[quote]BradS wrote:
So the other day I am talking to this guy at the gym who has a really rugged tough looking physique. Really lean too. His is strong for his size as well. He tells me that every week he switches between weight training and gpp/energy work.
So one week he does about 4 days of weights, heavy lifting. The next week is all sprints or intervals, bodyweight exercise or weighted gpp, a little slow distance stuff here and there. He says he has been doing that for years.
Does this makes sense to anyone? Wouldn’t you be losing whatever you gained in each respective training week or does the body like this kind of thing? I thought it was interesting anyway. Probably not for bodybuilders but what about those who are more interested in athletic style training? [/quote]
Yeah, it makes sense…read some of Coach Thibaudeau’s Pendulum articles.
Especially if the guy does some bodyweight stuff, he’s not likely to be losing much strength in the off weeks. Sprints themselves are plyometric in nature, essentially the guy is just following a crude undulating periodization scheme. While I wouldn’t call it ideal, it’s certainly possible to make good gains doing this stuff, and I certainly wouldn’t be surprised to see somebody develop a solid physique who took this approach.
And yeah, I think the pendulum approach is a good strategy long-term as far as staying healthy goes. Coach Staley is fond of saying the longer you stay on a program, the more you attenuate to the benefits, and the more you accumulate the drawbacks. With an undulating or pendulum scheme, I think you can avoid this problem to a large degree.