Fundamentals of Sustainable Programming

Since most training programs come from either athletics or a military background it becomes important to learn how to train with a sustainable philosophy for the general population non competitive sporting or military minded individual. Now this may seem simple but it's not without issues as well. If the general thesis for training the general population is to engage sustainably with training then you still have to make progress in the gym otherwise you are just doing a weird interpretive dance with weights. At the same time if you are not consistently looking for ways to increase variability in the loading and intentionally creating ways to pace the progression then sooner rather than later you will expose yourself to your limits.

Here are 5 Ways to Guide Your Training Efforts Towards Sustainable Progressions

#1-Intensity is Not the Only Variable Useful for Progressive Overload

Often what happens in many training programs is that there is a rush to reach towards the weight tree. Training for the fastest increase in lbs or kgs is the fastest way to run into a problem. If you instead use more variables(volume, frequency, density) in terms of training progression then you don't make weight jumps quite as fast. This is one of those principles that makes an incredible difference over time. The smarter you get at using your stressful variables the better you will hold up over years of time.

#2-Removing Weakness Needs to Be Prioritized Over Testing Strength

Everyone has holes in their game. It just depends on how seriously you are looking for them and how much you are looking to eliminate them. Taking a big motor imbalance and gettting it to comparable symmetry can take years in some cases. So many of the goals of progressive overload should be looking at asymmetry and specific weaknesses as opposed to overloading the strongest capacities an individual has. Consider a triathlete here. If they are really fast on the bike then it does not benefit them to train harder on the bike and neglect the weaknesses present in the swim and the run. The same concept is in effect here. If you have weakness in an energy system or in a specific muscle group then that needs to be prioritized over testing levels of significant competency.

#3-Progressions Must Be Paced for Long Term Adaptations to Occur

When we are talking about training the whole body and all energy systems you need to think beyond what is going to happen today, this week or this month. You have to consider what the process will look like in a year or two not just in a week or two.

#4-Recovering From Training Stressors Needs to Be Occuring Weekly

If you are someone who gives only limited lip service to recovery and are training consistently with progressive overload principles every week then eventually this is going to cut you off at the knees. The reality is that you can only over reach/over train and under recover for so long before you have a pile up of issues developing. Not only does your sleeping, eating and other recovery strategies need to be implemented frequently but you also need to be thinking about how do you intentionally manage the other external stressors in your life.

#5-Choose Movements that Solve Mechanical Problems

Some of this process could be dove tailed in with removing weakness but the reality of training sustainably is training with an emphasis where the exercises are joint friendly. Choosing exercises that are a little rough on the joints on week 3 or 4 of a program is going to be exponentially worse on your joints during week 9/10. Picking the right exercises for yourself may be a little bit challenging at first but with some experience and wisdom the better movements eventually reveal themselves.

Hopefully some of these fundamental priniciples help you improve your training ideas and help you engage more meaningfully with a long term philosophical approach to training sustaianably. If training is a form of medicine that you need to take in order to prevent osteoporosis and osteopenia then the dosage is going to be critically important. Too much stress is always a problem and not enough volume of the right stressors is going to be challenging long term in order to continue progression. The big goal would be to achieve a training balance of diverse energy system stressors that allows you a wide bandwidth of capacity. If you are training with a limited scope and narrow minded focus this is going to be impossible to achieve.