Periodisation has a branding problem.

It sounds like something an Eastern European weightlifting coach would shout while pointing at a wall chart.

In reality, you’ve probably used it without even knowing.

If you’ve ever followed a programme which began with moderate weights, became heavier over time and then eased off before testing your strength, you’ve used periodisation.

No smoke. No magic. No need to own a tracksuit with your surname across the back.

Periodisation simply means organising changes to your training over time so that each part of the programme has a job.

That job might be building muscle, getting stronger, improving fitness, managing fatigue or preparing you to perform at your best on a particular date.

Sports scientists will use the following terms:

• Macrocycle: the full plan.
• Mesocycle: a phase within the plan.
• Microcycle: the invidivual weeks of the plan.

These terms are enough to scare away most “normal people”, because they make an eight-week gym programme sound like you’re preparing to launch a satellite.

It’s time to end the bullshit.

The problem that periodisation solves

Some people repeat the same workout indefinitely.

Same exercises. Same weights. Same three sets of ten they were doing when they first joined the gym.

They keep waiting for their body to start progressing again, but their body has already completed the assignment. There is no longer a reason for it to become bigger or stronger.

Other people go too far in the opposite direction.

They change exercises every week, bounce between training methods and rebuild their entire programme whenever some luminous-toothed Oompa Loompa uploads a video announcing that dumbbell flyes are dead.

By the end of the month they’ve performed every chest exercise known to man, but they have no idea whether they’re actually stronger.

Periodisation sits between those two extremes. It gives your training enough consistency to measure progress while introducing changes when those changes serve a purpose.

Give each phase a job

A well-designed programme is not just a collection of workouts. The weeks should connect to one another and gradually move you towards a clear result.

That might look something like this:

This is just an example, of course.

Not every programme is going to need these five phases. Most regular gym members do not need to “peak” unless they are testing a lift or preparing for a specific event.

The point is simply that each phase should have a valid reason to exist — and if you cannot explain why volume suddenly dropped from sets of ten reps to sets of six reps, chances are it didn’t really need to.

What variables can we change?

The main variables include:

We could also change exercise order, rep tempo and various training methods.

A strength phase might increase the weight while reducing reps and total volume. A muscle-building phase might keep the exercises and rep ranges stable but gradually add repetitions or sets. A busy or demanding period might involve fewer exercises without changing the main lifts at all.

Good periodisation changes what needs to change and leaves the rest alone.

Most of the programme should look familiar

One of the biggest mistakes people make is assuming periodisation means constant variety.

It doesn’t.

If your squat is going to improve, you need enough opportunities to practise and progress the squat. Replacing it every second week with a different exercise makes that considerably harder to judge.

The same applies to muscle growth. Exercises can be rotated, but there should be a clear reason — perhaps the new movement trains the muscle differently, suits your joints better or allows you to progress more effectively.

This was shown in a 2022 systemic review, where researchers confirmed that although planned exercise variation may help develop strength and different regions of a muscle, excessive random rotation may compromise results. (1)

A 2022 systematic review found that carefully planned exercise variation may help develop strength and different regions of a muscle. However, the evidence was limited, and the researchers warned that excessive or random rotation may compromise results.

Changing every exercise because you didn’t feel sore on Wednesday is not advanced programming.

It’s fucking around.

Classic linear periodisation

Linear periodisation moves your training gradually in one direction.

In a strength-focused programme, this usually means the weights become heavier while repetitions and overall volume decrease.

A simple example for one main exercise could look like this:

The early weeks provide more practice and training volume. As the programme continues, the trainee handles heavier loads and the work becomes more specific to strength.

This is particularly useful when there is a destination — a competition, strength test or personal target — because the programme can be built backwards from that date.

It can also be used without testing a one-repetition maximum. The final goal might simply be to finish the programme lifting a weight which previously felt far too heavy.

Undulating periodisation

Undulating periodisation changes the training emphasis more frequently.

Instead of spending several consecutive weeks in one rep range, the trainee uses different ranges during the same week.

A three-day full-body programme might use the main exercises like this:

Monday provides heavier work, Wednesday sits in the middle and Friday uses a lighter weight for more reps.

The exercises do not need to change.

Instead, it’s the training stimulus that changes because the load, repetitions and overall demand are different in each workout.

This can work well for people who want to build muscle and strength simultaneously. It also prevents every workout from becoming a heavy grind where you spend three minutes staring at the barbell and reconsidering whether you really need strong legs.

There are plenty of other models

Once you understand linear and undulating periodisation, the more unusual models are easier to follow.

Reverse linear periodisation gradually moves towards higher repetitions. Pendulum periodisation travels down through the rep ranges and then back up. Oscillating periodisation moves above and below a central rep target.

I also use my own antagonistic periodisation model in programmes such as Afterburner and MuscleMania. This sends low-rep and high-rep work in opposite directions, allowing the trainee to combine increasingly heavy work with increasingly high-volume training.

All of these methods create different programme experiences, but you do not need to memorise every name before you can train properly — if you’re following a well-designed programme, it should do most of that thinking for you.

What does the research say?

The evidence here is less dramatic than fitness textbooks sometimes make it sound.

A 2022 systematic review and meta-analysis examined 35 studies in which overall training volume was matched. Periodised training produced a small advantage for one-repetition maximum strength, but it did not produce significantly greater muscle growth. (2)

Undulating training appeared to offer a small strength advantage over linear training among experienced lifters. That difference did not appear in beginners, and neither method was superior for hypertrophy.

The American College of Sports Medicine reviewed an even larger body of research for its 2026 position stand and concluded that periodisation did not consistently improve training outcomes. (3)

So why use it?

Because organising training still has massive practical value.

Of the thousands of people I’ve trained over the years, I’ve found that most have responded better to a blocked routine versus a) a long slog of a programme where every workout is the same, and b) too much variety where progress cannot be measured. The stimulus of focusing on one thing for a specific phase tends to push them to train even harder, and chunking a long-term programme down into several easier-to-manage blocks has generally led to greater overall consistency and more people crossing that all-important finish line.

If you’re new to the gym

Beginners do not need an elaborate 24-week plan containing six different phases.

They need to learn the exercises, record their workouts and gradually improve. A basic double-progression system is usually enough:

• Choose a rep range, such as 8-12.
• Begin with a weight you can control for eight good reps.
• Add reps over subsequent weeks.
• Once you reach 12 good reps across all sets, increase the weight.
• Begin building the reps again.

I actually learned this system from former WWE athlete The Ultimate Warrior.

You can probably remember him; the face paint, the tassles, the unbelievable jacked muscles.

Yeah, that guy.

I was in a wheelchair as a kid and, as such, I spent a great deal of time in hospital waiting rooms. One afternoon I picked up a magazine where he spoke in great detail about how this simply double-progression system kept him on track throughout his early life — and the rest is history!

As I grew more curious about fitness in later years, I asked my granda for textbooks that I could learn techniques from. I was given Joe Weider’s Ultimate Bodybuilding and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding). Sure enough, this method was front-and-centre in both.

It’s the classic muscle-building principle of progressive overload.

Strictly speaking, this is not periodisation, because we’re not actually changing any of the programme variables.

However, this little strategy will help a newbie lifter to get very far down the road to their goal physique prior to reaching a stage where their body begins making adaptations and demanding a more strategic approach for continued growth.

If you want to build muscle

Muscle can be built across a wide range of loads.

A 2021 network meta-analysis found similar muscle growth from low, moderate and high loads when the compared sets were taken to volitional failure. Heavier loads produced better improvements in one-repetition maximum strength, but they did not automatically build more muscle. (4)

This means a muscle-building programme can use several rep ranges successfully.

You might train a muscle twice per week like this:

Alternatively, you could spend several weeks emphasising one range before moving to another.

Both approaches can work. The important parts are performing enough productive training, taking sets sufficiently close to failure, recovering and gradually improving what you can do.

You do not need to end a successful phase because a calendar says four weeks have passed — if the programme is still producing results, keep at it!

If you want to get stronger

Strength training becomes more specific as the target approaches.

Early phases can use moderate weights and more total work. Later phases introduce heavier loads, lower repetitions and more practice with the exercises being tested.

The accessory work does not necessarily disappear, but it may be reduced so it does not interfere with the main lifts.

This is where periodisation is particularly useful, because it allows us to build a base and then gradually turn the training towards performance.

Trying to lift as heavily as possible in every workout is not a strength programme.

It is an excellent way to make every warm-up feel like a hostage negotiation.

If you want to lose fat

There is no special fat-loss rep range.

Performing 20 reps instead of eight may make the set hurt considerably more, but it does not cause body fat to pack a suitcase and leave.

Fat loss still requires an appropriate calorie deficit.

The job of resistance training is to help you maintain muscle mass and physical performance while that happens. If eating fewer calories begins affecting recovery, your programme might need to move to a phase where you perform fewer sets, fewer low-priority exercises or a better balance between weights and cardio.

Contrary to what fitness-extremists will tell you, the solution is not replacing every exercise with a high-rep circuit and spending the next hour tasting metal.

When should a phase end?

A phase should end when it has completed its job or when the circumstances which shaped it have changed.

That might happen because:

• a strength test or event is approaching
• progress has genuinely stalled
• performance is declining due to fatigue
• your schedule or calorie intake has changed
• you have achieved the goal of the current phase
• an exercise is no longer suitable

An easier week (sometimes called a “de-load”) can also be inserted when recovery is becoming a problem but you don’t want to take a week off. This might mean fewer sets than usual, fewer sessions overall or not going as close to failure as you normally would.

What you should not do is abandon a productive phase because you are no longer getting sore or because somebody has declared your favourite exercise useless.

Soreness is not a progress report.

Before we move on, if you’ve followed one of my routines, you’ll notice that I generally group periodisation phases into anywhere between 1-3 weeks.

I do that because my programmes are designed for mass use by the public — RussHowePTI.com has members from all over the world using the programmes at the same time — and I have found that this appoach leads to better results because it keeps training feeling fun and engaging.

So instead of publishing one uber-detailed year-long programme, I’ll give you several short-term programmes to get you there instead.

(Example; you could start with my 12-week muscle-building plan called Classic Size, then try a supersets-based routine like Chisel. This could lead you into Biceps Boom, and then you’ll tackle my Stallone-style plan called Become War. Then simply repeat the cycle. Each programme is periodised within itself, all with the end goal of helping you get bigger and stronger — so by the end of the year you’re fucking jacked, and you’ve probably enjoyed your gym-time a heck of a lot more versus just doing one periodised programme.)

However, it’s worth knowing that this same rule of thumb can be applied to any of my programmes, too — if a phase still feels enjoyable and productive, you can actually stretch it out for as long as you wish, and extend the overall length of the programme.

Keep it simple

Good periodisation is often barely noticeable.

You follow the programme, record your workouts and gradually improve. The weights, repetitions or workload change when they need to, and each phase leads logically into the next.

Bad periodisation requires a wall-sized diagram which looks like the London Underground and still leaves you confused as to what weight to lift on Tuesday.

Remember, you are not trying to win an award for the most complicated programme.

You are trying to build muscle, become stronger, improve your fitness or lose fat while keeping the useful muscle you already have.

Give each phase a job. Keep it long enough to do that job. Then move forward.

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