Strength Training Manual: The Agile Periodization Approach Volume One

Strength training has always been a significant component of physical preparation for athletes and recreational athletes. Strength training seeks improvements in strength performance, looking fabulous when naked, injury prevention as well as transfer to other sporting activities. Planning ideas, approaches, and philosophies in strength training is also an excellent vehicle for understanding overall planning strategies and training theories in general due to more straightforward quantification of the training load and easily observed performances.

Strength Training Manual represents my ongoing pursuit in understanding both strength training and training theory in general, by providing an overview of the conflicting opinions, but also giving practical, heuristic solutions to common problems and their reconciliation. The framework for such an approach is the Agile Periodization, which approaches planning from uncertainty perspective, iterations, and experimentation while providing satisfying and robust solutions.

Besides being very rich in theory, Strength Training Manual is also rich in “forum for action” solutions, including reference tables, useful heuristics, and more than 1,900 set and rep schemes provided and analyzed. It also provides the best practices from other experts tinkering in this field.

This book is published in three electronic Volumes. Volume One covers major theoretical points needed for further understating of the more practical material in Volumes Two and Three.

Strength Training Planning revolves around three iterative phases:

1. Establish 1RM
2. Plan the Training Phase
3. Review and Retrospective (or Rinse and Repeat)

Volume One provides a detailed explanation of the first phase (“Establish 1RM”) and the Agile Periodization philosophy in general by covering the following topics:

1. The philosophical underpinning of the Agile Periodization
2. Exercise classifications and their relationships
3. Testing approaches for establishing 1RM used for percent-based prescription as well as the novel “Estimation through iteration” approach
4. Prescribing training loads using various methods and their modifications

Strength Training Manual will give you not only a practical solution to tackle everyday problems of planning, prescribing, and monitoring strength training, but also critical thinking skills. You can use these essential skills of thinking and tools in other types of physical preparation and training in general.