How do you make sure you cover all 3 dimensions of resistance training in your program? Here are 3 approaches with their pros and cons.
A quick summary of the 3 dimensions:
Power / Strength
High intensity, low volume, long rest, not to muscle failure
Muscle building
Medium to high intensity, medium to high volume, less rest, to muscle failure
Strength Endurance
Low to medium intensity, high volume, minimal rest, not to muscle failure
Now let’s see the different ways you can schedule these into your training routine.
Week after Week
The most classic approach, also known as periodization.
2 weeks for each dimension, 1 week recovery and then repeat the 7 week cycle.
This approach makes sense if you are super committed and you know you won’t skip a single workout.
If you are a professional athlete, this is for you.
All in the same week
Dedicated days for each dimension rotating through the week.
The order is important here, you should not do a power day after burning your muscles out the day before with a muscle building workout.
Always go: power -> growth -> endurance. This is my favorite approach for people that train more than 3 times a week. It allows for quite some flexibility and even if you train daily, the varying intensity makes sure you don’t overexert.
All in the same day
Get’s you the best results if you do strength training 3 times a week.
It’s built on a workout structure that always starts with a power block, then a hypertrophy block and then a strength endurance block. Instead of training the same dimension for the whole body, here we rotate through the movement patterns.
One workout would look like this:
Power – Legs
Growth – Push
Endurance – Pull
And the next one like this:
Power – Pull
Growth – Legs
Endurance – Push
And so on, making sure to hit each movement pattern with a different dimension than last time, again following the order of power -> growth -> endurance.
Check your training program and see what dimension could use some more attention!
