MON: 6 Week Cycles in 2019

In case you missed the December podcast, we talked about a few things coming your way in 2019. Largest among them when it comes to the actual fitness is that we’ll be moving to six week long cycles in PSC programming (splitting the difference from eight week cycles in 2017 and four week cycles in 2018).

There are a few major improvements in the works that will occur with the addition of two weeks.

**2 More Weeks of Adaptation — Plainly put, four weeks is not enough to make consistent tangible improvement. We must not forget that the main purpose of a fitness program is to drive adaptation in the body and create improvement. The addition of an extra two weeks will allow you more time to move consistently forward in the major movements.

**A More Narrow PPB Focus –– We’ll be going to one Personal Progress Benchmark (PPB) in a month, allowing a more narrow focus in what you should be trying to improve when it comes to your measured fitness (not strength) in a given cycle. It will also allow us to have elements of that PPB in it’s prescribed day that will help you improve from week one to week six re-test.

For example, let’s say that we have a 5′ Row Test as the PPB for a cycle and it falls on a Friday. We will test it week one and week six like normal, but now every Friday for that cycle we’ll have elements of the conditioning that day that go towards improving your week six re-test.

**Greater Variance — Currently at four week cycles, we have too many PPB days. Week four ends, and week one immediately begins, and we’re finding that too much of the schedule is made up of PPB days. We want them, they are important, but they don’t need to comprise 20% of the schedule.

Going from four to six weeks, plus narrow focus on one PPBs instead of scattered effort of two will give us the opportunity for more workout variance in general. You’ll begin to see more formats and different workout objectives.

**Further Education and Individualization — Six weeks allows us more time to educate and create learning opportunities for you. We don’t have to rush through a cycle, we can go a bit deeper with things, help you work through limitations, sticking points, range of motion issues, aggravations, and anything else.

**Tangible Benchmarks — Every cycle will provide an opportunity to test the main lifts in a given capacity. Perhaps it’s a 3R back squat, a 5R press, a 1R jerk. You’ll always have a chance to see your improvement.

**PHASE 1 — More time to learn movements and get good at them before a cycle ends and we move on. Faster progress.

We’re very excited about the extra two weeks. If you love the structure and focus of the two lifts in a cycle, then this extra time is is a huge win. If you don’t really care and you like variety, the extra two weeks and reduction of the second PPB gives you more of it.

It’s a win for all, and we think your fitness is going to see a lot of improvement.

-Dave

Monday, 12.10.18

First. For Structure
10 UH Grip BB Rows
8 DB Step Ups
8 DB Floor Press
*Work for 15’
—
Then For Conditioning.
As fast as possible.
400m Sprint
—
30-20-10 (44#/26#)
Ring Rows
H2H Swings
Gob Rev. Lunges
—
400m Sprint