Periodization

Basic approach

The simple idea is to go outdoors as much as possible in the warmer half of the year and to hit the gym harder in the wintertime.

To avoid major disruptions on the strength or the endurance side I try to do a least some maintenance work in each ‘off season’.

As a nice side effect I am always looking for the next season as I usually start missing the sports that are currently maintenance mode.

Flexibility and stability work I do year round and without periodization as injuries prevention and active recovery help for both strength and endurance.

A level deeper

I allow my body weight to increase a couple of kilograms (5 to 8) through the winter time. Still as clean food as possible, yet not neglecting the pleasures of Christmas. With much more limited endurance sports this easily brings me into calorie surplus. Higher body weight and fat help muscle growth and injury prevention for max strength exercises (e.g. heavy bench or squats). Starting March I get strict again on calories with a slight deficit until May - joined with hypertrophy training (high volume, high variety in exercieses) and increased endurance work. In a perfect world this grands a good bikini body in the summer time and nice weigth to power ratios on the bike :-)

My experience is, that once I hit a certain performance level and body fat percentage it is almost impossible to gain / maintain muscle while losing fat. The different phases through the year clearly helped me to overcome my initial limits.

In December 2023 I reached a Fat Free Muscle Index value of 25.6. Values over 23 (men) are usually marked as very strong, 25 is oftentimes seen as a demarkation line of natural vs. enhanced athletes (“ohne Anabolika kaum zu erreichen”). FFMI calculator

References

German top coach Sepp Maurer stated to me that he sees this approach as a somewhat ideal pattern in pushing for overall fitness for the longrun. Also Dr. Peter Attia (longevity expert) points in several interviews and presentations to a similar distribution.