Strength Cycles: What Progress Looks Like Mid-Cycle

Three weeks into a strength cycle is when people start checking whether it is working. It is also the worst point to judge it.

Here is what progress looks like, in the order it turns up.

Warm-up weights feel different first. Hitting 60% on week 5 should feel easier than week 1

It’s easier to maintain form on sets. Where your last rep used to look different from your first, it now holds to the end of the set.

Then the bar moves faster at the same load. Same weight, less time under it. It is a better indicator than adding weight and it is the one to watch.

Finally the test give us a PR. We test at the end of the cycle and hope to see a improvement.

Which is why the answer to "should I add five kilos" is usually not yet. A cycle adds load on a schedule so your tendons and ligaments keep pace with your muscle. Muscle adapts fast. Connective tissue does not, it takes three times longer than muscle. Jumping ahead because a session felt good is a risk that’s not worth the reward. Patience is King.

Right now we are mid-cycle on the deadlift on Fridays and the split jerk on Mondays. Six to eight weeks is the usual length, so you are far enough in that the warm-ups should feel different and not far enough in to have moved your top number.

Two things at the three-week mark.

Sleep and food move the numbers more than effort does. A bad fortnight of either shows up as a stalled cycle that looks like a programming problem and is not.

And the light week is not a failure. If this week a lighter load feels all you can manage, that’s the right number for you. There’s always an internal debate in me as to whether RPE (rate of perceived exertion), i.e. a measure of how it feels, is better than percentage work. There’s definitely an argument for it. The only thing stopping me on this is that percentages give people an excuse to tell their ego to stop. RPE gives it an excuse to go.

If something has not moved in weeks, the answer is rarely more weight. It is usually a technical fault that shows up under load, a nutrition or recovery problem, or a training max set optimistically at the start. A coach is there to help with this. Nutrition especially is important. If you’re losing weight and training for a max these are contradicting each other. Decide what’s most important to you at this point and temper your ambitions on the other side to match.

Never lifted with a plan and want to know what that feels like? Fifteen minutes on the phone with Jeremy or Beth, free and no obligation. crossfitchiltern.com.