Transcription
What's up everyone? Welcome back to the channel. Today's video is an evidence-based guide on how to properly individualize training, whether it's for yourself or for your clients.
I really do feel like individualization has become a little bit of a lost art in the evidence-based era of training, or especially depending on the content creators that you follow. I'm worried that a lot of newer coaches are maybe falling into this trap thinking about evidence-based or science-based training being this like black or white thing. A lot of young coaches, or even just people who are into their training, if you're getting all your ideas about science-based training just from social media, you might start to think things like, "Oh, low volume is science-based and high volume isn't science-based," or "Bent over rows are not science-based, but chest-supported Kelso shrugs are science-based." It's not like that at all.
But then again, I feel like there's no content creators talking about the frameworks that we actually use to successfully and properly individualize training for our clients to get better results. So anyway, that's the main thing that we're going to get into today.
I also think, as someone who has sold a variety of training products, both individualized and non-individualized programming, that's a worthwhile discussion that I'll probably make a whole separate video on. Because at the end of the day, training doesn't need to be individualized to work for people. And while I hold that belief, I also simultaneously hold this belief that the best programming is highly individualized. And if you are someone, such as myself, who sells individualized programming, then you should be bloody good at it.
As always, if you like the way I talk about training, I highly recommend you check out our courses or even our free programs down below. But for now, let's get into the video. First, we're going to unpack one of our major concepts for individualization, which is the bandwidth of good enough. Now, I'm going to run through some practical application, looking through the lens of strength and hypertrophy training, endurance training, and plyometric training.
Sorry about the change of scene. I had to duck off for a surf check, and the sun has dramatically changed its position in the short time that I was gone. Anyway, so one of the things that people really struggle to reconcile when it comes to an evidence-based approach and reading, consuming a lot of research, trying to determine what the best practice is for whatever you're trying to do in fitness. And this is one of those things that we can't even blame on science communicators or content creators. It's a problem in the way that the research is written and delivered. And it kind of comes from this lack of reconciliation between, you know, understanding in the real world that multiple methods work for any sort of fitness goal. But then reading research papers like "Squats versus Hip Thrusts" and being like, "Oh, all these different papers say different things about squats versus hip thrusts as far as which one causes more glute growth than the other." Or people will read these studies on hypertrophy training, they're like, "Oh, look, low volume is the best way to train. High volume is stupid." Or they'll read a research paper on polarized endurance training, they're like, "Oh, if you're not polarizing your training, it's bad training. It's not evidence-based because the polarized endurance training program outperformed the non-polarized one with this cohort."
But this is why you need to learn to do a couple of things. You need to learn to read the whole paper, and you also need to think critically for yourself. Especially if you pay a lot of attention to the results portion of all these research articles when they're discussing things like whether high volume or low volume got better results. And you look at the results they got, both with low volume and with high volume, you realize they're like, pretty competitive. And even outside of that example of high volume versus low volume training, whether you're looking at glute growth from squats versus hip thrusts, endurance gains from polarized versus non-polarized training, the research is always trying to present it in this way that there is an optimal choice. And like I said, I don't want to put too much blame on the researchers because they're just writing papers in the way papers have been written for years. Most people who read research regularly do actually understand this. It's more just like, I said, people who only learn about science from social media that kind of miss this.
So what I've personally taken from the body of evidence, whether it's hypertrophy training, endurance training, plyometric training, is that so many different approaches to training have actually been validated by peer-reviewed evidence. Like I said, it's more just in the way that the results are discussed, we're led down this path of trying to work out what's optimal for all our clients. So when you shift from this filter of just trying to find the optimal thing when you're scouring through all this evidence to, "Oh, I just want to see what the viable options are," then you start to establish what we call here at GPP, the bandwidth of good enough. So the bandwidth of good enough are all the methods of training that have been validated by scientific evidence to some degree, or where that's lacking, just my own anecdotal experience with my clients.
Another key difference in the way that we talk about training here at General Physical Preparation. To us, optimal and individualized are synonyms. Because in my opinion, just circling back to how I was talking about at the start, you know, no one needs individualized training. Plenty of people get great results with templated training, especially in the beginner-intermediate stages, especially people who have, you know, really flexible lifestyles, they can fit their life around a program a little bit more. We achieve optimization only through individualization, which I'll give you specific examples of our parameters for individualization as we go through each specific example of different training qualities. So yeah, stop reading research to find optimal. Start reading more research to figure out your bandwidth of good enough training approaches. And then when you take this approach, consuming the evidence over a longer period, it just gets less frustrating. Cuz I see it all the time. People just blowing up their wall, "Sports science is dumb because, you know, one paper comes out and it's high volume training. Then the next paper comes out and they say low volume training." Or saying things like, "Oh, you know, first they're saying hip thrusts are best for glute growth, and then the next paper's saying squats or RDLs are the best for glute growth. I'm done with sports science. It's all over the place." Whereas I'm just sitting here seeing all this evidence accumulate for both high and low volume training. I'm seeing all this evidence accumulate that squats and hip thrusts are both great glute training options. And the statistical differences at a population level are meaningless compared to finding the right fit for someone's individual situation or even just their preferences.
Okay, now let's talk about some of the specific application of individualization within this bandwidth of good enough as far as it applies to strength and hypertrophy training. To be fair, I think there's a pretty good argument you could make to discuss them as separate qualities, but for us here at General Physical Preparation, we prefer to look at them as more similar than different, and we'll circle back to that once I've explained a little bit more for the reasons why. So our bandwidth of good enough for good strength or hypertrophy training is set within five reps of failure. You can make an argument for even lower RPEs for the skill acquisition component of strength training, but for the sake of simplicity, let's just pretend that strength training also has to be at least five RPE on the intensity scale. Because at the end of the day, that's still a really conservative intensity prescription, and it guarantees that we're not only getting skill adaptations, but we're also getting structural adaptations simultaneously. Biasing volume versus hypertrophy seems to be a little bit of a personal preference thing. As we mentioned before, both have a lot of supporting evidence saying that they're totally viable approaches. One of our constraints for individualizing this will be athletes who train for multiple qualities. So if you only care about strength and hypertrophy training, both a high and low volume approach, in my opinion, are completely viable approaches. Having said that, all of a sudden, when you're training multiple qualities, there's just a lot less room in the program for total training. So a low volume training, you're almost constrained to that if you want a successful hybrid or more strength and conditioning approach to your training. Having said that, both low volume and high volume are not specific doses. They're still their own bandwidths at the end of the day, so there's still room for individualization within a high volume or a low volume approach. And even for someone who's just a straight-up powerlifter, like they might have space in their program for like an RPE four bench triple or something like that. Whereas an SNC or hybrid athlete doesn't have the space for that. And then frequency is dictated typically by two main variables: the client's schedule and then the total training volume. So there's only a total amount of high-quality sets that a client can give you in any single workout. So typically, the way I program, the higher the volume is for any given lift or body part, that will start to increase their frequency at a certain point. And then exercise selection will be dictated primarily by these three variables: your goals, access to equipment, and then personal preferences. Like obviously, if you're a powerlifter, you have to squat, bench, and deadlift. It doesn't really matter your preferences. Like you've you've chosen powerlifting, that's just what you have to do. But outside of strength sports, all other exercise selection is yeah, basically just down to access to equipment and then what within that bandwidth of good enough, what your clients like, which is a lot wider than people realize.
Exercise selection is definitely something that people looking at far too much through a straw when they adopt this science-based lens. Again, talking about the social media side of it. One of the classics is a lot of people think that, oh, if you're not doing, if you're doing a bent over row instead of, you know, some sort of chest-supported Kelso shrug, that you're not science-based. Bent over rows, chest-supported horizontal cable rows, things like that, they're all science-based. And all of it just comes down to what equipment does your client have access to and which ones do they want to train hard. Which can be really deflating for a lot of coaches out there who have adopted this science-based persona and who have built their identity around prescribing particular exercises. Like, I'm sorry you based your whole training identity and coaching identity around particular exercises, but you're making things worse for your clients.
When it comes to talking about the bandwidth of good enough for different training qualities, I think it's really interesting to contrast hypertrophy training with endurance training. You know, with hypertrophy training, we have this quite specific bandwidth of good enough. It's an amount of sets that they need to be at this certain level of intensity to qualify as quality work within five reps of failure. Whereas when it comes to endurance training, you know, we can get great training adaptations through all training zones, you know, from zone one all the way up to zone five. And all this means is we can be even more individualized with our endurance training programming because our bandwidth of good enough is so much wider. And so the key variables that are going to underpin our training prescription are going to be their goals, especially when it comes to the modality, and then the level of fitness that we're trying to achieve. And then a bit of information about their current workload or their current level of fitness and workloads that they've previously done to get to certain levels of fitness. And then trying to fit all that within their schedule and adhere to some of their preferences as well.
A lot of people would say that we're not being science-based if we don't polarize our endurance training programming, but that's complete. We do both polarized and non-polarized approaches with our athletes here at General Physical Preparation. Some of the key things I would say, one of the key things that dictates whether or not we adopt a more polarized approach, actually, it's probably more one key variable whether or not we adopt a polarized approach to their endurance training programming is just their total workload. Typically, as total workload increases, we start to see it's more even. I just start to think about it more in terms of a polarized approach, but it isn't practically. Because in my mental model, when I'm programming, zone two and three are my low-intensity workouts. I don't really have anyone that's doing zone one work, not that you couldn't do it if you wanted to if you had lots of time. And then zone four and five, I consider my high-intensity work. So in theory, I have this high-low model, but in practice, you know, I've got zone two and three in the same week. So I don't consider that a truly polarized approach. I'm not here to bash polarized training. I will say it's dramatically overrated in the current meta, but it's it's just one approach. It's like the high volume versus the low volume thing in the hypertrophy world currently. Polarized versus non-polarized, I'd say most people are jumping on the polarized and by all means, like I said, but that it all works, so many ways work, it's crazy. But it's important to understand as a coach so you don't unnecessarily constrain things for your athletes because again, all it does is minimize your understanding of the bandwidth of good enough and it harms your ability to properly individualize for your clients.
Friendly reminder that I do mentor S&C coaches. So if you want the most base mentor in the industry, check out the links down below. Sign yourself up for GPP Level One. Uh, now it's time to talk about how we individualize our training for plyometrics here at General Physical Preparation. So I'll be honest, this is something where in practice, I've been individualizing a lot less lately. But I also want to discuss that it is okay to have a little bit more of a systems-based approach, especially where appropriate. Like, there is some context to this. Like, I've introduced a lot of people to plyometric training, so often they're not really coming to me with their own specific preferences or goals. They just generally want to get into plyometric training and for me to teach them about it, whether it's just an aspect of training that they haven't explored before, or they're a coach themselves looking to get into plyometric training with their clients and they want to experience it first. But yeah, they're they're not necessarily coming into with many biases or any biases that they're coming into it with, they've kind of got from my content anyway. So I'm not going to lie, it is a lot more plug and play systems-based in practice with a lot of my plyometric training prescriptions at the moment. And so what that entails, I have a heavy bias towards more the locomotive side of plyos, repeated efforts more so over the single effort shock method sort of depth jump approach. All of my clients will be leaping, hopping, and bounding. The breakup is sort of dictated by their tolerance and their ability, often go hand in hand anyway. So my beginner, less experienced plyometric athletes, they get a lot more intensity on the leaping early on, and their single leg plyometric work, like their bounding and their hopping, will be a lot lower intensity. And then this almost inverts as they get a little bit more advanced with it. So then once they're a bit more intermediate advanced plyometric athlete, or at least just experienced, still using leaps to get a lot of variety and volume in, but typically at lower intensities, and then saving the intensity for the more complex single leg work as well, so combining complexity and intensity there. Only once we're advanced separating those two in the initial stages seems pretty logical to me. And then over time, through exposing them to a variety of drills and things like that, they will over time develop their own preferences, and then we can start to individualize on a little bit of a deeper level.
So one example of individualization and just it's challenging my biases. I don't train a lot of people for vertical jump specifically. A lot of people come to me wanting their vertical jump to improve, but it's not their primary goal. It's in amongst a myriad of other S&C or hybrid goals. But whereas I do have a client now where his primary goal is increasing his vert, he wants to dunk on his cousin. And in the coming months, he will actually be doing a lot more of, you know, classic shock method plyometric training, depth jumps, drop jumps, and things like that. Because I believe for just general S&C, outside of trying to increase your vert, I think those types of plyos are pretty overrated, and people should just be smashing more locomotive plyos. Not that there's anything wrong with them, but this is why I'm challenging challenging my bias about them. I'm including more shock method style plyos in my training right now, doing a little bit less locomotive plyos, just sort of seeing what impact they have on my general athleticism. Cuz yeah, I'm sort of similar. I wouldn't mind my vert going up, not one of my primary goals, mainly interested in just getting bigger, stronger, faster, and fitter for the ocean as well. Yeah, that's just a general outline of how I apply plyos. I have a personal bias in my coaching system towards being a believer in these repeated effort locomotive plyos. The individualization of how I program for it primarily just comes down to ability and tolerance, or just working people through this system from the beginner, intermediate, through to the advanced stages. And ultimately, what ends up being most individualized about that is just the cadence of which someone travels through that journey.
Anyway, that's the video. I hope this has enhanced your understanding of how to consume and apply research and how to properly approach individualizing either your training or your client's training. Think about the bandwidth of good enough. Stop reading research trying to find optimal. Research just establishes the bandwidth of what works, and that just gives you such an effective arsenal of protocols to properly individualize and still have really effective training for your clients.
As always, if you want to explore these concepts a little bit deeper, check out the links down below. Other than my GPP Level One course, I've also got a link to a free plyometric training program. If you're not interested in any of that, uh, YouTube is probably recommending two of my previous videos, so please just go and binge some of my content, and I'll see you in a couple of days.