One can't help but be impressed by top athletes in any sport. But
the fact that it is a sport is also an important thing to remember. Bodybuilding is a unique sport unto itself. For
the general fitness enthusiast (i.e. not a competitive bodybuilder) to develop and implement a fitness program
using bodybuilding theory and bodybuilding type exercises makes as much sense as using soccer training or
racquetball to design that same program. And while most people recognize that this is idiotic at best, we still
continue to talk about splitting up "body parts" and following a bodybuilding-based program.
Now, that's not to say we don't use exercises or ideas from all sports and systems (remember, absorb what is
useful...) To do so would be closed-minded. But to adopt any one single philosophy is just as closed-minded.
If you rank an athlete's qualities for their sport from 1-10 on a scale and find that they have a very poor
flexibility score but a very good maximal strength score, then a strength based program may not be the best
choice. Similarly, if my client is a golfer, a powerlifting specific program isn't warranted.
Again, we need to train according to the demands of life and sport. Athletes such as Serena Williams, Brandi
Chastain, Linford Christie, Pyrros Dimas and Roy Jones have better physiques than most, but they've never
trained for aesthetics; they've trained for function.
Sagittal
Rectus Abdominus
Frontal
Transverse
External Obliques
Internal Obliques
Transverse Abdominus
Psoas
Iliacus
Rectus Femoris
X
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Sartorius
Tensor Fascia Latae
X
X
Iliocostalis
Longissimus
Spinalis
Multifidii /Rotatores
Quadratus Lumborum
Gluteus Maximus
Gluteus Medius
Hamstrings
Adductors
without planning their "big picture" makes success even more unlikely. So, for those of you who have primarily
aesthetic goals, an alternating periodization model will be the most appropriate.
Let me explain. When using linear models (e.g. 6 weeks at 12-15 reps, 6 weeks at 8-12 reps, 6 weeks at 6-8
reps etc.) we tend to lose the qualities we initially sought to improve. For example, if we were to undertake 6
weeks of endurance (12-15 reps), 6 weeks of hypertrophy (8-12 reps) and 6 weeks of strength emphasis (4-6
reps), then at the end of the sixth week of strength emphasis it will have been 12 weeks since we were
exposed to any endurance methods (twice as long as we spent developing it).
So we'll have lost portions of that quality! This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but if we felt that the quality was
important enough to train, then it's certainly important enough to maintain.
A better system would be to alternate the phases. So we'd perform a 12-15 rep phase, followed by a 4-6 rep
phase, then an 8-12 rep phase. Using this method of alternating the accumulation and intensification phases,
we never spend more than four weeks going in one rep "direction." Therefore, we avoid most of the problems
of linear periodization.
For a more complete look at periodization, and specifically the limitations of the linear method, checkout Dave
Tate's excellent Periodization Bible series.