- Specificity
- Novelty
- Volume
- Intensity
- Rate of perceived exertion
- Rest (frequency; duration and nature of rest between reps, sets, and series; session duration)
- Exercise dynamics
- Preceding load
- Following load
- Load dynamics
In some classic Soviet sources, “specificity” led the list. Because the more similar the exercise to the athlete’s competitive event, the more stressful it is.
“Novelty” is another key load parameter on the list. Because the organism is more responsive and less resistant to a novel stimulus. As one sports scientist put it, “Periodization of sport training manifests itself in a periodic restoration of the initial ratio of the system’s sensitivity and stability to the load on each successive, higher level…”
A training program written without accounting for all of the above parameters is doomed to failure.