thought this might be a good place to post this
except from 1st chapter of the book Practical programming -
There is a diagram there that doesn't come out, but you can just download the whole PDF to look at it - towards the bottom
http://www.practicalprogrammingforstrengthtraining.com/files/ppchapter1.pdf
sample of more chapters here
http://www.practicalprogrammingforstrengthtraining.com/preview.html
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A Theoretical Approach. In this book, the terms “novice,”
“intermediate,” “advanced,” and “elite” relate to the trainee
with respect to the time it takes for recovery from a
homeostatic disruption induced by training. We do not use
these terms as descriptors of a trainee’s strength or absolute
athletic ability. These terms may in fact be applied differently
to athletes in different sports, but our use of the terms here is
specific to the model illustrated here in figure 1-3.
Because a novice lifts weights that are light relative to
his genetic potential for strength and power development, the
rate of recovery following training can be rapid. Essentially,
this trainee can recover from a single training session in a
period of 24 to 72 hours. The novice trainee can train “heavy”
on Monday and be ready to go heavy again on Wednesday.
These trainees are quite far away from their genetic potential,
and therefore lack the strength and the neural efficiency to
generate a stress heavy enough to impede rapid recovery. For
them, “heavy” is not really heavy. At the same time that
strength and power are improving, recovery ability is
improving too. Recovery processes are as trainable as any other
physical parameter, and this is an extremely significant factor in
training progress. But it is important to remember that
recovery processes can always be exceeded by the injudicious
application of training stress. Recovery must occur before
progress can be made.
Simply put, a novice, as we use the term here, is a
trainee for whom the stress applied during a single workout
and the recovery from that single stress is sufficient to cause an
adaptation by the next workout. The end of the novice phase is
marked by a performance plateau occurring sometime between
the third and ninth month of training, with variations due to
individual differences. Programming for the novice is
essentially the linear progression model that is described in the
ACSM manual and defined specifically for weight training in
our book Starting Strength: A Simple and Practical Guide for
Coaching Beginners (Aasgaard Co., 2005). It is important to
understand here that the novice is adapted to inactivity (as it
relates to weight training) and therefore progress can be made
with training programs that are not specific to the task
involved. For example, doing high-volume hypertrophy work
would also increase a novice's absolute strength for one
repetition. A previously sedentary beginner can even improve
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Genetic Performance Potential
Need for Training Complexity
Rate of Adaptation Improvement
Figure 1-3. The generalized relationship between performance improvement
and training complexity relative to time. Note that the rate of adaptation to
training slows over a training career.
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his 1RM (one-repetition maximum) squat by riding a bike. This
would not be the case with intermediate or advanced trainees,
where progress in strength, power, or mass is absolutely linked
to appropriate application of specific training programs.
Novices accomplish two things with every workout:
they “test” their strength, and the test loads the body to
become stronger in the next workout. The act of moving 10
more pounds for the prescribed sets and reps both confirms
that the previous workout was a success at improving the
novice’s strength and causes his body to adapt and become
stronger for the next workout.
As the intermediate lifter begins to handle training loads
closer to his genetic potential, his recovery ability is also
affected differently by the stress. Recovery requires a longer
period of time—a period encompassing multiple workouts
(efficiently managed using a weekly schedule). This is because
the athlete has developed the ability to apply stress to the
system that requires a longer period of time for recovery. For
an intermediate trainee, the stress required for a disruption of
homeostasis exceeds the capacity for recovery within that
period of time (say, within the week). To allow for both
sufficient stress and sufficient recovery, then, the training load
must be varied over the week. This variation can take several
forms, but the critical factor is the distribution, which allows
enough stress to be applied in a pattern that facilitates recovery.
The key to successful training in this stage of development is to
balance these two important and opposing phenomena. Simple
weekly periodization of training loads facilitates recovery
following one or more heavier training bouts within a single
week.
Intermediate trainees benefit from exposure to more
exercises than novices. These athletes are developing their skills
with new movement patterns, and as this happens they are
developing their ability to acquire new skills. It is during this
period that trainees actually become athletes, choosing a sport
and making decisions that affect the rest of their competitive
careers. These decisions are more effectively made if based on a
broad exposure to a wide variety of training and competition
options.
The end of the intermediate phase of training is marked
by a performance plateau following a series of progressively
more difficult weekly training organizations. This can occur in
as little as two years or in as many as four or more, depending
on individual tolerances and adherence to year-round
progressive training. It is likely that 75% or more of all trainees
will not require programming complexity beyond this level
(remember, the amount of weight lifted or years of training do
not classify a trainee). Virtually all sports-specific weight
training can be accomplished with this model. Athletes in nonweightlifting
sports will not train progressively in the weight
room all year; they will focus much of their training on their
primary competitive sport. This effectively extends the
duration of this stage in the trainee's development to the extent
that even very accomplished athletes may never exhaust the
benefits of intermediate-level weight lifting programming.
Advanced trainees in the barbell sports work relatively
close to their genetic potentials. The work tolerance of the
advanced trainee is quite high, given that the ability of an
athlete to recover from training is itself trainable. However, the
training loads the advanced athlete must handle in order to
produce an adaptation are also quite high, since the adaptation
that brought the athlete to the advanced stage has already
occurred. This level of training volume and intensity is very
taxing and requires longer periods of recovery than do
intermediate training loads. Both the loading and the recovery
parameters must be applied in more complex and variable ways
and over longer periods of time. When combined, the loading
and recovery periods required for successful progress range in
duration from a month to several months. For example, we
may apply a single week of very heavy training to induce
adaptation. That week of training may require three or more
weeks of work at lighter loadings for complete recovery and
improvement to occur. The average slope of the improvement
curve here is very shallow (fig. 1-3), closely approaching
maximum genetic potential at a very slow rate, and rather large
amounts of training effort will be expended for rather small
degrees of improvement. For this reason too, the number of
exercises advanced trainees use is typically lower than for
intermediates; they do not require exposure to new movement
patterns and stress types, since they have already specialized
and adapted to those that are specific to their sport.
Complex manipulation of training parameters is
appropriate for use with these trainees. The majority of trainees
will never attain the level of development that makes advanced
periodization necessary, since most trainees voluntarily
terminate their competitive careers before the advanced stage is
reached.
The elite athlete is in a special subset of the advanced
category. Elite athletes are the genetically gifted few who also
happen to be motivated to achieve success despite enormous
physical and social costs. They have stayed in their sport by
virtue of their success and have dedicated themselves to training
at this level because their training investment has been
returned. An advanced lifter is one who has progressed beyond
the intermediate; an elite lifter is one who performs at an elite
level within the standards of the sport. (By this definition, the
elite designation could actually be applied to an intermediate
lifter performing at the national/international level. There
occasionally exist a few athletes so talented and genetically
endowed that this situation occurs.)
Previous training has brought the elite athlete very close
to genetic potential, and additional progress requires much
greater program complexity to scratch out those small
improvements that might still remain unrealized. These athletes
must be exposed to training programs that are very complex—
highly variable in terms of stress, although probably simple in
terms of exercise selection—forcing the already adapted athlete
closer to the ultimate level of performance. At this point the
program may be considered in terms of several months, a year,
or even an Olympic quadrennium. Any approach to the
training of an athlete of this caliber is a highly individualized
matter and is beyond the scope of this text. We propose that far
less than 1% of all trainees regardless of training history reach
this level.
Unlike beginners or intermediates, advanced and elite
trainees need large amounts of intense work to disrupt
homeostasis and force adaptation. This means that the stress
required for progress will creep nearer and nearer to the
maximal tolerable workload that the body can perform and
recover from. An elite athlete who is doing ten sets of squats
and making progress may not make any progress with nine sets
and may “overtrain” by doing eleven. The window for progress
is extremely small.
If workload is not increased, then neither performance
nor comprehensive recovery processes will improve, since no
disruption of homeostasis is forcing them to do so. The manner
in which increases in training load are applied is determined by
the level of training advancement. The ability of a novice to
adapt to training differs enough from that of the intermediate
and advanced trainee that similar training organizations will fail
to produce results for both. Each level of training advancement
requires its own specific approach.
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