3 Training Principles That Anchor the Performance360 Program

Written by Dave Thomas

You know what I find insulting? The notion that every fitness consumer out there is so dumb, so filled with ADD that you have to dilute the purpose of fitness in order to attract and keep them. This idea that if every workout you produce isn’t some vastly different experience than the day before it, then they will be sooooo bored that they quit.

No. I don’t buy into that idea at all. I think our consumers are smart and I think they understand the difference between a long term program and a short term workout.

Programs follow principles. Workouts chase calories.

In that vein, here are three principles that we put at the forefront of our program design at Performance360, that are quietly at work for you every single day you show up.

1. PROGRESSIVE OVERLOAD
The continuous and ongoing increase of total workload in a training session that will drive the further development of strength, performance, and lean muscle increases. In other words, continue to increase your weights, your volume, and your intensity.

This is absolutely critical to getting results in a straightforward and timely manner, and the reason why our training is periodized into cycles. We must provide you the ability to repeat something often and in doing so, improve at it each time that you do so in at least one of our training variables.

2. S.A.I.D Principle
Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands states that if you want to get better at something then you must do it consistently for a structured period of time. In other words, random training is not as effective as the exposure to consistently performing a movement for a given period of time.

What skill or life outcome would working on something randomly somehow get you better than doing it consistently? I mean, what fucking nonsense is this? This is why in a cycle here, you’ll see the front squat every Monday for four weeks, the bench press on Friday, etc.

Then, it changes.

Expose yourself to the consistent adaptation that a highly effective movement can provide.

 ⚡️Think about SAID as the opportunity to repeat main movements in a cycle regularly to become more proficient in your technique, with PO is the opportunity to increase the weight at which you move them. Both outcomes provide you with results.

3. PERIODIZATION
Planned and deliberate phases of training that are lengthy enough for you to receive benefit without being so long that your body temporarily plateaus. If you allow a movement to wear out is welcome, then your body will simply adapt to the stimulus you are giving it and it will be more and more challenging to make progress in that movement. Not to mention, long training cycles lend itself to fascial disruption and injury.

This is why it’s just as imperative that you rotate movements as it is that you perform movements consistently.

An easy way to understand this concept is the phenomenon of “newbie gains.” When you are new to a fitness program of any kind you make the highest percentage of your progress in your entry level stage to it. It’s because the stimulus is brand new to your body and for a long while, it responds with nothing but favorable adaptation. You feel like you stumbled onto the magic program but in reality it’s just the consistent exposure of effective stimulus. In our world, this looks like your central nervous system learning how to recruit more motor units and your neuromuscular efficiency (your brain talking to you muscles) improving.

However, around that 18 month mark your progress starts to slow. Your central nervous system becomes highly efficient. You didn’t do anything wrong, it’s that your body has adapted. It’s in this stage that a lot of people quit a program to go do something else when in reality, adaptation is what you strive for! You just have to keep driving it.

⚡️This is why we have a program that constantly refreshes the movements and the focuses.

I’ve seen this gym produce 600# deadlifting males, 300# squatting women, 40 strict unbroken pull-ups, five minute miles, 68″ box jumps, 400# benches — all under this principle of efficient, effective cycle rotations.

I understand that these outcomes are likely not your goal, but they illustrate a point of what periodization can do for you specific to what you want to achieve. If these 1% fitness outcomes are possible, surely, consistent effort in this environment can bring you what you want to see for your own performance, health, confidence, or physique.

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These three make up the backbone of our program. If they’re missing from your current program, it’s just someone spewing a bunch of marketing garbage at you. Quit. Join here.

And if you’re a current member who likes to chase shiny new toys, maybe don’t for a minute. See what happens.