What is The Meso Method?
Simply stated The Meso Method is VitFit’s approach to organizing and achieving goals through a focus on what we call, the juicy middle bits aka- the mesocycles. It’s in the middle that all of the good stuff happens. If we can teach ourselves to enjoy the work and process of the middle, achievement will become habitual.
In training for fitness performance, we break up seasons or goals through cycles of training. The most obvious example is in the world of competitive sports. Typically there is an off-season, pre-season, in-season, and post-season. Each of those “seasons” can be considered a mesocycle with a specific focus all in support of the bigger macrocycle, in the case of competitive sports, the competitive year. In order to reach peak performance at the right time of the year, mesocylces of preparation, repetition, competition, and recovery must all be planned and coordinated as one bigger picture.
From the macrocycle goal and associated mesocylces, we further break down the season into microcycles and then finally into the nuts and bolts of the fitness program and individual workouts.
While it may be easy to see a year in the field of competitive sports, or even high-performance amateur athletics (the realm of the weekend warriors) it’s a bit harder to conceive of a fitness or wellness goal that spans a full year.
In some cases, it is possible to identify the macrocycle as a standalone goal that can be achieved in anywhere from 3-6 months. Some consider training for a marathon a macrocycle with the goal of running 26.2 miles on a given date. In other cases, a macrocycle may be a goal to be prepared for another macrocycle, for example training for a 10k as a goal in itself and also in the service of preparing for another macrocycle goal of the aforementioned marathon. In the case of most recreational athletes, this is a more achievable and enjoyable way to approach the macrocycle.
In our use of The Meso Method, we use the example of the shorter macrocycles to guide our goal-setting process. Why? It’s applicable to more people, it is less daunting to consider and it provides more frequent opportunities for success, which we believe creates a habit of success. More on that later….