ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the concepts of "evidence-based practice" to developing training and conditioning programs and the "general adaptation syndrome" and how it fits into a periodized training model. Resistance training program design is therefore a dynamic process of change in response to the achievement or lack thereof of training program goals. The complexity of training will increase as the athlete progresses in their ability and experience with resistance training. The chapter presents the terminology related to periodized training programs and the historical aspects of periodization. The mesocycle is traditionally the culmination of several weeks of training, with the macrocycle normally comprised of multiple mesocycles. The chapter explains "traditional" and "non-traditional" periodized models of training and “flexible" non-linear programing. The traditional model of periodization proposed from its original form used in the former Soviet Union has in recent times also been referred to as linear periodization due to an increasing intensity of resistance with each phasic cycle of training over time.
