Charles poliquin/volume/frequency

[Santa_Claus]

What's your opinion on his training principles? I just read this article and im a bit confused about the importance of frequency&volume for a bber/strength athlete. I just started to nail down the importance of periodization and the fact that fatigue is cummulative over medium/long periods of time.

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/charles3.htm

Again, im confused about periodization. To allow recovery and gains, should you lower intensity or volume during a "rest" period.

Take this workout template, I don't plan on using it but I'd like to know what's right and wrong with it. If you do a 4 week volume cycle with this workout, would it lead to overtraining before 4 weeks? For the recovery phase(/w lower volume OR intensity, would 1 week be enough to allow for enough recovery to be made so you can go on to another volume cycle for 4 weeks?

Thanks

Day 1:
Bench 5x5
Squats 5x5
Bent-over rows 5x5
Supinated chin-ups , 1x as many reps as possible
Supinated Narrow grip Chin-ups 1xas many reps as possible
Supinated Medium grip Chin-ups 1x as many reps as possible
~48h rest

Day 2:
Deads 5x5
Front squats 5x5
Military press 5x5
Weighted pronated wide-grip chin-ups 5x5
~72h rest

Day 3:
Benchpress 5x5
Squats 5x5 with medium weights
Bent-over rows 5x5
~48h rest

 

[rbtrout]

Basically, he gave examples of the "Big 3" training types and famous strength/bbers that used them. I agree with the theory of if you're weak (bench press) do it several times a week to get past a plateau.
The 2 things I got out of it were that everyone is different and it really depends upon your body type and time on how you can train. He finally mentioned the fact that he recommends "If you can afford dedicating it the time, I believe that training twice a day for the same body part (if you can afford the training time) is the system that works best". Most of us can't, thus we don't. Still, it really depends upon the individual and his/her recovery times. Your routine looks fine. If you don't feel you're making good gains, then change it up.

 

[Madcow2]

This is a better explanation of periodization: http://www.higher-faster-sports.com/PlannedOvertraining.html

The primary factors that define all programs are volume, intensity (%1RM), and frequency. This is true whether it's HIT (even though they mis-define intensity as a preceived effort and are really a moderate intensity, low volume, low frequency program) or the German volume training in that article, or anything you might find anywhere in the world.

Anyway, after reading the periodization article that I linked you'll see that something has to change in these parameters to periodize. Generally we are talking about going from a period of relatively high load (calculated as weight X reps = load, just sum everything up for a day, week, period etc...) to a period of lower load. Basically these periods are akin to stimulus and recovery. There are even longer macro periods say all of these phase into a yearly cycle where over 3 years load is increasing on a relative basis and the 4th year the overall load is decreasing to allow for peak performance at the Olympic games (i.e. 4 year cycle). This link touches on a lot of longer training cycle implementations if you haven't read it: http://forum.mesomorphosis.com/showpost.php?p=48&postcount=3

Anyway, to decrease load we have those 3 factors to play with and any combination of them. Looking at the Starr 5x5 program, the second period decreases volume significantly, cuts frequency, but keeps intensity increasing in the 2nd phase (2x per week variant). My own 3x per week variant, retains the volume cut (I only really factor load as working sets so the few 1x3 exercises aren't a major impact when I calc this factor), does not decrease frequency, but does raise intensity. This isn't as kind a deload but providing one isn't too agressive or has enough capacity it's fine. Of course, by the end people get fairly drained again and many find it necessary to deload further before beginning again.

Hopefully that sheds some light for you.