Benefits of A Transition/Pivot Block

When it comes to training consistently with the intent of getting results there comes a point where you will get fatigued from training and have stalled in your progress. This is when incorporating a transition block is highly beneficial, and may boost your progress by taking a step back for a week.

A transition/pivot block is simply a block where you pivot to a new block. Each block is made up of 4-6ish weeks, typically - it depends on how much time it takes for you to “peak” into your tipping point of maximum effort. Some benefits of using a pivot block:

1. Physical break from the same routine

2. Allows you to become more “sensitive” to your training

3. Mental break

4. Preps you for a competition

The goal is to reduce the stress of your training from the previous weeks by about 50% or so. So if you’ve been doing sets of 5 at 80% or 8RPE for the past 4ish weeks then into the pivot block you might want to incorporate a top set of 3 with no back down sets (not too much intensity), followed by sets of 6 at a 6RPE - these are just examples.

The hard part when incorporating this block is knowing how much to decrease the stress by because if you reduce too much then you may lose strength (in strength programs). It is a balance between the proper workload to make sure you aren’t losing your “gains.”

You have to reduce the intensity enough that you aren’t losing strength, but enough to keep progressing.

The transition block is a good time to incorporate different movements and move in different planes of motion. If you constantly move in the sagittal plane of motion (using machines at the gym, doing the squat, bench, and deadlift, etc) then try moving in frontal plane doing exercises such as:

• lateral lunges

• lateral spiderman push ups - explosive work aka power work

• abductor and adductor work

• paloff press

• windshield wiper abdominal exercise

• banded lateral work

• Safety Squat Bar (SSB) bulgarian split squats

• emphasize more rhomboid work, which is often neglected by a lot of programs aka cable rows

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