Periodization - Basic Principles And Theoretical Blueprints To Increase Performance In The Power Clean, Squat, Deadlift and Overhead Press

Periodization is a structured type of planning, or programming, with the intent of bringing one’s level of physical preparedness to a peak level (typically for some sort of competition or athletic event). Even those who train recreationally can benefit from properly periodizing their training, to accomplish specific strength related goals.

A major problem however, when it comes to periodization, is that there is a lack of practical information out there to help develop properly periodized plans. Most of the literature is very vague, leaving much to the imagination as to how to develop an effective plan to accomplish a specific goal.

This article will cover basic principles, as well as provide some theoretical approaches (blueprints) to help make improvements in some of the more common lifts performed in the gym (overhead press, deadlift, squat, power clean).

BASIC PRINCIPLES

-          Start at the end and work backwards (reverse planning)

With periodization, the end goal is used as a staple to which all other decisions in the programming process are based upon. If you don’t know where you want to go, you never know where you’ll end up. The first thing that you need to do is pick a specific goal to at least give you some direction, and then all the other decisions can be based on accomplishing that goal, in the allotted time frame.

-          Correct imbalances early on that will limit performance later on

If one’s goal is to increase their strength in a specific lift, the periodization should begin with correcting any muscular imbalances that the individual may have, because it is likely that they will become a limiting factor at some point. Imbalances are typically the result of repetitive movements, or postural alignments, frequently performed during every day life, or from playing a certain sport, and are further exaggerated from inappropriate/imbalanced strength training programming.

Depending on how much time you have to work with, which should be unlimited if you are strictly training for recreational purposes, focus should be on correcting imbalances as best as possible before attempting to break personal records.

-          Alternate between phases of high volume and high intensity as you progress towards the end result

Because the body adapts to current demands, the need for variety is crucial in long term development and success. Once again, depending on how much time you have to work with, your phases of training should be divided into 2-6 week blocks, alternating between phases of high volume (to correct imbalances by adding muscle mass to previously weak, or lagging areas), and high intensity (to maximize neural adaptations with new found muscle mass). Each phase is used to prepare the body for the next phase, ultimately leading to a peak level of physical preparation.

When training for improved performance in a specific lift, a thorough breakdown of the lift itself from top to bottom (or bottom to top depending on your perception) can be focused on during each phase, to ensure that there is optimal development systemically to maximize performance during the final phase.

For example, the power clean is a very diverse, high-coordination movement, and there can be a number of limiting factors such that would affect the execution of the lift. By breaking down the lift into separate phases, you can isolate differing possible limiting factors, and create as structurally sound a physique as possible, which in turn will positively affect the end result.

-          Reduce volume to prevent fatigue from masking true performance

Over the course of several weeks, if you are consistent, and have structured a properly periodized plan, it is likely you’ve placed your body under a great deal of stress during the process of creating a balanced physique with the goal of improving performance (either systemically as a whole, or specifically for a given lift).

This accumulative fatigue can in fact have a negative effect on your results, because if you are completely drained from several weeks of pounding your body with weights, week in and week out, there’s a good chance that you may not be able to lift as much when you test yourself to gauge your results of the program, as you would if you had given yourself a little bit of time to recover and allow for the supercompensation effect to take place.

It is for this reason that you should take a week or two in which you reduce the volume, to allow yourself to ‘peak’ before testing yourself to see how much improvements you’ve made.

It is very common for athletes to actually notice improved levels of strength or performance a week or two after their competition, because they were simply overtrained going into their event/competition. Learn from others mistakes and allow yourself a week or two to deload and peak!

THEORETICAL APPLICATION

Power Clean Periodization Blueprint

The power clean is a very high velocity, high coordination movement, that has a tremendous carryover effect to those training for improved sport performance. Because it has such a great range of motion, there are many muscles that need to fire in synch to complete the movement as effectively as possible.

Like any movement, it fails to fully incorporate all of the muscles involved in the lift to the same degree, and therefore overreliance on the lift itself could in fact create, or further exaggerate, muscular imbalances. These imbalances can ultimately become limiting factors in the performance of the lift itself, or lead to injury down the road.

With that being said, an effective way to go about physically preparing the body to become better at executing the power clean, or any movement for that matter, would be to break the movement down into different phases, and focus on strengthening the prime movers at differing ranges of motion.

In this case, the lift itself can be broken down into the bottom range (getting the bar off the floor), in which the glutes and hams are the prime movers, the mid range (where acceleration becomes priority), in which the erectors, quads and calves are more actively involved, and the top range AKA the pull.

Depending on how much time you can devote to improving one specific exercise, you can even go as far as to have entire phases, or blocks, in which one phase of the lift is prioritized. An example of such an approach would look like this.

Phase 1 – Emphasis in this phase is on improving the prime movers involved in lifting the weight off the floor for the first half of the phase, before moving onto mastering the pull, and eventually variations of the clean.

Weeks 1-3 – Good morning variations, deadlift variations (from deficit for advanced lifters), and Romanian deadlifts are all suitable choices. Glute-ham raises and reverse hypers are also excellent choices in this phase, as they stress the posterior chain, without applying compressive forces to the spine. This 3 week phase would be considered a higher volume accumulative phase, and therefore whatever exercises you choose to develop the prime movers in getting the bar off the floor, should be paired with exercises that also create a structurally sound knee. The most appropriate exercises this early on in a periodized plan would be single leg, knee-dominant, compound movements such as split squat variations and step-up variations.

Weeks 4-6 – This phase is used to teach the nervous system the concept of acceleration coming off the floor. Deadlift variations, possibly from a deficit, with the use of chains or bands are best suited to develop this concept. Since the previous phase focused on creating balanced development with a high volume of work, this phase is dedicated to using the new found balanced muscle and increasing its ability to systemically generate high levels of force.

Weeks 7-9 – In this phase focus switches to the mid range portion of the lift, or the pull, if you will. High pull variations are most appropriate to accomplish this. These lifts are better suited for accumulative phases, because they can be safely performed for higher repetitions than the Olympic lifts (power cleans, power snatches, etc.) and for those with flexibility issues, they can still get away with performing pull variations. The lifter’s experience, and flexibility, should ultimately determine the exact variation of pull used. The more advanced the lifter, the lesser range of motion to be used, as they should be focusing on the pull only. The less advanced lifter would benefit from pulling from the floor to use their legs to help assist with the movement.

Weeks 10-12 – Finally after 9 weeks of preparation, it is time to get to work and focus on the actual lift itself you have been preparing for. As with the previous phase, the range of motion should be determined by the lifters experience. The more advanced lifter should perform the power clean from the floor, where the less advanced lifter can use this phase as an opportunity to practice the lift through a limited range of motion (starting from a hang in which the bar rests at mid-thigh, knee height, or below the knee cap).

Phase 2 – This phase starts with prioritizing the need for increasing the rate of force development starting from the ground, and then additional emphasis is based on improving the pull, before once again putting it all together to master the clean.

Weeks 1-3 – At this stage, there should have been enough structural corrections made from the previous phase, that the only lift you should be considering to improve your ability to drive the barbell off the floor should be the deadlift. Instead of playing around with differing variations of the lift based on ones experience, you should more so play around with the range of motion. Because deadlifts cover such a vast range of motion, the amount of weight that can be lifted near the top of the range of motion is far greater than the amount of weight that can be tolerated coming off the floor. You are limited to the amount of weight that you can lift, based on how much you can tolerate throughout the weakest range of motion. By working through each range individually (lower range, mid range, top range), you can select the most appropriate amount of weight to illicit the greatest response.

Weeks 4-6 – This phase is the first of two where the mid range of the power clean (the pull) is heavily emphasized. In this phase we want to further cement the concept of acceleration, in a specific, but also not so specific way, in relation to the power clean. Snatch pulls are ideal here, because the wide grip used means that you must start deeper, and use the improved rate of force development maximized in the previous phase to help with getting the bar off the floor at rapid speed. Bands or chains would also be useful tools in this case, as they require you to continue generating as much force as possible, just to complete the pull.

Weeks 7-9 – This is the second of two phases that prioritize mastering the pull of the power clean. In this phase we want to be more specific, which means that the clean pull is a more appropriate choice of exercise here. With a clean pull, your hands are closer together, which means you don’t need to bend down as much as with a snatch pull, but you can easily overcome that by performing them off a platform. The clean grip is also specific to the power clean itself, so this phase is used as a final preparation for the next phase, in which you want to put it all together once again, and master the power clean.

Weeks 10-12 – This phase is to be completed with performing the clean from a hanging position (mid-thigh, or knee cap). Normally at the end of a phase you want to finish by performing the lift you’ve been training for, but in this case, the previous phase consisted of a high pull from the floor, and the next phase is primarily the power clean itself, so to prevent the body from becoming prematurely adapted, we use a hang variation. The hanging position activates the stretch reflex, as you rapidly lower the weight to the desired height before reversing the movement, which further promotes the nervous system to be as explosive as possible.

Phase 3 – After several weeks of preparation, breaking the movement down from top to bottom and maximizing every component of the lift imaginable, the periodization concludes with one phase dedicated to the starting phase of the lift combined with the pull, in the most specific way possible, and one phase dedicated to the lift we’ve been working on the whole time itself (the power clean!).

Weeks 1-3 – The snatch pull is the movement of choice here for a few reasons. The snatch grip means that you will have to go through a very extreme range of motion compared to with a clean grip. This increased range of motion means that you will need to generate a tremendous amount of force in minimal time to just complete the lift. This will make the transition to a clean grip feel much smoother, and therefore the movement will feel as if it’s easier to complete.

Weeks 4-6 – This is it! These weeks are used to power clean! This is your opportunity to really make an impact on your previous best’s. Everything you’ve done up until this point has been done just to get you here. Get to work, and see how much of an improvement you’ve made over the course of the last several months that you have devoted to making yourself better at the power clean.

Squat Periodization Blueprint

The prime movers in the squat are the quads, glutes, hams, and to a lesser degree the erectors. A periodized plan based on making improvements in the squat would focus on first correcting any sort of glaring imbalances that are directly involved in knee, hip, and ankle extension. Because the squat is a lot less challenging of a movement, as in it is not a high coordination movement like the power clean, a periodized plan for a squat can be very effectively prepared for within twelve weeks or so, especially with a high frequency, twice per week training split. In the blueprint below, the first two phases would be considered accumulative, and the second two intensive.

Phase 1, weeks 1-3 – Hypertrophy methods are used in this phase to correct any glaring imbalances, or just reinforce the balanced development that you may already have. Uni-lateral knee dominant movements like split squat variations and step-up variations are most appropriate here to create balanced development between the left and right leg, while good morning variations, leg curl variations, and calf raise variations are ideal pairings for them, performed in either straight sets, or even giant sets, seeing as how the goal is hypertrophy. If you pair up several movements together in a giant set, then improved work capacity will be a secondary result to hypertrophy as well. If you choose to utilize giant sets, you should do so in the second weekly workout to allow for enough time to recover before the following week’s workout.

Phase 2, weeks 4-6 – This is still a hypertrophic phase, but with more specific movements related to improving the squat. For example, uni-lateral movements were the exercises of choice in the first phase, where as compound movements are more appropriate here. Back squat variations, front squats, and split squats should be selected, while variations of good mornings, leg curls and calf raises should still be paired up with them.

Phase 3, weeks 7-9 – Here the focus becomes maximizing neural drive with all the new found muscle mass developed over the past few weeks. Squats themselves are ideal here, with the use of chains or bands, to teach the concept of acceleration, as well as the use of enhanced eccentrics, both of which will help maximize neural adaptation. If you opt to use bands or chains, you could do so in the first weekly workout as a preparation tool for the latter workout of the week, or in the second weekly workout to increase the time under tension. Since the focus is now switching to primarily lifting much heavier than the previous phases, deadlift variations should take the place of good morning variations for the posterior chain, since greater loads can be used.

Phase 4, weeks 10-12 – As you near the end of the periodization, to goal is to get in there and give it your all in an attempt to smash previous personal records. The volume should be dramatically reduced to allow for supercompensation to take place. The squat is pretty much the only exercise that ought to be prioritized in this phase, as performing other lifts could affect the outcome.

Deadlift Periodization Blueprint

The prime movers in the deadlift are the glutes, hams, erectors, and to a lesser degree the quads. A periodized plan based on making improvements in the deadlift would focus on first correcting any sort of glaring imbalances that are directly involved in hip, knee, and ankle extension. Like the squat, the deadlift is also a low coordination movement compared to the power clean, and a periodized plan for a deadlift can be very effectively prepared for within twelve weeks or so, also with a high frequency, twice per week training split. In the blueprint below, the phases alternate between accumulative and intensive.

Phase 1, weeks 1-3 – The goal here is to overload various points of the strength curve, starting at the knee, and working up to the hip, so that there aren’t really any limiting factors that will negatively influence performance of the deadlift itself. Hypertrophy methods are most appropriate here, performed in either straight sets, or giant sets. Should you choose to pair up several movements together in a giant set, then improved work capacity will be a secondary result to hypertrophy as well. Leg curl variations, good morning variations, reverse hypers, back extension variations, and deadlift variations (but NOT the deadlift itself) are all appropriate exercises in this phase.

Phase 2, weeks 4-6 – This phase is more specific in a sense that variations of the deadlift itself become prioritized during the workouts. For example, the previous phase focused on multiple points of the strength curve individually, where as a variation of the deadlift itself is more appropriate here, followed by hip dominant exercises, and then direct hamstring movements (leg curl variations, glute-ham raises). Long range deadlifts, with various grip positions, Romanian deadlifts, good mornings, glute-ham raises and leg curl variations are best suited in this phase.

Phase 3, weeks 7-9 – Here the focus becomes maximizing neural drive with all the new found muscle mass developed over the past few weeks. Traditional deadlifts themselves are ideal here, with the use of chains or bands, to teach the concept of acceleration. If you opt to use bands or chains, you could do so in the first weekly workout as a preparation tool for the latter workout of the week, or in the second weekly workout to increase the time under tension. Exercises that overload the top range of the deadlift (rack pulls with various hand positions) that permit the usage of much greater intensities are used secondarily, followed by exercises that isolate and overload the muscles that are most active in the bottom range of the deadlift (good morning variations, back extension variations, reverse hypers).

Phase 4, weeks 10-12 – As you near the end of the periodization, to goal is to get in there and give it your all in an attempt to smash previous personal records. The volume should be dramatically reduced to allow for supercompensation to take place. The deadlift is pretty much the only exercise that ought to be prioritized in this phase, as performing other lifts could affect the outcome.

Overhead Press Periodization Blueprint

The lower body typically needs a lot less variety than the upper body, which is why you can get away with twice weekly, and also twice daily workouts. With the upper body however, more variety is needed, and therefore more recovery as well, so once a week workouts are ideal.

Phase 1, weeks 1-4 – The goal in the first phase is to correct any discrepancies between the left and right side. Dumbell presses are most appropriate here, as they allow each arm to work independently through a full range of motion. A full range of motion will restore shoulder health if it has been compromised.

Phase 2, weeks 5-8 – This phase is dedicated to increasing strength as much as possible. To do this a seated, slightly inclined position, with a barbell is most appropriate. The slight incline allows you to use greater intensities than a standing, or upright angle, and exposing the neuromuscular system to increased intensities will have carryover in the later stages when you progress to a standing overhead press.

Phase 3, weeks 9-12 – The purpose of this phase is to teach the nervous system the concept of acceleration, to keep plowing through the range of motion to complete the lock out portion of the lift. A seated unsupported overhead press, with the use of bands or chains is used here. An upright position is ideal, as it has the most functional carryover to the overhead press itself, which is coming up in the next phase.

Phase 4, weeks 13-16 – After several weeks of preparation, it is time to work, and see how much progress you’ve made. This phase is dedicated to making dramatic improvements in your overhead pressing numbers.

SUMMARY

It’s important to note, that there is always more than one way, to get the same, if not a very similar result with strength training. The specifics themselves, as far exact exercise selection, as well as loading parameters can, and should, vary depending on the individual.

Training, and periodization for that matter, is not a black and white subject. There is a lot of grey area, and it’s not the end of the world if you opt to use a standing good morning over a seated good morning when training the posterior chain, nor is it should you choose to use a traditional seated dumbell press over a standing supported single-arm dumbell press with a neutral grip when preparing for a better overhead press.

At the end of the day, the “keep it simple” principle is most applicable when developing a periodized plan. Know what you want to happen at the end of all the hard work, and break down exactly what needs to be focused on to get there.

With specific exercises like the ones outlined above, you could simply look at it like this: (Using the squat as an example) “If I want to improve my squatting numbers, I’m going to need to be as explosive as possible coming out of the bottom of the movement and be able to maintain high levels of force throughout the entire range of motion (which is where bands and chains come into play), I’m going to need to be able to do the movement throughout a full range of motion while remaining stable (which is where a high volume of work is beneficial), and if I have any glaring muscular imbalances I will have to address them early on (which is where uni-lateral movements are most appropriate in correcting them). So to get better at squatting I ought to preventative measures (by dedicating phases of training to improving each aspect) before actually trying to get in there and start breaking personal squat records.” (The same could be said for any of the exercises above or any other movements for that matter)

Each and every lift can be broken down into different phases throughout the range of motion, which can then be isolated and developed within a phase of the periodization, or you could even go as far as to have an entire block of your periodization devoted to improving a specific phase of a lift (as is the case in the power clean example above) given that you have the time and dedication to do so.

If you have any questions as far as how to develop a periodized plan based on making significant improvements for a specific exercise, feel free to contact me at ben@paramounttraining.ca. I'm available for online consulting and personalized program design, as well as one on one training if you are located in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).