Only a small percentage have ever done it. They were able to systematically plan a progressive twelve to eighteen week workout cycle from start to finish with the exact exercises and poundages they were going to use each week from start to finish. Then they did it again and again and again with increasing amounts of weights for cycle after cycle, year after year. These are the lifters who leave everyone else behind. Ed Coan is one of the lifters who accomplished such a feat and many of the West Side Barbell lifters have done it.
Planning a Training Cycle
Ed Coan 1019 Pound Squat
A systematic plan is not just a matter of sitting down a writing out the poundages and reps that you would like to attain from one week to the next. Writing down workout poundages and reps that you can actually follow as planned will not work in less your body is in agreement with that plan. The plan must be in accordance with the adaptive capacity of your body. It can’t be so easy that your body doesn’t see reason to adjust by becoming stronger, and it can’t be so hard that your body doesn’t have the adaptive capacity to get stronger. The plan must zero in on a very precise zone of training intensity that is perfectly suited to systematic strength gains. Then it will work.
Find Your Training Zone
If you want to know how to find your strength training zone, my advice is to review the information on the “Basics of PPT” page on this website. The key is to use basic exercises to train a body part as long as that body part is at near maximum strength, but no longer than that. If a body part begins to weaken during a set, stop your set, and only repeat sets as long as you are as strong as you were on the first set for the body part you are training. Avoid training while weakened by fatigue, instead, train while your strength and energy are high. Training in this manner makes recovery easy, so don’t be afraid to train a body part three times or more per week, but if you find success training less, then train less. Use whatever training frequency that works.
Progress at a Realistic Rate
When it comes to making a written plan for how much strength you want to gain over the course of a couple months, or up to a year, remember that gaining strength is easier in the early stages of training and strength gains may come rapidly. This can be very deceptive if you always plan on gaining at the rapid rate that you did as a beginner for many years to come. Some people may gain 100 pounds of strength for each of their basic lifts during the first two or three years of training and others may gain much more. But there will come a point where it’s hard to make any gains at all. This happens to virtually everyone and it’s also when you must, must, must, find your strength training zone and be extremely patient. Once you find it hard to keep gaining strength, then gaining twenty to thirty pounds of strength in a year is good even for great lifters like Ed Coan. The trick is to be able to do it year after year, after year, but this is very hard to do unless you sit down and do the math.
Being Realistic Means that You Must Do the Math
What does a 30 pound strength gain look like when you break it down into shorter time periods of months or weeks? Adding five pounds of weight to a lift every nine weeks is going to give you about a thirty pound strength gain for that lift at the end of a year. If we look at it terms of weeks, then gaining a little over a half pound of strength per week will give you a 30 pound strength gain at the end of a year. This seems so small, but it’s not if you do it over and over again for many weeks, months, and years, and that’s what the best lifters do. So think through a realistic training plan over the course of several months or a year. If you are realistic, and train with the right intensity level, the right amount of work, and the right training frequency, you can plan your progress out ahead of time, and then watch yourself progress according to your plan. Best of training to you.