Cardio Training Periodization

Stairstep Your Way into Condition

Cardio training periodization: stairstep your way into condition.

Cardio periodization strategies can become wonderfully complex, sophisticated and subtle. Learn the periodized thematic basics before delving into complex variations on periodized themes. Cut your teeth on simplistic periodization strategies; earn the right to test-drive exotic and advanced approaches.

Cardio training periodization is physiological preplanning. Portray an activity numerically and it can be periodized. First systematized by Iron Curtain weightlifting coaches, strength athletes have used periodization since the 1950s. Elite Russian and East German sprint coaches co-opted, adapted and adopted periodization tactics in the 1960s. Periodization made its way west in the 1970s, mostly through the efforts of Dr. Michael Yessis, a Russian speaker who created the Soviet Sports Review. Periodization tactics proliferated for everything from volleyball to long jumping to cross-country skiing.

Start with Straight-Line Periodization

Some version of periodized planning now appears across many Olympic and athletic disciplines. Periodized strategies have become increasingly complex as experts attempt to differentiate themselves, one from another, each adding their own wrinkle to the never-ceasing evolution of strategic periodization. The most elemental form of periodization is known as linear or straight-line periodization. Those new to periodization should begin with a straight-line periodized template. Avoid being seduced by exotic variations. Go simple, at least initially.

Realistic Goals Turn Exercise into Training

The first order of periodization is to select realistic goals. Without an overarching goal to work toward, every training session devolves into Groundhog Day. Every resistance-training session becomes free-standing and independent, having no relationship to the preceding workout nor any to the succeeding training session. The Groundhog Day trainee fills the available training time with whatever exercises they feel like performing, using whatever number of sets and reps they feel like. No logging of results.

Periodization training requires goals to work toward. Select realistic goals and set goals into a timeframe. Twelve weeks is the usual length for a transformative periodization cycle. Achieve the overarching goal by successfully and sequentially attaining weekly mini-goals in a wide range of periodized categories. Use periodization to:

• Increase a certain lift or lifts.
• Improve a time or distance.
• Modulate bodyweight, improve body-fat percentage, or add lean muscle mass.
• Peak strength and power for a competition or event.
• Peak overall athletic performance using a broader nutrition, Mind, and recovery periodized template.
• Stairstep endurance and fitness upward.
• Periodize the off-season; have a plan when not competition prepping.

Periodization sanctions rest and recovery. Periodization makes rest and recovery an art form. The quicker the athlete can fully and completely recover, the more sessions can be accumulated in the same timeframe. An athlete able to recover fully from a result-producing session in five days accumulates six training sessions every 30 days. Those that need seven days to recover accumulate four result-producing sessions per month. The athlete that needs ten days to fully recuperate accumulates three sessions per month. Periodization is as much about the gaps between the training sessions as the content of the sessions themselves.

Applying Periodization to Cardio

Apply periodization tactics to cardiovascular conditioning. By “strapping up” and utilizing a heart-rate monitor, the athlete can assign a numeric value to cardiovascular intensity and in doing so enables the use of periodization. The heart-rate monitor allows the trainee to assign a numeric value to how hard the heart is working, intensity, in relation to the type and kind of exercise performed.

We have created a hypothetical periodized cardio workout template for illustrative purposes: a 40-year-old business executive is seeking to get back into shape. His goals, expectations and timeframe are realistic but aggressive. In addition to this 10-week periodized cardiovascular training schedule, he has an equally systematic approach to resistance training. The aerobic and resistance training is wedded to a nutrient-dense nutritional regimen.

Overarching goals for the 10-week / 70-day periodized cycle:

• Lose body fat while preserving or adding some lean muscle mass; the scale reduction is only one measurement.
• Increase measurable strength in each of the core four lifts: squat, bench press, deadlift, and overhead press.
• Improve cardio conditioning: commence with power walking and mid-cycle morph into jogging.
• Reset nutrition by switching out refined carbs, fast food, and sugar foods for nutrient-dense foods.
• Modify habits: disciplined nutrition and enforced rest underpin savage, consistent training.
• Adherence is critical: enthusiasm trumps willpower, and enthusiasm springs from measurable results.

A 10-Week Cardio Periodization Example

Ten-week periodized cardio exercise template: stair-stepping fitness upward

Reading the Heart-Rate and Bodyweight Table

Our hypothetical trainee has a class reunion in three months. The individual was a former athlete and has dormant muscle memory to reactivate. The goal is to methodically shave bodyweight while simultaneously increasing lean muscle mass via three weekly, hypertrophy-inducing, low-volume, high-intensity progressive resistance training sessions.

Mobilize and oxidize stored body fat through the careful coordination of disciplined dieting and regularly occurring cardiovascular exercise. The final fourteen days of the 70-day cycle require daily 30-minute sessions at 80% of estimated age-related heart-rate maximum. The trainee tools along at an average of 144 beats per minute for thirty straight minutes. Ten weeks earlier, the cycle commenced with three 15-minute sessions averaging 108 beats per minute.

The intensity column denotes the target estimated age-related heart-rate maximum as a percentage. The second number is the actual heart rate required for a 40-year-old to attain the target percentage for each weekly session. The old simple estimate places age-related maximum heart rate for a 40-year-old at 180 beats per minute. This is useful training arithmetic, not medical certainty. Individual maximum heart rate can vary widely.

In week one, our trainee seeks to power walk for 15 minutes, three times a week, averaging 108 beats per minute, the floor, for each of the 15 minutes of the session. This attains the targeted 60% of estimated age-related maximum heart rate. If the heart rate dips below 108, he picks up the pace. Conversely, if the heart rate soars to 135 while climbing a hill, he backs off. Bodyweight weigh-ins occur at the end of the training week.

Nutrition, Recovery, and In-Flight Adjustments

One common phenomenon: when the out-of-shape suddenly begin training correctly, not too much, not too little, not too intense, and not too mild, while also eating correctly, a reset can occur. Switching out highly processed foods and sugar-heavy foods for nutrient-dense foods can leave the trainee feeling healthier, more muscular, leaner, and more energized. Do not turn this into a medical detox claim. The point is food quality, consistency, training, and recovery working together.

Are you periodizing resistance training? Are you periodizing aerobic training? Are you periodizing body-composition manipulations? Are you cleaning up nutrition? Set goals, pick a timeframe and reverse-engineer weekly mini-goals. Eat the periodized elephant one bite at a time. There is a difference between exercising and training. Exercising is movement and motion without forethought or reflection. Training requires thought, planning, and adherence.

Once a thoughtful, realistic, multidimensional, periodized template is created, hold yourself accountable to making the infinitesimally small weekly improvements. In-flight corrections, refinements and adjustments are made along the way. The trainee ultimately arrives at the predetermined, overarching periodized goal, physically renovated, and psychologically revitalized. Learn how to periodize. Avoid the gerbil wheel that is exercise Groundhog Day.

Safety Note for Cardio Training Periodization

This article preserves Marty Gallagher’s RAW perspective on cardio training periodization, heart-rate targets, nutrition, bodyweight change, and training structure. It is not individualized medical, cardiovascular, nutrition, fat-loss, rehabilitation, or programming advice.

Heart-rate targets, daily cardio, jogging, stair climbing, cycling, rowing, elliptical training, aggressive bodyweight goals, and rapid increases in frequency, duration, or intensity are not automatically appropriate for every person. Age, medications, cardiovascular disease, blood pressure, diabetes, dizziness history, injury history, sleep, food intake, hydration, and recovery capacity all matter.

Start gradually. Warm up. Progress duration, frequency, and intensity in small increments. Do not treat age-predicted heart-rate formulas as medical truth. Stop or scale back for chest pain, faintness, dizziness, unusual shortness of breath, irregular heartbeat sensations, numbness, sharp pain, confusion, severe fatigue, hypoglycemia symptoms, heat symptoms, or any symptom that feels different from normal training effort.

Equipment Notes for Periodized Cardio Training

Equipment does not create periodization. The plan, the monitor, the logbook, the recovery, and the adherence create periodization. Equipment simply gives the trainee a mode that can be measured and progressed.

Readers and facilities can compare exercise bikes, treadmills, elliptical trainers, stairclimbers, and indoor rowing machines. Each mode can be periodized when duration, frequency, and intensity are tracked.

Specific cardio options such as the Body-Solid Endurance R300 air rower, Spirit Fitness CT800 commercial treadmill, Spirit Fitness CE850 commercial adjustable-stride elliptical trainer, Concept2 BikeErg, and the StairMaster Gauntlet Stepmill may fit certain training spaces when the user, room, floor, medical context, and intended use align.

The equipment supports the periodized plan. It does not replace the periodized plan.

Related Cardio Training Reading

For broader equipment-selection help, read Best Cardio Equipment Guide for Home, Commercial, and Rehab. For a specific cardio tactic, read Fasted Cardio Training. For a companion transformation article, read Creating Contrast for Radical Transformation.

RAW with Marty Gallagher, J.P. Brice, and Jim Steel Podcast.

About the Author: Marty Gallagher

As an athlete Marty Gallagher is a national and world champion in Olympic lifting and powerlifting. He was a world champion team coach in 1991 and coached Black's Gym to five national team titles. He's also coached some of the strongest men on the planet including Kirk Karwoski when he completed his world record 1,003 lb. squat. Today he teaches the US Secret Service and Tier 1 Spec Ops on how to maximize their strength in minimal time. As a writer since 1978 he’s written for Powerlifting USA, Milo, Flex Magazine, Muscle & Fitness, Prime Fitness, Washington Post, Dragon Door and now IRON COMPANY. He’s also the author of multiple books including Purposeful Primitive, Strong Medicine, Ed Coan’s book Coan, The Man, the Myth, the Method and numerous others. Read the Marty Gallagher biography here.