As an athlete, eventually you hit a point where performance stagnates, whether it’s from asymmetries, lack of mobility in certain joints, injuries, or false plateaus. Whatever the specific reason, we have all felt a loss of performance. It’s at this point that you need to go back and check your training, nutrition, and recovery journal. You should be looking to see if there are repeated setbacks.

The next step is to enter a phase of preparation for the next upcoming max strength, power, hypertrophy, or endurance phase. It is at this intermittent phase that you should work on any weak points, specifically those dealing with motor skills and asymmetries. This will not be the most glamorous, hardcore, or excruciating training. This is a point of anatomical adaptation. Some will refer to it as maintenance or general physical preparedness (GPP). They’re different terms, but they have the same outcome. For the purpose of this article, I’ll call it anatomical adaptation (AA).

Anatomical adaptation is a period of general preparation that prepares the body’s systems for the onslaught to come in the next phase of training. Keep in mind that this is for general adaptation. Regardless if you’re seeking strength, power, or endurance or if you’re an athlete competitive in a specific sport, this is a phase meant to gain general endurance, strength, and motor function. It is during this time that you need to be your own worst critic and rehearse perfected practice.

This phase will do you no good if you just go through the exercises to get through them. Each repetition should be precise and performed better than the previous one. In most other phases of training, you will act subconsciously, allowing your homeostasis body to adapt, conform, and surpass the stressors of your regiment. In AA, you need to be more conscious of your movements and posture as well as your body’s signals such as bad pain (a big difference from good pain). In order for you to be conscious, the movements won’t be of an explosive velocity. You need to use a more controlled and medium tempo speed. To discover the asymmetries and deload the spine, most movements should be unilateral and taken to different levels of failure.

I credit Tudor Bompa with the idea of feeling for the levels of failure for AA. There are three levels you should use to identify your type of failure. The first is slight discomfort (SD). It is at this point the tempo begins to slow and you are just beginning to feel the lactic acid building up. The second level is discomfort (D). Discomfort is a bit of a grey area. You will have lactic acid buildup and be moving at a slower tempo. It is at this point that concentric (lifting) failure is only a repetition away. The third level, high discomfort (HD), goes past what you thought was your stopping point in good form. I say “what you thought” because many will be surprised how much they have left in them to get another repetition or so. The end of high discomfort is near isometric failure (unable to neither correctly lift the weight nor hold it).

During AA, a linear periodization should be used. It makes it easier to track progression and possible unforeseen problems. The length of AA will depend on your individual needs and yearly regiment. If you have not created a basic year periodization for yourself, I suggest you do so. Periodizing yourself out for 52 weeks really helps to keep you on track and headed toward a long-term goal. Generally, any athlete will need from four to six weeks of AA.

Mainly, the emphasis is on endurance strength and general motor/muscle development. Beginners will want more exercises with fewer sets, and more advanced athletes will do better with more sets and fewer exercises. Also, during this phase, you want to increase motor skills and proprioceptive awareness in all three planes of motion (sagital, frontal, and transverse). For the most part, all exercises should be performed without any accessories that will end up debilitating your motor learning and proper muscle recruitment (weight belts, knee wraps, gloves). To enhance proprioceptive awareness of your environment, take your shoes off and train.

Many great coaches such as Mel Siff, Paul Chek, and Gary Grey speak of enhancing function by taking your shoes off and training. Most movements, if not all, will be closed chained in nature (generally standing on the feet or suspended by the hands), allowing your body to react to not only the load and gravity but also ground forces. Training without your shoes will enhance this AA phase. The linear microcycle should progress in a direction of more endurance and higher levels of lactic acid buildup each week.

I suggest that if you are new and decide to phase through AA for more than four weeks add a deloading week after week three to keep from reaching a plateau and overtraining the lactic energy system. Be smart about your environment when choosing your exercises. Tudor Bompa recommends separating your sessions to exercises and areas in the gym where you can move effortlessly to the next exercise. One way to handle this is to have one session containing all body weight, band, and cable movements; another session containing dumbbells, kettlebells, and medicine balls; and the last containing barbell movements.

Below, I illustrated an example of this type of training for a beginner on a five-week period. The program repeats in an every other day format (including weekends). Any weight used should start at a 60 percent rate max.

Week 1
2 X SD circuit
60 seconds rest between exercises and 120 seconds between sets

Week 2
2 X D circuit

60 seconds rest between exercises and 120 seconds between sets. Add two additional exercises.

Week 3
Beat week 1 PRs

45 seconds rest between exercises and 90 seconds between sets

Week 4
2 X HD circuit

45 seconds rest between exercises and 90 seconds between sets. Add two additional exercises.

Week 5
Beat week 4 PRs
30 seconds rest between exercises and 60 seconds between sets. Add one set.

Monday
Jumping jacks (frontal)
Chin-up (sagital)
Push-ups with rotation (transverse)
One-leg squats (sagital)
Lunge to heavy band lateral raise (frontal)
Dips (sagital)

Tuesday
Active recovery

Wednesday
Jump rope with high knees (sagital)
Kettlebell windmills (frontal)
Dumbbell box front squats (sagital)
Dumbbell one-arm bench Press (sagital)
One dumbbell Bulgarian squat with torso twist (transverse)
Dumbbell Turkish get-up (sagital)

Thursday
Active recovery

Friday
Jump rope with side to side hops (frontal)
Barbell one-arm deadlift (sagital)
Barbell deep lunges (sagital)
Barbell one-leg Romanian deadlift (sagital)
Barbell one-arm bent-over row (sagital)

One important note—if you find you have severe asymmetries, I suggest you take an additional one or two weeks away from moving to the next phase to really correct the problem. If that’s not something you want to invest much extra time in, add drills and stretching to your warm up. These will aid in correcting your asymmetries.