People often make the analogy of training and cooking – ie. the classic “You wouldn’t just throw ingredients together into a tin and hope you somehow get a cake” (generally followed by a sales pitch for programming). Guess what though? Somebody who has been a chef or baker for many years isn’t going to follow a recipe to the letter every time, or even follow a recipe at all. They have years of experience and instinct that will guide them towards the best possible outcome.
They might find that the humidity is up, so they have to alter cooking times. They might find the fruit is more moist than usual, so they have to add a bit more flour. They might see that the cake is burning before the oven timer is up, so they’ll take it out early.
Lack of food on the day. Poor sleep the night before. A gym with everybody in ‘flow’ and killing it. Getting stuck at work and having to do back to back sessions on adjacent days. Training, like making cakes, is full of all sorts of variables you can’t ever program away or make a totally unchanging recipe for.
The main focus for a lifter and the #1 goal for anybody writing programming is to make sure that you’re consistently doing enough (relevant) work to exceed the minimum effective dose (that being, the absolute minimum work they need to get a result), but not too much that they’re exceeding their maximum recoverable volume. That’s it. That’s the ONLY two major guidelines that clients and lifters -need- to make progress in some way.
All the other ‘fluff’ that people drum up as being the ‘secret’? That’s the sprinkle on top of your cake – sure it might make yours stand out from the rest and make it look pretty, but the majority of the cake mix is what’s underneath all the pretty toppings.
Not sure how to figure out your minimum effective dose, maximum recoverable volume or unsure on how to target your training to your goals? Send our team a message and let us help you become the best you can be.
Stay strong,
Drew Spriggs
