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Why Unite’s 3-Phase Training Cycle

training cycleFounder Gavin McKay (IG @gavinunite)

If you want to sweat there are a million ways to accomplish that simple goal with a huge variety of workouts out there. But if you want to safely progress your fitness capacity, muscular strength and unleash your best balanced self… you need more than a workout, you need a science-based, progress and complete PROGRAM!

What People Like & What Is Best For Them Are 2 Different Things

Ninety percent of group training classes are just sweat workouts with NO built in intelligence, nor progressive phasing. The programmer often just serves up whatever exercise they enjoy and ensure you work hard. Or people keep repeating the same workouts, be they spin or barre or whatever, because they are good at it, not because it’s what they really need. I believe we are better than that and need a balance of the things we are good at/enjoy and the things that we aren’t so we can grow.

We Need Both Focus & Structured Change

Fitness science says that our bodily systems, particularly our muscles, take 4-6 weeks to adapt to repeated exercise of the same type. Only through repetition does your body learn to handle it better. That’s when you get the biggest gains. Afterwards performance plateaus unless you change the type or intensity. Keep it the same, change it, keep it the same, change it. Random movements every workout isn’t efficient. Nor is repeating the same basic full body workout movements every time. If either are the case you don’t have a smart program and will experience slow results. This is why Unite has an embedded 3-Phase Training Cycle. Train 4 weeks in one modality, improve, move on to the next phase.

Why Stability and Endurance As A Primary Exercise Modality

Phase 1 is always about building foundations from which to safely progress. Putting your roots down and improving the soil. In terms of your body’s fitness this is extending your stamina or endurance with moderate intensity, which is a challenge in itself, but we are also creating a base level of cardiovascular conditioning before more intense bouts. Run before you sprint or you’ll pull a muscle.

The second focus is working at improving your joint and core stability and muscular endurance. Lower level or no weights to ensure your body can move properly through the full range of motion, even in off balance positions. Master your weight before throwing a ton of it around, otherwise simply stepping off a curb funny can turn into a huge injury.

The Stability & Endurance foundational fitness elements need to be maintained, which is why we circle back to them every 3 months. Athletes always go back to basic drills and essential exercises because if you don’t train in it you will lose that ability and become more injury prone.

2018-04-04T17:05:59+00:00