Periodization

I have been thinking about my body composition for the last few days and what it will be when I hit my 185lbs goal that I have set myself. In all honesty I know that really it is only the start of the process to getting weight and body fat to the correct balance for me.

I guess what I am trying to do in setting myself this goal is hack away, rather roughly, the majority of the excess fat I'm carrying before I really start to get dailed in refining the amount of muscle I carry at that weight.

For example according to the bathroom scales I have only about 142lbs of lean body mass whereas at my longer term goal of 185lbs @10% BF I need to have 166.5lbs of LBM. There is obviously going to need to be some changes in strategy for training and eating along the way.

With that in mind I started reading up on Escalating Density Training (EDT) by Charles Staley. It was Charles' books and coaching that got me out of commercial gyms and into this stuff in the first place. When I read his articles and books I find myself struck with moments of clarity and free from the myre of training advice and opinion there is out there. He gives me the higher level view I have always found I need when learning any subject. Keeping me from not seeing the woods for the trees.

Anyway after scanning some of his books I have and going through one of his sites I found a link to an article he wrote on T-nation. It is a fantastic piece on periodization and the bigger picture. I think that by hook or by crook his hypothetical example echoes what I have been doing thus far. I worked on pain relief and corrections to imbalances, flexibility, mobility and stability issues. I've been maintaining gains by keeping certain exercises in my warm up and I am slowly transgressing into an Anatomical Adaptation phase with the introduction of Program Minimum.

I think that I can expect to at least maintain muscle mass with the Program Minimum while I head towards my goal of 185lbs and swings and TGUs with the 32kgs. After this I was planning to work on my maximum strength and hit those DL and Pressing goals, but it seems the advice is that I should go for a Hypertrophy Phase. And EDT is a good program for me as far as hypertrophy goes.

It makes sense - look for a gain of 10lbs,7lbs of muscle / 3lbs fat, and then look to maintain 5lbs muscle while I lose weight again and go after those strength goals with the extra 5lbs of muscle working for me.

Here is a link to Staley's Blog and also another interesting site I found through American Parkour:

http://www.mastersperformance.com/
http://www.theiflife.com/

Yesterday I did my mobility stuff and also set up for the squat corrections. I GTG'd squats exercise throughout the day and plan on doing the same today. I have a long way to go yet before I am changing to EDT but I am very focused on the task in front of me.