A couple years into my coaching career, I picked up a book that would change the way I looked at training for the rest of my life.
This book was called, “Scientific Principles of Strength Training”, by Mike Israetel, PHD, James Hoffmann, PHD, CSCS, and Chad Wesley Smith.
In summary, the book laid out various scientific principles, that are found in any productive training program. All of which we will talk through today.
What optimal looks like for you, depends on a variety of factors such as your biological age, your training age, injury history, your goals and so on.
This means that there is no one system, but instead a set of principles that should be used to formulate the effectiveness of training.
Over the years, I have taken these principles and put together my own system to get people as strong as humanely possible.
But my system is just one way, I hope to introduce you to these principles today and have them alter your perspective of optimal training, just as the book did for me years ago.
Principle 1: Specificity
Specificity Defined
The law of specificity states that training must be specific to the outcome that is desired.
For instance, if you want to get better at running 100 metre sprints, then the best way to practice this would be to hire a sprint coach and do more 100 metre sprints.
If you want to get better at squatting, then you must squat more.
All programs should be specific, but how much specificity required is completely dependent on your training age.
As a rule of thumb, the more inexperienced you are, the more specificity you need.
Specificity for beginners
The problem I often see with new lifters that want to get strong, is that they have way too much unnecessary variation in the program.
I’ve seen many new lifters that plan exuberant 12-week cycles of training, 4 weeks of which is spent doing needless variations of squats in an accumulation block.
Do you know how much practice it takes to just get good at squatting?
What are you waiting for?
You don’t need to be doing Zercher Squats, Frankenstein Squats, Hack Squats… get under a bar and start learning the skill right away.
Of course, if you are unable to execute the skill because of lack of mobility or strength, then there are exceptions to the rule, and then you can modify the exercise with a machine that provides more stability.
But if you are capable? Start practicing!
I would recommend picking the four main lifts which are the squat, press, bench press and deadlift.
Focus on getting good at those, all your time and energy should be placed here if you want to get really strong.
Then as you progress, some horizontal and vertical pulling exercise can be introduced into the program, but outside of that, there’s no need for any other exercises for now.
Specificity for Intermediates
Although the dose of specificity needed, decreases as you advance. It is still required in a sufficient amount even as you reach an advanced level.
However, at this stage of training, you can start to introduce more exercises into the program now that you are proficient at the main lifts.
At earlier stages of training, all efforts should be placed on the barbell movements. DB’s and machines are only introduced to help modify one of the exercises (for instance leg press for squats or Lat pull downs for chin-ups) or for rehab purposes.
Attention should be placed here because the weakness is the movement pattern itself. Also, the main lifts will provide enough stimulus to all the muscle groups as the beginner has low threshold for adaptation.
But now, the weakness is no longer the movement pattern.
This means that some of the time that was practice for the main movement patterns, can be spent doing extra volume on weaknesses.
I will usually run a body proportions analysis on my intermediate lifters, where we measure their limb lengths.
This is usually a great proxy to tell me which muscles they naturally bias based on how they are built.
The extent of how much specificity we use is dependent on the style of programming.
For instance, if I do a 4-day split, there will be more room to do extra assistance work because of the extra day of training.
If I run a 3-day total body, there’s less room to include assistance work, in so more effort is placed on the main lifts.
It’s very important that you do not get carried away at an intermediate stage.
Too much variation at the cost of specificity and mission creep has occurred. Training still must be very specific, but there will be a little more room for some other exercises to help add more volume to your weaknesses.
Specificity for Advanced
At an advanced level, there could be entire blocks of training (such as the accumulation block) where we do variations of the main movement patterns.
Benefits for the advanced lifter include:
- They offer a good stimulus to fatigue ratio. This serves the advanced athlete well because they can take a break from the more taxing main lifts, which will help reduce systemic fatigue, whilst providing enough stimulus from the assistance movements, machines/DB’s to create hypertrophy. This will then serve future phases of training where we transition the newly built muscle (with little fatigue cost) to specific strength blocks and make that new muscle stronger.
- They can help “emphasise” a particular weak muscle and provide more volume to that area. At a beginner level compounds have a high enough raw stimulus to create an adaptation. But as the lifter advances, the threshold for adaptation has increased. Inclusion of assistance/remedial movements helps include more volume to the weak area to force that muscle into adaptation. An argument could be made that as you increase the weight in the compounds, the stimulus by default has increased. And although that is true and could provide enough of a stimulus, it’s also not a bad idea to add more volume if necessary, with an extra assistance exercise to top up that stimulus to make sure that it will grow/get stronger.
The degree of specificity then, is phasic for the advanced lifter. Unlike the beginner and intermediate, specificity increases when they are about to express their rep max potential.
Principle 2: Progressive Overload
Progressive Overload Defined
Progressive overload is the process by where the training must become increasingly more difficult over time, to create a necessary disruption in homeostasis for adaptation to occur.
In its simplest terms, if your training does not get more difficult over time, then you will not become better.
You can make the training more difficult by increasing the weight, sets, reps, changing the exercise, adjusting rest periods, or tempo.
If you want to get strong, then increases in load will be the primary strategy you will use to make training more difficult over time.
Progressive Overload for beginners
Progressive overload initially occurs in the form of technical improvements from each subsequent workout.
Once technique has been learned, the form of progressive overload transitions from technical improvements to progressing the weight on the bar.
Bearing that technique is good, the beginner will increase the weight incrementally each workout.
As a rule of thumb, for the lower body movements you will initially increase by 2.5 kilograms. However, if the first session felt very easy and you are a gifted athlete. I have had people increase 5 to 10 kilograms per session. This works just fine but be honest with yourself. These are the exceptions not the rule, and for most of you, you will need to take your time. Inevitably, the lifts will become harder and smaller increases will be permitted. 1-to-1.5-kilogram increases will suffice fine enough at this point and will be required for you to keep making progress.
For the upper body movements, jumps in weight will have to be much smaller than that of the lower body exercises. Why I already hear you ask? Well, the lower body movements use the larger muscles of the body, such as the muscles in your hips and legs, as the engine to produce force. For the upper body, the pecs, shoulders, and triceps are the main drivers of force. Although they are still relatively big muscles, they pale in comparison to the lower body musculature. For this reason, jumps can be made anywhere between 1 to 5 kilograms per session, depending on your ability.
The worst thing you can do as a beginner, is progress too soon, too fast, with poor technique.
If you do this you will get injured, and you will hit a wall very quickly. It is important that you are honest with your ability.
Progressive Overload for Intermediates
An intermediate has now exhausted their ability to progress on a workout-to-workout basis, in so they will increase the weight on the bar each week.
Progressive Overload for Advanced
An advanced lifter may take up to several weeks before they can recover from a maximal strength effort.
Advanced Lifters: Will usually require at least 8–12-week cycle before they can break a record and progress.
Elite lifters: May take anywhere between 3–6-month cycles before they can break a record and progress.
These efforts must be planned in advance, so they are able to increase the weight from their previous cycle of training.
Principle 3: Stimulus, Recovery, Adaptation
Stimulus, Recovery, Adaptation Defined
SRA stands for Stimulus Recovery Adaption. It’s basically a fancy sports science term describing the process through which our body responds to training.
When we train, we introduce a stimulus or stress. Our body then responds to this stress through recovery and then finally adaptation.
It is important to note two things.
- The system (our body) does not get strong by applying a stimulus, it gets strong recovery from the stimulus. If you do not allow a long enough recovery period before progressing load, you will not get strong and you will not adapt.
- The organisation of training should revolve entirely around how quickly you can recover from a training stress.
SRA for Beginners
A beginner can recover and adapt every 48 to 72 hours, or on a workout-to-workout regime.
SRA for Intermediates
An intermediate can recover and adapt on a week-to-week regime.
SRA for Advanced
An advanced lifter may take up to several weeks before they can recover and adapt.
Principle 4: Variation
Variation Defined
Variation involves a change in either volume, intensity, exercise selection, tempo, rest periods, or a combination of some, or all the listed factors.
Variation for Beginners
Variation is one of the most commonly, misapplied principles in the entirety of programming and periodisation.
Many coaches insist on giving far too much variation when it is not yet warranted.
This is also known as complexity, for the sake of complexity.
The reality of the situation is this, the simplest way can often be the hardest way. Asking someone to add 2.5kg to the bar, when the last set of the last session already felt hard is a daunting thing for many people to do.
Instead, they’ll apply the principle of variation and use a stability ball to make it artificial easier.
Or they will change the plan entirely and make an excuse not to do it. There will be a point in your training where you will be confronted with this same realisation.
Do you lean into the inevitable, uncomfortable resistance that comes with lifting?
Or do you run and make it easier by adding unnecessary variation?
Even though variation is often misapplied and overused by people that do not warrant as much change as they think, it is still a pivotal principle in training.
There will in fact be a time when you do need to change exercises, volume, intensity, or a combination of factors.
As a rule of thumb, the more advanced you become, the more complexity is required to continue making progress in your training.
As a beginner, the only variation that is required is the increase in weight on the bar workout to workout.
This provides the lifter with the ability to get good at the movement patterns, take away all complexity and allow them to make linear progress.
Variation for Intermediates
As discussed in the specificity section, Intermediate lifters can now experiment with alternative assistance exercises to top up volume on weaker areas. Although, training should still be highly specific.
Variation for Advanced
Variation is at an all-time high for the advanced lifter. Here we can add variation to the blocks of training, the sets and reps, and exercises. As a rule, specificity increases, and variation decreases as the lifter is approaching a maximal effort repetition or repetitions.
We also explore higher repetitions at an advanced level in earlier periods of training. In Accumulation blocks, we are typically doing variations of the main lifts, which are typically better suited to higher reps.
At an intermediate level, we keep the main lifts in on a weekly rotation, so 5 reps and under are typically used because the lifter can recover and adapt from these lifts. Why 5 and under? In my experience, the main lifts performed for any higher repetitions do not yield substantial strength increases. For this reason, we keep within this range.
But at an advanced level, 5 reps or under year-round is too systemically fatiguing. Higher reps require lower weights, this will help the athlete recover from the previous high stress event. Then we gradually reintroduce lower reps in the subsequent intensification block to allow for more recovery and prevent overtraining.
Another noteworthy point is that by this stage the advanced lifter has pretty much maxed out their central nervous systems ability to recruit new muscle.
For this reason, one of the only ways an advanced lifter can get stronger long term, is by building more tissue.
Although 5’s will do this just fine, they become too systemically fatiguing for this level of lifter.
Higher reps will not only help drop systemic fatigue due to the lower weights lifted, but also help facilitate the process of muscle gain. A great deal for the advanced lifter.
Principle 5: Phase Potentiation
Phase Potentiation Defined
Phase Potentiation is the strategic sequencing of programming phases to increase the potential of subsequent phases and increase long term adaptive potential.
Phase Potentiation for Beginners & Intermediates
This principle is reserved entirely, for those that merit blocks of training at more of an advanced level.
As discussed in the SRA section, the length of which training is organised is dependent on how quickly the athlete can recover from a training stress.
Therefore, at a beginner and intermediate level, there is no need to prescribe entire blocks to facilitate a specific adaptation.
You could in a sense view the workout-to-workout progression as a micro phase potentiation for a beginner, and the week-to-week progression as a weekly phase potentiation for the intermediate.
However, this would not really be a “phase” of training as typically viewed from a sport science perspective.
Phase Potentiation for Advanced
However, as the athlete advances and exhausts the potential to progress on a weekly basis, it would be worthwhile to apply the principle of phase potentiation to drop residual fatigue from a high stimulus session or sequence of sessions.
Something that works very well in this case, is moving from a higher volume and lower intensity block, also known as an accumulation block. Which focuses on dropping fatigue and building muscle. To an intensification block, which focusses on developing strength and making that new muscle stronger. To a peaking block to express that new strength in the form of a Personal Record.
The length of the cycle will be dependent on the level of advancement of the athlete.
Advanced Lifters: Will usually require at least 8–12-week cycles that build up to a new record.
Elite lifters: May take anywhere between 3–6-month cycles that build up to a new record.
Very rarely do lifters need to spend any longer waiting around before they can break a record.
However, outliers do exist and should be accounted for with potentially longer periodisation strategies.
Principle 6: Individualisation
Individualisation Defined
The principle of individualisation dictates that, sports training should be adjusted according to the age, gender, rate of progress, and previous skill development of the individual.
All in all, the more advanced you become the more individualisation that is typically required.
Individualisation for Beginners
Unless you are trying to rehabilitate an injury, or you are unable to perform the main movement patterns and they need to be regressed, there is no need to individualise anything at a beginner level.
The most important factor at this stage is how the techniques are executed.
Training on the other hand can be very general and highly specific, the rate of gains will be at an all time high.
Enjoy it whilst it lasts!
Individualisation for Intermediates
More care needs to be taken with intermediate style training in comparison to beginners. Special attention needs to be placed on the relationship between volume and intensity days.
If there is a drop off in performance, are you accumulating too much or too little volume?
Decisions like this will have to be made on a more frequent basis, to fit your individual needs.
Individualisation can also come in the form of assistance exercises that are offering a good stimulus to fatigue ratio, this extra work is entirely based on your specific weaknesses.
Individualisation for Advanced
If I were to guess, less than 0.5% of the population will ever reach an advanced level of training. Lifting for these groups of people is a way of life, not a hobby.
To reach an advanced level, you must be willing to endure pain and years of sacrifice under the bar.
At this stage, this is no longer about your health, it’s about performance.
Of course, we know that high levels of performance and health are typically inversely related.
This brings me to the point that high levels of individualisation must be applied to the advanced lifter.
At this stage, the program is just a framework, but the advanced lifter would now have developed an ability to know what’s best, on that day, in that circumstance, and how to best use that framework to their needs in the present moment.
There is no one size fits all at an advanced level, this degree of individualisation is earned through years upon years under the bar.
Wrapping Up
There we have it!
You have now learned the 6 tenants of training, and I really hope this helps you as it once helped me!
You should now have the ability to evaluate the effectiveness of a training program based upon the individual’s context.
If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch!
Sam.
