When I’m writing a program I like to think about how many weeks we’ll be “up” and how many weeks we’ll be “down”.

Up-weeks are hard training weeks where the goal is somehow progress week over week. Down-weeks are used for rest and recovery between blocks of harder training. As simple as this concept is, getting right is crucial to getting stronger and fitter.

In this video I give some insights into how to schedule hard training weeks and recovery weeks to improve your progress. This is really about determining how many up-weeks you can handle in a row before you need a change and when to schedule a down-week. While there are some general guidelines, each person’s requirements are unique and change over time as they move from beginner to advanced as well as depending on the type of training block you’re doing.