Strength Needs Structure: How to Plan the Year and Avoid Program Hopping

Welcome back to Between Two Racks. This week's episode, we're going to talk about how to set up for your best year of strength training. So, let's kick it. This is appropriate cuz I'm sure many people are starting to think about 2026 year training goals for themselves and their clients. So this week's episode, we're going to dive in what to do so that you can set yourself up optimally for 2026. First, I think a big thing when I think of how to really set up long-term success in the gym is identifying well what your goals are and then also having that discussion with your clients to explain to them why having those goals and sticking to those goals will make a big difference in the success of their training. So, we always talk about it on the podcast, the program hoppers. So people that constantly change goals. Personally, I know the year that I started to see my largest success where was one the one that I just told Steph. I was like, "Okay, I want to get as lean as possible this year. I want to still get strong. Just do whatever you know you should be doing." Yeah. Don't listen to me when I think I want to change my mind. So to get us started, Poric, what is the biggest problem with the goal hoppers or not goal hoppers but program hoppers? >> Yeah. No, so the biggest issue there is in strength training everything is very much built on the idea of potentiation. So we're going to use phases to potentiate the next phase to potentiate the next phase. And if those potentiation phases aren't sequenced correctly, all you're doing is nearly restarting each time you start a new phase. So you go from a fat loss phase into a power phase. You're now going from a very metabolic, highly metabolically driven phase with very little strength outcomes into a phase that requires a very substantial strength base and neural outcomes. So it the two just don't mel together. So you have to sequence the appropriate stimulus at the appropriate time to really build a welldeveloped program in the long term. >> So in short because in short so just to help some people on just like quick tips for those things. So what would you say ideally is so say because a lot of people are going to go into the new year as we know and say they want to start with a fat loss phase. Everyone's back from the holidays so everyone wants to do a reset. So if that's what their decision is, like okay, you're starting with a fat loss phase, what should be the next planning goal? >> So like a a low intensity strength focused goal, which could be like it could be a hypertrophy goal, but hypertrophy in the context of strength training. So like that average macrocycle intensity of 75 to 80% with higher than average reps but still moderate compared to like a hypert specialization phase and definitely moderate compared to what you'd be doing in the fat loss phase. So that would still be a like moving in the right direction that or a low-end absolute strength goal that there's going to be slightly higher neural components. So depending on where you're going after that you're you'll have already tapped into the neural side a bit. you'll have already trapped into the hypertrophy side a bit. You're going to be good because it's so like it's important to understand that any changes with strength draining is a slow process. >> Everything is slow. Everything is a grind like like you're we're talking about like changes at the cellular level. So, it takes a while. So, if you're a program hopper and you don't have a direction of where it is you really want to go and you're changing goals or focused before you even created a positive adaptation and what you were trying to do from the in the first place, you're basically just spinning your wheels and going nowhere. So, like Borick was saying, to have a clear sense of how to move from macro to macro is super important. Going back to what I said with so many clients starting wanting to start the year with a fat loss phase. So we have all these coaches right now that most likely have done a lot of our education and they've been assessing long-term periodization. So they have this year's history, possibly even the previous year's history. So, I know we've talked about it before, but when they're looking at their planning for next year and you throw in one of those fat loss phases, how does it affect then like say this year they followed a perfect periodization map of their client goals and what they did, but that fat loss phase doesn't necessarily fit perfectly in that. Do they go back to where they were in their periodization planning or is it kind of like starting over? I don't know like it I think it depends on the client. It depends on the the training background because because there's different ways to approach fat loss also. >> Yeah. So, somebody who's more advanced, somebody who only has like a a smaller amount of fat to drop, you might want to address the fat loss strictly with nutrition and then keep on going with the training process. If it's someone who has a more drastic need for fat loss and then you go through the metabolic route, depending on what the end goal is, it might have a trickle down effect on what's the following phase and maybe kind of need to re adjust or reart the whole like planification process. Like it's it's a hard one to answer here. It's hard because if you do have a client who has missed basically all of December, which we know happens a lot with our clients, then you probably wouldn't want to start with a high like metabolic like fat loss phase. Like Steph said, you want to start with like really dialing in the nutrition, getting them back in the gym. We I just know even for myself, if I miss a week, like the first week back training, like you can't put out like all that effort. So, you know, maybe like Poric said, just like start with like a low lower intensity type of macro, really dial in the nutrition and then you can like >> because to go along with what Alex was saying, there's the training age also plays an important role because if your training age is really low, like let's say less than six months of real training and then you miss all of December, like she was saying, honestly, January 1, you have to start all over because in one month of zero training at that point in time, you basically lost all of that acquired like interomuscular coordination skill. >> Yeah. And that's sort of where like the whole structuring of phase potentiation nearly and doing that across micro cycles makes a huge difference because unfortunately in strength train once we don't train something it gets drained. So that there's why we have to be really cognizant of how these phases go together go together to try and limit that drain as much as possible. So in the long term, all the qualities that we're trying to build up keep getting built up and something doesn't get neglected. >> So I know I just kind of shifted it so much heavily on the fat loss because it is a situation a lot of trainers will be put in at the start of the new year, but hopefully you've been working with clients or even if you're getting new clients, you can explain to them how you think of programming and periodization. You don't need to go in depth, but obviously a great way to start would be an assessment of identifying where your client currently is. So that starts in the new year. So say even if you've been training them, you just want to figure out, okay, what's the biggest limiting factor here? So that first block, that first phase of training will be having to focus on the foundation of what that is, like what they're missing. So for assessments, if you're doing like a movement analysis, what would be your decision then after getting those results of your assessment with what your first phase would be? >> Well, especially if you've already trained them, it might actually be in a movement analysis. That is the assessment. It could be you assessing their strength numbers from the previous year. So you now know where you're bringing their strength orientated goals. And it could be that you're assessing their relative strength and you're using that to dictate whether they need to work in more hypertrophy or they need to work in more relative strength. So we could assess in lots of different ways. So if it is the movement analysis that could dictate, all right, is there any particular movement limitation this client currently has that is going to limit their long-term progress. So say they have a long-term goal of a two times bodyweight squat, but we know their squat pattern looks like [ __ ] All right, there's no point working towards that strength goal. Now, we need to improve that squatting pattern first. So, we could that's where we could maybe use a pad block and then go and address the limitations they currently have, which is going to set them up the best to meet their strength goal later in the year. Is it are they going to meet in that first 12 weeks? [ __ ] no. They're they mightn't squat properly for the first 12 weeks, but we're setting them up long term that they can meet that goal. And that's why you have to always take the big picture into view because building strength on dysfunction that we always say is you're just wasting your time. You're spinning your wheels. >> Yeah. And and then to to that effect though like I'm I'm like u walk I'm coming back to the whole fat loss situation >> because at the same time like when you said that you had a bias with the fat loss with your initial question but but it's important to understand though that body composition is an important factor to optimize to leverage everything else. Because if your client let's say the client is 30% body fat but the client's ultimate goal irrespective of body fat is increased hypertrophy. Hypertrophy work will be optimized when body composition is better. If you're leaner when you start hypertrophy then net gain of m of weight you'll you'll build will be a higher percentage of it will be muscle as opposed to fat. If your goal is power, you'll have way better power outcome if you're leaner than if you're fatter. If your goal is strength, now you could argue that you don't necessarily need to be lean to build strength, but at the same time, you could argue that if you're leaner, your recovery is improved. Hence, you can have higher frequency, higher training volume to drive more strength. So in a way, irrespective of what the goal is, if your client is too fat to start with, it might not be a bad thing no matter what to focus on fat loss irrespective of what the ultimate goal is simply because you know you're going to leverage everything else. And then based off of that, then you can look at the MAP assessment. If the training age is low and there's an issue with a motor pattern and then you need to use a linear approach in terms of exercise progression to get to a proper back squat. And then if you get the proper back squat, then you look at strength ratios and then you look at strength optimization on a neural level instead of a skill level. So it's so layered. It's hard with there's so much nuance to saying fat training for fat loss or fat loss training because the year that I made that decision and said, "Okay, I'm gonna get super lean." I did not do any fat loss specific phases. I was doing all strength training. It was like absolute strength and relative strength, but I was using the nutrition to drive all my results. So like, yeah, it was fat loss training, but not in the weight room specifically. So I think it's also like how do you make that decision for a client? I'm assuming some of it goes on training age and knowing how well they actually train in the gym on if you're choosing a fat loss specialization phase where it's actually more metabolically demanding versus you doing nutrition driven fat loss with them. Yeah. And then it depends how far away from their goal there is. And when like you said, you had a year to work towards that goal. We're not going to give someone metabolic work for a year. So it's one of those that all right, >> are they 15% body fat away from where they want to be? Okay, 15% unless it's a long-term goal, we're probably going to have to introduce some level of metabolic work. Are they 3% away from the where they want to be? Okay, different story. So if they're saying, "All right, by December 2026, I want to be in the my best shape ever. There's a chance they never need to do metabolic style fat loss work. Could it still benefit them? Definitely, possibly. Like, big question, big picture. It always depends. But do they need it? No. We can address that in many other ways. If they say come March 1st they want to be as lean as possible, well, they're going to [ __ ] do some metabolic work and work their ass off. But this just two different situations. So it's always context dependent. Like one way you could look at this is >> if the client's ultimate goals are more like physique based like it's more hypertrophy. It's more looks like strength per se or power is not necessarily something that motivates the client. and the fat loss that needs to be uh achieved is higher, then spending more time doing metabolic type work will be beneficial because you'll speed up the process and the negative effect you'll get in terms of neural output that will ultimately affect strength is not as big of a deal. If it's someone who's really focused and driven by strength numbers, then you might want to reassess and consider, well, you know what, let's focus more on nutrition so that the training stimulus can stay more like around the strength realm and the nutrition is doing the work. And then the other layer is then the training age. Because if your training age is really really low and you're really fat, then the problem with the metabolic work is it might not be as effective as you thought it'd be for fat loss purposes because your ability to tap into motor units and generate output with the training is not there. So then you might want to do strength training that is more neural dominant to learn to um to recruit more motor units so that eventually the training becomes more dominant if you're doing metabolic type work. Then you might add extra work with let's say modified strongman conditioning sessions where now you can generate output and metabolic outcome without necessarily the need for building interuscular coordination. So there there's just there's multiple route but the in my opinion no matter what the fat loss is something you need to consider and and get rid of early. I would think most clients like the real like the gen pop like who's not doesn't necessarily have a specific goal like we we know those clients I mean they would all have to start with nutrition right that first like three weeks >> drop inflammation >> drop inflammation they haven't been training even if it's just 10 days they've been on vacation you know they're inflamed they've been eating a lot of sugar you need to reset those patterns you benefit just doing a three-w week no matter what if you want to start doing the metabolic stuff. I think I would almost wait three weeks, just do one phase of like or three to six weeks phase of just like general strength training and really really like hammer the nutrition and then get into metabolic work, especially if they have the shortterm goal, you know, they want that Beach Body for uh for spring break. With our new online, like the PAB course being out, I do think it's time for a lot of coaches to take the time to truly understand how to apply PABS because the start of a year is a great time to use those. So that like when you were saying they have a long-term strength goal or even a long-term physique goal, >> you can't have them doing all of the movements or all of the training if they're so limited or they have strength limitations, injury limitations, anything. That's the time to set it up so that it doesn't stay an issue in the long term because you're only going to continually compound any issues if you're not addressing them. Yeah, it's one of those things that PAB is designed as the foundation. It's why it's under strength preparation. It is a base onto which to build more complex strength programming. Whether that is strength programming dictated towards body composition, strength part, what whatever that is, it's there to lay that foundation of better movement patterns, more resiliency around the joints, etc., etc., etc. So no, no matter what, it's a great there's never a bad time to do well, there is a bad time to do pab before if you're trying to peak, don't do pab, but in terms of long-term programming, there's never a bad instance of starting that long-term programming with a pab block. No matter what, it's going to create greater upside than jumping ahead and getting into more advanced techniques very quickly. the start of the year if that's the time you're sharpening with clients. Great time. They're coming off probably unactive training period. So introducing all these single joint movements, working through long range of motion, spending longer times under attention, it's all going to be very very very beneficial and for these trainees in their long in their preparation for the best training year ever. I mean actually like honestly like if you're if you're looking at training on and its most simplistic components and you're looking at your long-term success on a true phase potentiation or linear approach like a very good balanced year for the majority of your clients could literally be macro one of a new year. So January 1st you introduce like APAB macro cycle then macro two then you move into more of a standard hypertrophy training protocol >> and then macro three now you move on to maximal strength. So either a little bit more of absolute strength bias or relative strength bias and then macro four depending on the skills and goals of the trainee. Then it could be a power macro or a relative strength macro assuming that macro three was absolute strain. So now it's very linear. It's literally optimized for phase potentiation because phase one builds into phase two. Phase two builds into phase three. Phase three builds into phase four. But the good thing is now year two. So now like you finish your power relative strength cycle in December and then you take the Christmas New Year's off. Then you start January again. Well, guess what? It might be a great time to do another PAB macro because now you spent like three macros training hard, hammering the joints like the high forces demands of power for example. So PAB could serve as a unloading macro for the more advanced traininee. It could be used as a fine-tuning macro for the intermediate trainee who need some work in very targeted areas. So, in my opinion, like if you don't have any like truly specific goals, this is a very healthy and smart way to set up your years and have like continuous success for a few years at least. It's interesting because you know most clients won't say they don't have any goals like it's always go they will have goals and the majority of them will be physique driven or just health driven I want to feel good but unless like you were saying earlier Poric unless they're like okay I'm starting the year and by March I have a trip that I'm going to get the best it's way better to always think of that longterm approach. approach and then help them with nutrition to help guide the physique and the goals. But to just constantly just give someone only fat loss and hypertrophy like highintensity training, you're not setting up for the long like you're going to they're going to hit a plateau. They're not going to continually progress in the gym. They're going to get frustrated. So with those clients that do have the physique goals but not a time specific, it's definitely setting it up the long term to build on the specificity as they go through the year. >> Yeah. And most of them like while they will have the physique goal, they suck at setting goals because there's nothing specific about the goal. It's I want to look better. >> Okay, cool. Like buy nicer clothes, you're going to look better. Like it's one of those things like what do you mean? what what do you actually want out of this training? What is the time frame? Because it all it all makes such a difference into how you program. But if obviously if they're not going to give you more specific goals setting up for that it's a long-term client that you're going to be able to have the greatest impact on because no matter what long-term you're going to have a better ability to create outcomes than short term. So setting up that you're taking a long-term approach is always going to be the most beneficial way. >> I almost sorry it's almost like the goal is to never have to do a fat loss specialization, right? Like if they really follow the plan and their nutrition on is on point, then they shouldn't really need to do that unless >> well and that's the I think the biggest selling point and with long-term periodization is that it's that gradual you're earning it, you're keeping it, you're maintaining it. So even if okay you get you reach that goal for March and then they go off. It's not that you're back to the starting point. Okay, you go up a few percentages and but it's easy to get it back off because you have the strength, you have the coordination, you have the movement ability, you know how to train well. So it doesn't take you forever again to get back to it. The one thing though that I I want to say and and I've I've realized this over the years training people is goals are important but it becomes tricky in my opinion with physique oriented goals because if you're if you have a very specific target in terms of physique goal like you're let's say you're like okay I want to weigh like 225 and I want to be 8% body fat and this is your goal and then you train for that goal in mind and you're going to do everything you can to reach that these results. Now the problem is you might set like a certain time frame. So let's say you're 12 weeks or 16 whatever it might be but then what happen if you don't reach it in the time frame you decided. So then what you so you keep on going until you reach the goal but then you start draining other things. uh you start like having like um joint issues because you keep grinding and grinding. Now you're starting to have like diet fatigue. So you're more likely to start cheating and blah blah blah. So then you don't reach your goal and then as you didn't reach your goal now you also dera a bunch of other stuff. So now like you're burnt out then we kind of need to start over. But so the way I see it is that's why I always semi- jokingly say when people ask me what do you train for? I always say just to be jacked because to me being jacked I know it's very non-specific but my goal is I want to to slowly keep getting more muscular leaner and stronger that's very nonspecific but the reality is once you've been training for a long time change like physiological changes are very very slow like I was saying in the beginning it you need time you need patience you need to accept the grind and the process of eating, recovering, training, eating, recovering, training. And then eventually, if you keep doing this consistently with effort, then 18 months, two years later, you look at yourself in the mirror and you're like, "Wow, like now I have the physique that I wanted, but it took a while." So, but what's important is in that process of getting jacked is now you can have more targeted goals that are a reflection of the macro cycle you're doing. So, if I'm doing a absolute strength macro cycle, then I could have a specific target. Okay, I want to increase my squat by 20% over that 12-week period. So now you have a very specific target that you're aiming for that's numbers oriented that's strength oriented but as you're going for that goal for that 12week phase one of the side effect is improvement in jackness >> that in a year two years later you'll see but if you don't have little goals like this and your only goal is 225 8% body fat then to me it becomes like a a process where you you almost have more room for for uh failure than success. >> It's almost like you want the goal to be to maintain being like 6 weeks or 12 weeks away from a crazy like >> transformation >> transformation either like your body or strength or power or whatever. Like so you're always like you're just close enough but you can't you know obviously you can't maintain that high intensity type of training forever but you want to be close enough that you can do you can get there really quick. >> Yeah. The gradual part of it like you're not always just slamming yourself to get to it. >> Everybody that I've ever met in my life that's truly jacked >> never stops. >> That's kind of like the approach they take. They they they never stop. you just keep going with consistency and with true effort in a scenario that's feasible for them to maintain that output for an extended period of time. But every time you, especially with the physique goal, you go the route of, okay, now I got six weeks, I got 12 weeks, I got this event, I got this photo shoot, I got this wedding, I got this vacation, then you're falling in the trap of, you know, >> it's like yo-yo because you're running yourself through the ground with a physique goal, then strength numbers decreases. It's like you have to be careful like if you're a physique competitor, it's a it's a different story. that is what you're doing. I get it. But, uh, I do feel that trying, like Alex says, trying to avoid the extreme is the best way to truly have long-term success. >> Well, and especially if you like it, it all ties back into what you were saying, how important focusing on physique early on with clients and not physique where you're saying like they're getting ready for a bodybuilding show. physique in the sense of like a healthy leanness that's maintainable for Gen Pop. So, I know we don't have specific numbers here, but we do have like general numbers for saying if you're working with a male client, you probably want him around 18 is like a safe percentage to get to. Like obviously it's not lean, but it's manageable for most Gen Pop to reach and maintain. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, depending on what tracking device you're using, I I like 15 personally for male, but >> and 18 for females. >> No, it's like 23. >> 23 for females. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I mean, for like we're good. We're we're talking here about like having a healthy level of body fat, you know, where >> you're healthy, you can train hard, you're if you focus on hypertrophy with a small surplus, like your ratio of muscle to fat lipogen genesis won't be like, >> it's those numbers where, >> like you were saying, it's in that safe part where they're not far away from being able to just drive nutrition for a shorter shorter period of time and reaching a goal because unless until you've done it, I don't think people genuinely understand >> that >> getting lean you express your jackedness. Like people have there's can be plenty of people that are carrying too much body fat, but you don't even know that they're probably [ __ ] jacked because they have a lot of muscle. They're just not lean enough to see the muscle. >> Express it. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. You know, there's a crazy change and it's always different for everyone, but you can go you can get like 1% leaner and look >> 20 pounds heavier just from that. They're slight bit of leanness and everything all of a sudden pops and then when it is even more amplified when you're training and the pumps are more extreme and everything's slightly more serrated. So, it's yeah, it's a huge difference. For me personally, it's like all of this year 2025, I've sat more around the 15 16% like on the InBody. That's what I've been at. And then because I've been as low as what did I I know on did I get to 10 on InBody? I think at one point >> you reached 10.4 at one point. >> But like I like that sweet spot of like you were saying it's 1% but say I'm I've been at 15 16. When I get to 12 like the 12 13 like I'm shredded. Like to me, I'm like, "Oh, look, I'm shredded." So, it's it's crazy what that little change makes. And it's just nutrition that drives it so much >> cuz it's not like I've massive my muscle didn't disappear. Like, it's still >> Yeah. But the good thing is like for for you when you sit around at 15 16 which is kind of like your >> quote unquote set point at this point in time what's cool now is if you are in a situation where you want to get shredded now you know that it's you're a few weeks away. >> Yeah. So, it's way easier and more realistic to have a high effort for a four to six week period than it is to start thinking, okay, now for the next 12 to 24 weeks, I need to be hardcore and have the perfect lifestyle and dialed in like that. That's brutal. That and and that's the problem. Like it it's it's one of these things where the risk of the rebound following that >> Yeah. period of time. >> The period of time is is huge. So, >> like I'm just such a big fan of the slow grind, patience, uh improve your habits, but then I I love the fat loss specialization, but as a as a special tool, as a like as a needs, like sometimes somebody will need it and benefit from it and it's actually going to be helpful in the bigger picture. Yeah. Like if you've been training heavy and strength dominant for a while and then you're you're starting plateauing with the strength and you're starting to have some lingering like connective tissue issue because you're always lifting heavy on average. >> Well, guess what? Even if you're not that fat to do a 12week fat loss specialization where now everything changes. Right now you're doing full body. It's very metabolic. Now you're improving capacities that you haven't touched in forever. So now your overall general conditioning is better. Your uh endurance is improved. Your uh mitochondria functions are better. Your capillary density is greater. Your oxygen consumption is greater, which then translate afterwards into better recovery from your training. So, it it's one of those things that it it's not directly related to improved performance in strength, but to stay away from strength for 6 to 12 weeks. And doing a fat loss specialization is one of those things that will benefit in the long run because now when you get back to strength after now the strength will almost feel like a new novelty stimulus where now the body has something to reacquire or so I I I almost look at it as one step back to go two steps forward but once in a while like once every 18 months once every every two years like a a hypertrophy specialization or fat loss to me is a cool tool. But that's that's how with most of my clients, that's how I use these. >> Well, I even think of you right now with your training. It's not fat loss, but you're doing triceps and the like you were just the feeling for you was so different compared to what you had been doing that I know that we keep talking about it, but like your vascularity just from doing the triceps, even though it's over the last year, two years with you doing all the cardio, you've added like your vascularity improved, but then you just went from you're on week three or four of >> starting week three. >> Yeah. of your triceps and then you were like, "Holy [ __ ] I'm even more vascular now just because of that change in your training." >> Yeah. But see, like I hadn't done any type of metabolic work since since April and May 2022 when we all did it together. So, it was like almost three and a half years. >> And I'm like I'm responding. Like I'm actually enjoying it. I like the the exhaustion, the burn, the pump, but it it it's a novelty stimulus. So now I feel that not only did it spark a I'm excited about my workouts now. It's hard as hell, but I'm excited about it. It's going to create a drastic change because it's a stimulus I'm not used to. But then guess what? In January, when I get back to more strength work, I'll be like hungry for it. I'll be excited for it. And that might spark new progress. >> Should we do like kilo crew metabolic work December or something? >> No. >> Thank you for the first one. >> Actually, it's a requirement for not giving you the option. We could do we could you already have conditioning. You can do another conditioning. You'll be fine. >> We can attempt to do a conditioning this holiday since we're not traveling and we'll be home. I already Steph said to me over the weekend, he's like, "Are you willing to come to the gym on Thursday morning on Thanksgiving to train?" And I was like, "Hell yeah, I want to. We can do that." >> Yep. >> Well, we So, I'll take us back so we can move forward. So, your first So, setting up getting back to the bigger picture of the episode. So, setting up for your best year of training phase one, you want to build the foundation. So, assess any weaknesses that the client has. really think about, okay, how am I going to best set my clients and myself up for those long-term goals? Phase two, then you can get a little bit more specific in, okay, you identified any weaknesses, you worked on them in the first macro cycle, the first 12 weeks of training. So now phase two, macro cycle two, you can get a little bit more specific with the goals. And then because it could be maybe you will have some clients that still need more foundation work. You can get more specific with that work, but they might still need more. But then you get to macro cycle three. So now you're far into the year. This is when again you're either assessing if they still need something or now you can get more specific with their end goal. You're getting closer to a peak per se. Okay. So, like the first macro of the year, we're definitely trying to lay the best foundation for that client. Whether that be a PB macro cycle, a fat loss macro cycle, hypertroy macro cycle, it like doesn't really matter. That depends on where the client is, where their goals are at, and what their long-term progression look like looks like. Microcycle 2, we're going to somewhat need to readress strength to some extent no matter what. it has not been a priority in macro cycle one. Everything else sort of has to you have to lay that foundation first. So macro cycle two we're like all right let's take a step back. We'll move more towards a generalized strength plan depending on where they started and where they're trying to go. That could be anything from hyperty based strength plan right up to relative strength. If it's a really advanced trainee and they've done a more of a hyperty first macro then macro cycle three you have to step back. All right. Have they movement limitations still? Do we need to do another pad macro cycle? Have they need for more hypertrophy? Do we need to do more hypertrophy work? Are they good and all this? And we need to keep driving strength, but they've just done a relative strength macro cycle. So, we still need to back off because we can't just keep pushing relative strength for the rest of the year. So, we're going to back off and do an absolute strength macro cycle. So it's very much you need to take a step back at this stage really look at where they've come from where they're trying to go to and then decide where what is the right route to get there and know that you still have two macro cycles within this year. You don't need to get there within this phase. It you it is fine to take a step the whole way back and lay more foundation for the last phase of the year. >> Yeah. I mean that that was well said well explained. It's like the the way I I I like to put it is if you're a a year one traininee, so like a true novice, uh we feel that using more of a linear setup for your training year is a smarter approach because you're coaxing towards the higher intensities. It's it's just more sustainable for long-term progress. But if you're intermediate or advanced then uh like Poric was saying like revisiting strength then you back off like it's almost at that point you need to look at your training year on a undulatory fashion like the same way we you look at a macro cycle with undulating periodization models. Now you know like you start your macro one where it's more either metabolic dominant or lower intensity. Okay, it could be the fat loss, could be the PAB, it could be a hypertrophy. But then if you're more advanced, then you revisit strength. But it's okay to revisit strength with relative strength. Whereas a novice to go from, let's say, PAB into relative strength would be way too abrupt. So you can't do this. So the novice you need to understand and accept that the year will be more linear in its progression from macro to macro. But the more advanced, okay, let's let's jump to relative strength. Months four, five, six, you're doing relative strength. Good. Then months seven, eight, nine. Now, at one point, okay, now we've driven neural output. We've created a lot of more stress on the connective tissue, the joints with all that heavy loading. So now I would not necessarily want right away macro 3 to go into power. you might want to go back to lower intensity or more metabolic kind of work to make sure that you don't keep draining these skills, making sure that you don't start losing muscle mass. So, it might be that now you're going back to a standard hypertrophy and then you could finish the year with another relative strength is more your focus. Or if your ultimate focus at the end of the year was power, well then when you're backing up from relative strength, instead of going into hypertrophy, now you go into absolute strength, which is still strength, but there's a slight hypertrophy bias. But at least the transition from absolute strength to power is not as drastic than a transition from pure hypertrophy to power, which I would not recommend. You know, like I think the training age mixed in with the ultimate goal is what's going to allow you to decipher how the progression of your year will actually look. >> I know you brought it up earlier and we've talked about it a few times, the relative strength, like assessing those numbers. I know we teach that in our comprehensive program design course and then it's part of the athlete offseason assessment. It's one of the tests within the athlete offseason assessment in general like relative strength we're assessing their strength numbers based on their body weight. >> I know we won't dive into all the details but are there guidelines to provide to coaches on like what you're looking at for that? I think a really simple way of putting it is if they've got low levels of relative strength, it means neurally assuming their body weight is somewhat realistic. >> Realistic. >> I don't know. >> Okay. Realistic might be the right word, but >> you know what we mean. >> Yeah. I mean, if you're 460, I mean, it's going to be hard. Yeah. It's going to be hard to be good. So, be realistic with your your growth. But if your uh relative strength isn't high, so you have a low relative strength, it generally means that you're generally very inefficient. You don't have a massive ability to tap into a lot of high threshold motor units and express force. Well, and this is just generated or generate this number of your maximum strength compared to your body weight because it's a very easy number for people to relate to. Could you do this with absolute loads? 100%. But absolute loads are way more subjective. Cuz if I said, okay, some you squat or someone squats 300 lb, is that good? Maybe. If they weigh 100 pounds, it's [ __ ] good. If they weigh 300 lb, it sucks. Yeah. >> So, it depends. So, whereas if we say as your relative strength, you have a one times body weight squat, you're nearly you're not really great. Like, we we can really improve that nearly. But if you have a three times body weightight squat, you're like, "Oh, [ __ ] Nearly there efficient." We now need to take that into account within our training parameters. >> And then another one to obviously look at is even like chin-up strength for upper body. Like can you do a chin-up? What how many can you do compared to your body weight? >> Yeah. So there's loads of ways to look at there's loads of ways you can infer what that means and how you should use that to dictate your training. But it's just one way we like to assess the overall situation to see what is going to be the best structure or the best overall goal for that trainee to help long-term progress. Like no test is perfect. There's always nuances, but at least we like this because it's an easy test, relevant test that at least it gets some guessing out of the equation and knowing what to do with the training. like we we're we're assessing to have more guidance on decision making for uh planning and periodization. So using your relative strength ratio is a really clever and easy way to guide these decisions because if your relative strength is weak and you're neurally inefficient well now we know that the training needs to favor uh neural development and in the early stage guess what it is it's inter muscular coordination and interuscular coordination is improved at lower intensity so I'm not going to go and do a power relative strength phase if neurally you don't have the skills to leverage that type of training. So it's so it's important in the decision process. >> Yeah. Because it's somewhat counterintuitive. You say someone's neurally inefficient. Oh, let's let's do neural work. Let's give them 321 weaves. >> Well, no, they're nearly inefficient. They're going to suck at that. That is going to like they're not going to get >> improve their ability. No, they're not going to get any training effect out of it because they haven't got the ability to tap into these high threshold motor units and actually benefit from something that neurally driven. We need to build that skill and you have to build that skill from the bottom up. You can't start >> most clients, right? Like most like average clients can't squat their body weight. >> Yeah. >> And then Yeah. >> refer to the continuum inter muscular coordination webinar with Porix to get ready for those clients in the new year. >> Yeah. But but even even with with relatively advanced trainings like people that we would classify as intermediate that have been training for a while like a lot of the coaches we see in in the classroom here they don't necessarily have a super high level of of neural skills. So even people like that you might need to redirect your goals and the decision making be simply because it's not because you've been training for a while that you're necessarily that strong depending on their training background depending on what they've done because as we know you can be training and training and training and training and training for years but you're just spinning your wheels because the the the timing of your training makes no sense on a bigger picture. I do think I hope I mean we know strength training is getting popular but I do hope then there's a push for people to really be able to understand strength training to capitalize on the fact that getting stronger should be like we always say hypertrophy is a byproduct of strength training. They're not separate they're done together but it's the same thing and we see it a lot. People train and train and train but they're never actually getting stronger. And when you do focus on your strength, then all of the other side effects of training are much easier to capitalize on because you have that foundation of strength. Real strength >> real strength. >> Yeah. >> But even hypertrophy, like just historically speaking, if you look at bodybuilders in the late 40s, early 50s, a lot of these guys were like really strong. like a lot of their training was things they were referring like >> Yeah. No, no, no. >> So, they had to get strong to make a difference, >> of course. But, but but but but it was a big part of their >> that was just the way they trained, right? >> Yeah. Yeah. But but the it was part of their identity as well because a lot of these guys would train with Olympic lifters, would train with powerlifters and no matter what there's still this competitive edge, right? So you had bodybuilders like benching 500 >> like you know like >> they often competed in both right powerlifting and >> like they did like for one half the year they did powerlifting second half the year they did bodybuilding or or the reverse >> because now I mean now the the bodybuilding world has kind of niched itself into like a thing but it doesn't mean that historically uh I mean we can clearly demonstrate that strength is highly related to hypertrophy. So, it's not like you need to stay away from strength even if your goal is physique achievements. I think they they they're married pretty well. >> So, we've assessed the first three and obviously then we have the final macro cycle of the year when that is just hopefully everything has gone as planned and you're capitalizing on the original set goal. this is going to be the peak the show of what you've been prepping for. >> Especially if it's a strength or power orientated goal. Obviously, if it's physique goal, it's somewhat of a year round grind towards it. But it still should be you. If even if it is a physique goal, it should still should be you >> trying to capitalize on the rest of the year. >> But as a strength or a par goal, now you've truly laid the foundation for a full year. It's now time to really dial in everything. So your exercise selection specificity is going to be higher. Your number of sets that you're doing for those primary exercises probably going to be higher. You're going to have you might have to back off your remedial or assistance work to allow for greater exposure of those. You maybe you're going to have to play about with slightly more advanced thing like meocy loan to help really truly express strength as to the fullest potential as possible. So this is where the bells and whistles can come out a little and things can get more complicated, but it does it also doesn't have to. It could just be the highest intensity phase of the year and a byproduct of that will allow you to show your greatest strength potential of the year as well. So there's loads of ways to do it and depending where someone is in their train career really does dictate how much bells and whistles they need. just the cool thing like I know that power as a general goal for most trainee is not a very popular thing. Um but for us it's important it's part of who we are kilo. So we're always going to talk about power. But I think that one very misunderstood part about a power cycle is if your year is built so that your peak macro so month 10 11 12 is power. One of the advantages is to keep in mind and we mention this all the time but Zatiorski's fitness fatigue paradigm. What's good with power is if the first three months uh three macros of your year were really intense, a lot of heavy training, you've built some size in the early stages and now you're doing your power. What's what you're going to notice is by the end of the macro because the volume is so low and it's all about quality and you're not trying to train to failure at this point in time is a lot of trainees I'm talking more about the I intermediate or advanced trainings they're are going to feel great because now the volume is decreased. So now they can actually express their level of fitness and their preparedness. And some of them sometimes they will comp they will overcompensate by a slight increase in muscle mass because the overall volume does not create fatigue and now they can actually recover. They're going to feel great. Their strength is going to be great. Their nervous system will be wired. And then you start the next year and they're feeling refreshed. They're feeling good. they don't have any pain or anything like that. So then these people then you can start the next year with a hypertrophy macro. There might not be even a need for PAB and then you can leverage the hell of your out of your hypertrophy because now your nervous system is super wired. Your level of fatigue is nowhere to be found. You're fresh. So guess what's going to happen with your hypertrophy? >> You're truly going to leverage it. So I I think that if you're somewhat advanced to plan for power can have benefits outside of just power per se. And that I think that's a mis understood or or disregarded aspect of macros like that. >> Yeah. And power doesn't have to be that complicated. >> Not at all. We could simply just you can reduce your strength work to somewhat of a maintenance and add in some lighter higher velocity movements or like exercises of the exact same movement pattern. Like you can just do squats at 60% for low amount of sets, low amount of reps and express power and you'll get the benefits. Is it going to be the best PAR program ever? No. There's you can be really complex. You can do loads, >> but you're not doing it for like an athletic performance. That's that's that's your exactly that that's the key point and that's where I think people get confused because so much of the power information comes from the athletic world >> and there's a huge difference between training power for an athlete and training power for a a recreational lifter. Yeah. >> Because if I if me personally I don't compete in sports anymore. So personally if I'm doing power I'm doing power to improve power in the in the gym lifts. So, I can just do power with explosive strain. I might not need to focus on starting strain. I might not need to focus on reactive strain. I could just do explosive strain with a strain, a classic straight exercise like Poric was talking about. I'm doing bench press at 50 60% of what I am explosively and bam, that's it. Like, is it is it the ideal? No, because there is a deceleration component, but it's a different stimulus. You're tapping into different motor units. Uh to me, it's it's a cool thing. I think people should aim to venture into power training a little bit more. >> That was us last year. And it's and even with the power course I had, we are very specific in saying that it's a course for power in the weight room in the gym. It's not like athlet. It's not that you can't take those principles and understand them to be able to better apply in the athletic scenarios, but that is specifically we're talking about power expressed with weights in the gym. >> Yep. Yeah. >> What do you guys think? This is not going to be a popular question. So you have a client. So a lot of my clients were like this, right? Like they we know I know that they like they train. They don't have like a specific goal, but fat loss is always kind of a goal. They travel a lot. They mess up. All those things. And I know at the last macro of the year, this is when it's the holidays, they always mess up. So I want to do a fat loss. I want to do full body with them. I wanted to be metabolic because they're not going to be good with their food. >> Yeah. >> So, if I work backwards, then macro two, I would also I'm just bear with me. Macro two, I'm also going to do a fat loss phase. I'm trying to set up the macros. All right. So then the first so January that first macro I'm going to do more like a hyp like hypertrophy type of intensity like not a hyp like general strength but a low intensity then macro two then I go into fat loss intensive macro three I would do more of a absolute strength and then macro four I would do another fat loss just because it would having the macro two there will prep them for the summer again they're not good with their nutrition so they're getting more metabolic work in the gym and then macro 4 like I said because it's the holidays. >> Yeah. I mean that would work. That would work but it it would be more reactive like it's not your it's >> your planning but but I know but we all have those clients that just year in year out they're always like they just want to train. They don't want to focus too much on nutrition. So that's a way that I still get them to strength train and I still get them metabolically more, you know, >> but at the same time I would wonder that you know you're saying you're assigning that full 12 week time in the two and the four to a fat loss thing. But sometimes if cuz you're talking about clients that like you said have a hard time like sticking to the nutrition, but those people you do still want to focus on getting them stronger. >> Yeah. So that's macro one and three. >> I I don't know like >> anything but like that >> like so what she's describing is reactive periodization. So, she's planning to do damage control, and that's fine because that's going to be a lot of your Gen Pop clients, and those are mostly like the two times a week type of client, the somewhat not as committed. They think they are, but they're obviously not that committed. They miss a lot. But >> the reality is why I'm not against this is the reality with that clientele. I don't necessarily believe that periodization per se is a is a needed tool. Yeah. >> I mean, what's good about what Alex is describing is at least you're you're subjecting the trainee to different styles of training to keep things a little interesting at periods where they want to focus more on fat loss and feel like they're achieving more fat loss while you're doing it. So, psychologically, the client is more locked in. But physiologically speaking as a purist of strength training and periodization >> is this ideal? Not no not really. >> But I mean it's fine. But we're we're talking about such low level of of like >> peaking and so it's >> Yeah. >> Yeah. They're not trying to peek in. >> I think the best part of it is since you're doing the 12 weeks of strength in between >> cuz they're not going to get strong. We know that. But they're going to drain the metabolic functions. So at least when it reintroduces they're going to get another stimulus again. So it's not just year round metabolic. >> No, that's true. Because because >> if that that's always something that's bothered me like you you have like training facilities sometimes that their entire programming all they do all the time is fat loss, metabolic boot camp type of stuff. The problem with this is the adaptation occurs really really quick and then nothing happens. Especially when it's group training and it's always the same output >> happens. >> Yeah. Nothing happens. So at least you're creating changes and different stimulus to spark something >> because I'm I'm definitely against doing the same thing all the time. >> At least because some might say, well, isn't your strength work always the same thing? A B AB and C series whatever. But not really because we have changes in motor patterns, we have changes in intensities, we have changes in volume, prescription. So that's what I mean that you don't necessarily see with boot camp or metabolic type work because >> these are density based. These are limited by the time frame you have for the session. So there's just there's not a lot of variations you can do here. It cannot be that in that intense. So to me, what Alex is describing, I think it's smart because you want to have more metabolic work prior to the summer because they always they always want to look their best in the summer and you want to do it in the winter during the holidays, especially in in the United States with Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year's that's all crammed within that fiveweek period. You want to minimize or do damage control as much as possible. I mean, I'd like that approach with that clientele for sure. Especially if they don't really have a if their only goal is I'm training to be healthy and then have general fitness. That's fine. >> I don't know how much we started on a topic and then we kind said it, but I think that what's hard is like I framed it with saying how to set up. So, I'm we covered it a little bit, but it's kind of like you have to look at everything to be able to set up for the best year and then staying on track of all of it throughout the year. So, how to set up for your base year is like, well, one, most of you, I'm sure if not all of you are already tracking all of the data for your clients. And I think an important one that some trainers might overlook and I know we've discussed it a few times is the whole like truly assessing your client's readiness as a whole. So in the session post session and it's I know in train heroic there's the readiness score but if your client's not completing that it's asking them just conversationally at the start of a session well how have you been feeling? How's it going? Like how's your sleep? Keeping track of those things. But there is this study though like it's a 22 I think 2022 study that showed that asking the trainee about their readiness is not as accurate >> as having them answer a questionnaire without a person in their face. So actuality, when it comes to readiness, you're going to have a more accurate score if they're doing it on their own, answering the questions than if you're in their face asking it the question. >> I would say you'd kind of want both. Like maybe not constantly asking because I look back at the freaking clients in HB when they do the readiness and then the post >> thing. Like you kind of need to have a grasp on what you think your clients think is hard. >> Yeah. But I also don't even think you have to ask them. You have a conversation with them. You talk to them as a normal person because yeah, like it comes out real quick because it's like, oh, like some you just ask them how their morning's been. I didn't sleep well. That's this got away from me. All right, this is going to be fun. >> Yeah. >> But the the thing the reason why I'm really big on the readiness though as opposed to chitchatting >> is I'm not like the number. No, but I I I I'm not downplaying the importance of having communication and and that that's good. You need to have that. But >> why I would rely more on the numbers is because the numbers you have them for every session. So you you you can have better understandings of trends that's happening with the training. So now you can know, you know what, I'm noticing that with client X, every time we do hypertrophy, if the volume, as soon as we push the higher end of the volume, the readiness score crashes. So now in the future, I might know that I need to use more of a moderate approach with volume with hypertrophy to monitor the readiness. But if you only have >> discussion once in a while, it's it's hard to really have a grasp of what's going on to help you as a coach make better decisions. So going back to so just setting up like knowing your you have all of your systems in place, your systems frameworks to get ready for your clients because we know the start of the year there's that little bit of a slow but then it ticks up and then it's busy. So you just have to be ready be ready with all of the different tools to handle any clients that you're faced with. And if you're looking for your own training, you can hit us up for personalized programming or some of our train heroic programs. Now we have Mass Avenue for hypertrophy, Burn for fat loss, Tempo Town for those people. I like to say the Tempo Town is for the people like we've been talking that just want to streng Yeah. train. You get the strength, you get the hypertrophy. And then also intensity, which ties it back into what you were saying, Steph, how power is just never as popular. It's definitely our train her program that doesn't has the least amount of clients in it, but that touches a little bit on power throughout the year. >> Yeah. So, more absolute strength, relative strength, and a little bit of power. >> Like we're they're currently in a par macro cycle right now. So, they're all having a lot of fun >> because it's the end of the year. >> Train kilo.com. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you next week. Like, subscribe, share.