At this point it should be obvious that there are no benchmarks when you use reverse planning. You just have to hope for the best. Now it's true that smart coaches try to schedule competition dates for their athletes based on predictive equations, but it's still just an educated guess at best.

The good news is, when you use forward planning, you do have the luxury of establishing benchmarks for each training phase. So for example, your hypertrophy phase benchmark might be the acquisition of five pounds of new lean mass. Once that benchmark has been achieved, it's time to move on to the next phase.

I'll provide examples of phases and benchmarks later in the article, but for now, learn to think in terms of results. When you plan a phase, what's that phase expected to achieve? And, how does achieving that benchmark fit into the bigger picture?

Periodization, as most people are familiar with it, is based on old East European talent-identification and modeling programs. In the former Soviet Union for example, scouts regularly tested kids for various indices that were predictive of success in specific athletic events.

The Soviet model worked great in Russia, but when transplanted into a completely different culture, it doesn't work at all!

... In Western societies today, it's very difficult to control all the various confounding circumstances that most of us need to deal with: families, jobs, money, competent coaching, lack of talent, etc. When these circumstances can be controlled, classical periodization models work great.

In defense of classical periodization however, it should be noted that the basic concept of planning your training to make it as objective and measurable as possible is extremely valuable. For this reason, the concept of periodization in general is a worthwhile exploration for any athlete or fitness enthusiast.

Charles Staley