me of us also get nasty elbow pain after a few weeks of skullcrushers. It’s the same with presses behind the neck. Some of us swear by them for their ability to build cannonball delts. Some of us swear at them for their ability to produce rotator cuff pain. We all love thPeriodization is a very popular word in the bodybuilding and powerlifting worlds. It seems that every day we see an article promising us great gains through the use of this or that periodization scheme. We have old school linear periodization. We have new school Russian waved periodization, for example, by Boris Sheiko or Pavel Tsatsouline. We have Westside Barbell’s conjugate periodization. Well, get ready, because now we have yet another form of periodization: Pain Periodization.

What is Pain Periodization? Is it some new hardcore bodybuilding method? Is it the latest fitness fad? Is it some leftover practice of the Marquis de Sade? Is it a new reality game show? That would be three nos. It is simply a common sense way to schedule productive bodybuilding exercises that might otherwise be discarded. Read on and I’ll explain, but first let me illustrate the problem we are trying to overcome.

We all know that there are exercises that we both love and hate. For example, skullcrushers are one of the best triceps moves for getting those huge guns. Unfortunately, some of us also get nasty elbow pain after a few weeks of skullcrushers. It’s the same with presses behind the neck. Some of us swear by them for their ability to build cannonball delts. Some of us swear at them for their ability to produce rotator cuff pain. We all love the

aved periodization, for example, by Boris Sheiko or Pavel Tsatsouline. We have Westside Barbell’s conjugate periodization. Well, get ready, because now we have yet another form of periodization: Pain Periodization.

What is Pain Periodization? Is it some new hardcore bodybuilding method? Is it the latest fitness fad? Is it some leftover practice of the Marquis de Sade? Is it a new reality game show? That would be three nos. It is simply a common sense way to schedule productive bodybuilding exercises that might otherwise be discarded. Read on and I’ll explain, but first let me illustrate the problem we are trying to overcome.

We all know that there are exercises that we both love and hate. For example, skullcrushers are one of the best triceps moves for getting those huge guns. Unfortunately, some of us also get nasty elbow pain after a few weeks of skullcrushers. It’s the same with presses behind the neck. Some of us swear by them for their ability to build cannonball delts. Some of us swear at them for their ability to produce rotator cuff pain. We all love th

bodybuilding method? Is it the latest fitness fad? Is it some leftover practice of the Marquis de Sade? Is it a new reality game show? That would be three nos. It is simply a common sense way to schedule productive bodybuilding exercises that might otherwise be discarded. Read on and I’ll explain, but first let me illustrate the problem we are trying to overcome.

We all know that there are exercises that we both love and hate. For example, skullcrushers are one of the best triceps moves for getting those huge guns. Unfortunately, some of us also get nasty elbow pain after a few weeks of skullcrushers. It’s the same with presses behind the neck. Some of us swear by them for their ability to build cannonball delts. Some of us swear at them for their ability to produce rotator cuff pain. We all love th

Read on and I’ll explain, but first let me illustrate the problem we are trying to overcome.

We all know that there are exercises that we both love and hate. For example, skullcrushers are one of the best triceps moves for getting those huge guns. Unfortunately, some of us also get nasty elbow pain after a few weeks of skullcrushers. It’s the same with presses behind the neck. Some of us swear by them for their ability to build cannonball delts. Some of us swear at them for their ability to produce rotator cuff pain. We all love th

me of us also get nasty elbow pain after a few weeks of skullcrushers. It’s the same with presses behind the neck. Some of us swear by them for their ability to build cannonball delts. Some of us swear at them for their ability to produce rotator cuff pain. We all love the bench press, but not all of us can handle the shoulder strain the bench press can produce. Luckily, there is an answer. It’s called Pain Periodization. Let’s break it down.

Pain Periodization is a method of planning our workouts so that we can use our favorite exercises without letting the pain get out of hand. We use the exercise for a certain preplanned period, and then move on to something else. As James Brown would say, we “hit it and quit it.” Let’s look at some examples.

For shoulder size, we might like the behind neck press. But after four or five weeks, the rotator cuff is so sore that it takes a month to heal. We have forsaken the behind neck press altogether and instead used machine shoulder presses. We’d like to do behind neck presses, but we can’t afford the pain and possible down time. By using Pain Periodization, we can have our cake and eat it too. We can start using our favorite shoulder exercise again and still retain shoulder health.

Here is an example 8-week workout plan using Pain Periodization.

· Weeks 1-2 Behind Neck Press