Phase potentiation 

Phase potentiation in fitness is used to arrange periods of exercise to prepare someone for subsequent training, this will cause greater results over time. There are many kinds of potentiation in fitness in this article we will cover all of them.

Rep-to-rep potentiation- this is simply performing a rep to still allow for effective subsequent reps of that set. For instance, if you lose stability in your fifth rep of a squat the sixth rep is likely going to be made more difficult, and the set is likely to be less stimulative of muscle growth. This, therefore, advocates for controlled mindful reps.

Set-to-set potentiation- this is performing a set to still allow for effective subsequent sets of a workout. For instance, if you push to complete failure in the first set of five in the dumbbell bench press all four subsequent sets will likely not be as stimulative.

Exercise choice potentiation- this is ordering exercises to the point where overall at the end of the workout you will get the most stimulus and the least amount of fatigue. There are many examples I can give so I’m just going to give you a couple. Example one, a larger stronger lifter instead of just jumping into a heavy compound movement at the beginning of a workout, such as starting a leg session with high-bar back squats, they may start with a lower fatiguing exercise, such as leg extensions, which will pre-exhaust the quads so the high-bar back squats can be performed after with a lower weight and lower fatigue and risk of injury. Example two, contrastingly starting with single joint movements can be more fatiguing to the joints than if you started off with compound movements so some lifters would be better off starting with a compound movement like the barbell bench press on a push day, rather than starting off with skull crushers which places a lot of stress on the elbow joint.

Muscle group-to-muscle group potentiation- this is ordering exercises for different muscle groups so workouts can be more stimulative and less fatiguing for the entire body. For instance, if you train back and chest on the same day you may lower back volume so there isn’t so much interference with subsequent chest training.

Session-to-session potentiation- this is ordering training sessions to where one won’t cause too much fatigue for another. For example, performing deadlifts a day after squats may significantly impede deadlift performance due to DOMS or systemic fatigue, so you should order your training so this doesn’t happen, in this example, this may be separating the squats and deadlifts by a day of chest training.

Microcycle-to-microcycle potentiation- this is creating an exercise routine where one week of training doesn't negatively affect the subsequent weeks of training. For example, good Microcycle-to-microcycle potentiation across an accumulation phase may start off with most exercises performed with about 3-4 sets at 3-4 RIR (reps in reserve) and end with about 5-6 sets at 0-1 RIR before a deload (a week of low volume, low-intensity training), this way as you get less and less stimulated by training but the training gets progressively harder the training stays stimulative for muscle growth up until a deload which will resensitise you to training. Also if you jump straight into training at a high intensity and with high volume you will be getting very fatigued, whilst if you went into training with a lower intensity and with a lower volume and accumulate correctly you will be getting a little less stimulative training initially but a whole lot less fatiguing training meaning you can train for longer and in a more stimulative way in the long run, especially over many years. Most accumulation phases last from 4-8 weeks depending on the age, experience, gender and genetics of the individual.

Exercise choice potentiation- there are many ways to apply this so I will delve into them separately. One is to switch exercises for a mesocycle (a planned block of training) when a certain exercise better fits the desired type of training, for example, after two mesocycles of heavy squats in the third mesocycle where you aim to use a higher rep range and the squat is getting stale you can switch to the hack squat, which is providing a good amount of tension and a nice pump, it also makes it easier to enter the high rep range as the hack squat is not as challenging on the cardiorespiratory system. Another way to apply exercise choice potentiation is to spend a mesocycle or two focusing on a muscle that is inhibiting the training of other muscles, for instance, if the barbell bench press is limited by your tricep strength you may opt for a mesocycle or two of tricep focused training and use other exercises for the chest, such as chest flies, so when you reintroduce the barbell bench press it is now stimulative to both the chest and triceps.

cadence potentiation- there is not much to say about this but slowing down your rep speed and adding pauses will help you learn or refine your technique for a particular exercise, this can be done when reintroducing an exercise, when trying out a new exercise for the first time or after you have realised that your technique is suboptimal. Slowing down your reps and adding pauses will also mean you will need to drop the weight which will create less fatigue.

Volume potentiation- this includes changes in the amount of sets you perform for a particular exercise, muscle group or in total across the whole body. Deloads are an example of volume potentiation at its best, as MEV (the minimum effective volume across a week of training) rises across an accumulation phase towards MRV (maximum recoverable volume across a week of training) the deload will bring MEV back down to allow for more stimulative training, for instance, if MEV is 5 for chest at the beginning of a mesocycle and the MRV is 10, 6 weeks later and chest MEV is at 9 a deload will bring the MEV back down to 6 for another accumulation phase, eventually, however, there will come a time where a deload isn’t enough and MEV will be very similar to MRV even after a deload, this often occurs after 3-6 mesocycles and a maintenance training phase will be made necessary. MRV will increase across a mesocycle but at a slower rate than MEV. A maintenance phase is typically a 3-6 week long phase of maintenance volume training (training which won’t cause any muscle loss or any gain), you should also not aim to gain or lose weight during this phase, the rep range during a maintenance phase should be 5-10 reps for most exercise which will be the best at conserving muscle and you should only ever achieve a slight pump and rarely get sore. A maintenance phase often lasts 1-2 months, where after 1 month you should already get the maximal amount of benefits and any longer will only really be useful to drop psychological fatigue, but if that is the goal then an active rest phase would be better (I speak more on this in a moment).  Maintenance phases drop your MEV, resnsentises the muscles to training, convert muscle fibres back to fast twitch as they can become more slow twitch across an accumulation phase and it can also increase strength. When coming back from a maintenance phase the benefits are as clear as day the exercises feel really good, the pumps are great and there is often a lot of DOMS, giving you a sign that you hit the target muscle well. An active rest phase is another alternative, it is simply 2-4 weeks of no training whatsoever, and you simply aim to just stay active (as the name suggests), this is the best way to deal with psychological fatigue, such as after a big contest diet, it has most of the same benefits as a maintenance phase but you may lose some strength and size (which will be able to be gained back fairly quickly when returning to normal training), you may also slightly lose the technique for certain lifts and connective tissue may not heal as well as it does in a maintenance phase, as it is shorter, connective tissue will also be of an increased risk of injury when you return to training, when compared to a maintenance phase.

Loading potentiation- if you haven’t guessed this means changing the load percentage to your 1RM across different mesocycles, so you have mesocycles of heavy-focused training and mesocycles of light-focused training. During heavy training, a lot of fatigue accumulates, connective tissue gets damaged and volume resistance rises, leading to suboptimal growth. During light training, adaptive resistance rises much faster quickly reducing the effectiveness of this kind of training. By alternating between heavy-focused and light-focused training it gives you a chance to get prepared for the other style of training, as the current style of training's effectiveness decreases. Now during each of these mesocycles, it doesn’t mean you should only train using heavy loads and a low rep range or by using just light loads and a high rep range, but you should form a routine where you are using the desired load range about 50% of the time. Here are some examples:

Light-focused mesocycle:

Light load (high reps)- 50%

Medium load (Medium reps)- 35%

Heavy load (low reps)- 15%

Medium-focused mesocycle:

Light load (high reps)- 25%

Medium load (Medium reps)- 50%

Heavy load (low reps)- 25%

Heavy-focused mesocycle:

Light load (high reps)- 15%

Medium load (Medium reps)- 35%

Heavy load (low reps)- 50%

It is not critical that you follow these exact numbers as you may benefit more from a certain load range for a certain muscle at a certain time.

What exercises you do in a particular rep range is up to you, but it will be best to perform exercises you really want to get stronger at within the low rep range, and highly cardiorespiratory fatiguing exercises should also be performed in the low rep range most of the time, but it will be useful to eventually use a higher rep range for these exercise or at least switch it out for a while for an exercise which has less cardiorespiratory fatigue and which can be performed in the high rep range. Try not to switch between load ranges too frequently so you can gain momentum within a particular load range.

I recommend starting your first mesocycle with heavy focused training. Whilst your body and connective tissue are healthy, and your muscle fibres will be more fast-twitch, perfect for strength training, and as they become more slow-twitch you can switch to more light load-focused training. 

Frequency potentiation- as MEV and MRV increase from mesocycle to mesocycle increasing training frequency from mesocycle to mesocycle (the number of times you train per week) may be needed to get the stimulus you need without being too much that it offers diminishing returns. Another reason you may want to increase training frequency for each mesocycle is because as your muscle fibres become more slow twitch they don’t need as long to recover and they can handle more volume. Advanced lifters typically have bigger, stronger muscles and more fast twitch muscle fibres they therefore won’t be able to handle as much volume, and they may get just as much out of smaller frequencies as they do large frequencies, but this doesn’t mean beginners should train with a high frequency, it just means that they can, but they should work at building consistency and a habit of exercise as they can see benefits with a very low frequency. 

Block-to-block potentiation- a block of training is multiple back-to-back mesocycles, often sandwiched in between an active rest phase or a maintenance phase, dedicated towards a particular goal, this may be to gain muscle which usually lasts 2-4 mesocycles or to lose fat which usually lasts 1-2 mesocycles. Going straight from a weight loss to weight gain phase helps to potentiate the weight gain. However, to resensitise yourself to training but to still get the benefits of the potentiation I would sometimes recommend taking a mesocycle of weight gain straight after a weight loss phase and then performing an active rest phase or a maintenance phase before continuing with the weight gain phase. How many mesocycles you spend performing a muscle gain or fat loss phase is up to you and your needs, a more experienced bodybuilder who doesn’t need to gain muscle may only need 1 muscle gain phase followed by a maintenance phase then 3 mesocycles in a fat loss phase, contrastingly, a less experienced bodybuilder who is looking to gain muscle may have more benefits from 3 mesocycles of a muscle gain phase followed by a maintenance phase then 1 mesocycle in a fat loss phase. Bare in mind that it is unwise to keep undergoing short muscle gain or fat loss phases as this makes it hard to track progress and it also means you will lose momentum in certain lifts decreasing there SFR (stimulus to fatigue ratio) leading to less stimulative and more fatiguing training.

You don’t just need to undergo a fat loss phase if you're entering a competition, sometimes a fat loss phase will cause more rapid muscle growth when you return to lifting leading to an overall better physique, the occasional fat loss phase also has other benefits such as stopping excessive fat gain which makes it hards ever to cut if you decide to and it will lead to large amounts of muscle loss and potentially leave behind loose skin, it will also help you maintain your health better. Surprisingly once body fat percentages get too high gaining muscle becomes harder, this is why it is useful to keep your body fat percentage at around 20% for males and 30% for females unless you are a strength athlete.

Strength athletes often train for periods of time to increase muscle mass using more hypertrophy-based mesocycles of training, this will increase muscle size and the contractile proteins in the muscle. During this process, their strength will actually decrease but when they go back to strength-focused training their strength should increase to greater than before the hypertrophy-based training. The problem with gaining too much muscle mass is that it will increase the athlete's weight which may mean that they can no longer compete in their desired weight class, therefore this idea is best for those who are already at the top weight class or for those who want to move up into the next weight class.

Early career-to-later career potentiation- early in your career progress is easy with low intensity and with a low volume, and in fact, it may be more beneficial to train like this as technique is still in development so the injury risk is high, in fact, you should spend the beginning portion of your career on perfecting your form on the big compound lifts, these being the squat, conventional deadlift, barbell bench press and bent over row. There is also some evidence stating that training early in your lifting career, mostly in the 5-10 rep range, will build connective tissue strength, reducing the risk of injury as you get more experienced.