If you’re like me you enjoy learning about lifting as much as actually lifting and you will have no doubt heard of the term periodization. If you’ve been doing this for a while then you might even have heard of undulating periodization. These are both incredibly important strength training principles that I’m going to cover in this article. You’ll find the latest research on both types of periodization and learn which one is probably best for you.
Strength for Functional Fitness Athletes
The first question you are probably asking is why do athletes need to focus on strength? Most people associate functional fitness with moderate to light weight movements done until vomit is produced, and they wouldn’t be far wrong!
However, the more complete answer is that there are only a few traits that any good athlete needs to develop to keep progressing. We all need to develop our energy systems, which supply oxygen and nutrients to our muscle cells and the rest of our body. We also need to develop our overall strength as it has a huge impact on our performance in nearly any program WOD. Don’t believe me?
Check out this article where we cover the physiological factors that affect functional fitness athletes and you will see that strength is reliably one of the best predictors of performance.
In fact, I would say that strength improvements are the number one factor that separates fitness athletes from 10 years ago to today’s monsters. Their engines are about the same, but those past champions are no where near as strong as your Matt Frasers.
Traditional Strength Training Methods for Functional Fitness
If I’m honest, a lot of functional fitness programs don’t really put much thought into integrating a common sense strength plan with their conditioning. Sure, there are some coaches and programs that are doing a great job, but there are probably ten times as many gyms that make their programing up on the spot and “just see what happens.” If you can’t tell, I don’t recommend this.
For those that do put thought into their programming, you’ll find that around 90% of them work off of a linear periodization model. This is what I call traditional strength training because it’s been around for ever, and guess what. It works!
This research review looked at 18 studies and found that periodized programs out perform non periodized programs consistently. They further found that undulating programs were even more effective.
My own experience as a coach mirrors these findings. In parts 1 and 2 of my competition program I found that my athletes increased their strength by 14%, over twelve weeks, using a purely linear program combined with reasonable wods.
Some of you might be asking why should we change from linear periodization if it works so well? I’m glad you asked.
Undulating Periodization
Undulating periodization has become very popular in recent years because it has been shown to be quite effective, depending on the study you look at. From my research it seems that undulating periodization, and in particular daily undulating periodization can be very effective when used correctly.
Before we get into the nitty gritty of how to use this strength training method for functional fitness, we will briefly cover what these training protocols entail.
Undulating Periodization
Periodization simply means a method of organizing a training plan. In linear periodization you spend a few months working on high volume low intensity, relative to one rep max, training. As you approach game day, you gradually ramp up the intensity and drop the volume, normally culminating in a new one rep max.
Undulating periodization changes this steady increase in weight, and decrease in volume by making changes much more rapidly. In weekly undulating periodization (WUP) each week has a set volume and intensity. This would look something like this.
As you can see each week has a standard y reps by x sets style, and there is no steady progression over many weeks. This is contrasted with daily undulating periodization (DUP).
Daily Undulating Periodization
In this training method we change the volume and intensity each work out. In one week you might see a training block that looks like this.
As you can see each workout has a different rep range and intensity range. To some that have only done linear periodization this can look a little crazy, and disjointed, however there is some solid research that both shows DUP to be very effective, and not at all effective. As I said earlier it does work, but only for a certain population.
Daily Undulating Periodization Research
The vast majority of strength training research is done on college students as many of them are required to participate in research to get full credits for their classes.
This is good because we have a huge population of healthy subjects but bad in the sense that most of them are 18-22 year old males with limited training experience. This means that you can really only generalize the results of studies on them to 18-22 year old folks with limited training experience. This really affects DUP research.
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This study was done on high school football players with an average of one year of training experience. Researchers found that over the 12 weeks of the study both linear and undulating periodization produced the same results.
This study looked at college volleyball players with one year resistance training experience and found that weekly undulating periodization to be slightly superior to daily undulating periodization.
You’re probably saying, “Jake why are you telling us about DUP, and WUP and all this nonsense if it doesn’t work?”
Notice these research papers found no effect and they were all on almost untrained populations. Spoiler alert, this doesn’t hold true for well trained athletes
This research study examined powerlifters with a minimum of 6 months lifting experience. Furthermore, they had to be able to squat, bench press, and deadlift 125, 100, and 150% of their body mass, respectively. In simple terms they were as strong as the 50th percentile male functional fitness athlete.
They found that those participating in DUP gained 40kg in their squat, bench, deadlift total in only 9 weeks! That is 88 lbs to their lifting total in a little over two months for fairly strong lifters! This study is even more promising for DUP.
The participants either did a linear program or a DUP program with the same amount of total volume, and intensity relative to one rep max. The DUP group crushed the linear group by almost double the results.
The linear group increased their bench press by 14% and the DUP group increased theirs by 28% in 12 weeks. I should also mention that participants had around 5 years lifting experience, and most reported having done linear periodization in the past.
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Undulating Periodization Discussion
By now it should be fairly obvious that undulating periodization doesn’t always work. However, it does work for lifters that have significant lifting experience previously, and are already pretty strong.
Anyone who has spent time in a gym knows that beginners will progress with the simplest of methods, and you don’t need to do anything fancy to see gains when you are new to the iron game.
As an athlete progresses they will need to vary their training methods to continue to reach their potential. As such, you’ll find that undulating periodization, and daily undulating periodization will work quite well to help break through plateaus.
I recommend signing up for our email list above because I will be writing a DUP program for functional fitness athletes to help them break through their training plateaus. It will be written for those in the 2 year range that have started to stagnate in their training.
This will be released in a few weeks time as I’m writing it now. Until then, keep training and stay tuned for the new plateau breaking program.
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