As I brought up last week in my "September news" part of the email, many of you will be entering into hypertrophy and strength phases here soon, if you haven't already. *Again, this may not apply to all of you.
So, let's dive a little deeper into why this occurs.
Annually, *most* of you go through training phases including endurance, strength, power, and hypertrophy. Sometimes hypertrophy is left out of the equation; truly depends on the person.
We go through these phases because the slight changes in reps, sets, tempo, and rest times allow for adaptations year-round. Whereas, if you were to only do endurance or only do strength for an entire year, you may tap out on adaptations a bit quicker than you would with the occasional (and beneficial) switch-ups.
*Most* of the time, endurance and power fall into the late spring/summer/early fall seasons due to more outdoor activities being participated in during that time of the year. These are also the seasons that people tend to travel more often, which endurance is a great phase to intertwine with as a maintenance phase, depending on the person. It's also possible that the timing of your programming simply fell into those seasons naturally.
In the late fall/winter/early spring, more of you are home with family, likely not venturing out every weekend, and potentially have more time to focus on building strength and muscle (both in the gym and nutritionally).
The biggest differences you'll see from endurance to strength will be in the number of reps, sets, tempo, and rest times.
For example, you may be used to typically seeing 8-15 reps for endurance, but soon will see 3-8 reps for strength. This doesn't mean you've never seen 5 reps in an endurance phase or that you won't see 12 reps in a strength phase, but you will see that difference as a generalization.
It also doesn't mean you'll never have a strength workout that doesn't get your heart rate up or an endurance workout that doesn't feel heavy.
These components will still be seen year-round as we continue to see muscular adaptations.
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