starting strength gym
Page 2 of 2 FirstFirst 12
Results 11 to 20 of 20

Thread: Training Optimality

  1. #11
    Join Date
    Sep 2014
    Location
    Champaign, IL
    Posts
    469

    Default

    • starting strength seminar april 2024
    • starting strength seminar jume 2024
    • starting strength seminar august 2024
    I think I understand where you're coming from now. I haven't applied your given definition of optimal very consistently. Your proposal would be a valuable experiment. I'm only trying to argue about what the most valuable lessons we could infer from it are, which are a little subjective anyway.

    A program's optimality should maximize efficiency and minimize the risk of injury based on the context of the trainee's situation
    Theoretically why is efficiency the quality you seek to maximize in an optimal novice progression?

    When you invest your money, would you be satisfied with a 1% return? No. You would want to get the most out of the money that you can, since you only have a short lifetime in which to invest it. Training is no different: we want the highest return we can get in our physical 401K
    What if your 401K didn't compound? What if its returns diminished say roughly logarithmically? Then the incentive to invest heavily early is greatly diminished. Within a certain limit efficiency in the initial phase would be sort of irrelevant to your lifetime return.

    The optimal quality of a training program is probably in the eye of the beholder. To my eye, training efficiency is the icing on the cake, but the cake is 'low programmatic volatility' over significant gains in strength. If I'm trying to convince people that finishing a novice progression would change their life, this would be a big part my argument.

  2. #12
    Join Date
    Feb 2012
    Location
    Greensburg, PA
    Posts
    400

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by ajvd View Post

    What if your 401K didn't compound? What if its returns diminished say roughly logarithmically? Then the incentive to invest heavily early is greatly diminished. Within a certain limit efficiency in the initial phase would be sort of irrelevant to your lifetime return.
    You are assuming our athlete has a lifetime to grow stronger.
    1. If our trainee is 16 and wants to not get smashed on the football field, then he better get strong, quick and efficiency is not irrelevant.
    2. If our trainee is 32 and has a family and a career and a mortgage and two car payments and can maybe sneak away to the gym may 3 hours per week, if lucky, then he better get strong, quick and efficiency is not irrelevant.
    3. If our trainee is 53 going on 73, overweight, diabetic and heading down the road to polypharmacy, she better get strong, quick and efficiency is not irrelevant.
    4. If our trainee is actually 73 and sarcopenia and osteopenia are crashing down around her on all sides then she better get strong, quick, and efficiency is not irrelevant.

    I cannot think of a meaningful situation where we ignore time's scarcity. To do otherwise, but then claim to be purveyors of fitness, may make sense only on a P&L Table at Planet Fitness.

    The 401k analogy is useful, but only to a point. Whatever the shape of the decay, a higher starting point is ALWAYS better. And, it has been my experience, that once a person has experienced some measurable increase in strength, and he sees that he can make that change, it is easier to fight that decay going forward. It is certainly easier than trying to convince a 70 year old to squat for the first time.

    Quote Originally Posted by ajvd View Post
    The optimal quality of a training program is probably in the eye of the beholder.
    Optimality is not in the eye of the beholder, that's the point of my entire article. It is objectively verifiable.

    Strength is the most useful adaptation as it influences other expressions of fitness. Strength can be measured. Since it can be measured and is most useful, progression should be maximized. Progression is maximized, I think, when a program takes advantage of the Novice Effect allowing for just enough recovery, but not too much down time. We test if the results are numerically superior to all other known programs for some measure of time that allows for meaningful adaptation to occur. If we can't find a better way to get people stronger as efficiently, then that's optimal (for now) and that's what any trainer should be coaching.

    Now if there is something in the program's nature that causes it to attract people with a low rate of compliance, i.e. a high rate of idiosyncratic volatility, then certainly questions should be raised. But inserting compliance as measure of optimality is not a good thing, I don't think, since an optimal program, by the definition in the article, is going to be hard. We cannot discount a program's optimality simply because it's hard and some people will decide not to finish it.

    Either way, this model has a mechanism to test rates of non-compliance (when collecting the data, the coach/client designates if the failure to achieve progress is a result of not eating, not training, etc). Hell, once the data are collected, a survival model could test if certain programs have a higher "hazard" rate (dropping out of the program = non-survival).

    Quote Originally Posted by ajvd View Post
    To my eye, training efficiency is the icing on the cake, but the cake is 'low programmatic volatility' over significant gains in strength. If I'm trying to convince people that finishing a novice progression would change their life, this would be a big part my argument.
    Here's the best way to convince them: get their squat to increase in three weeks by 30-45 lbs. Training Efficiency and Low Programmatic Volatility are really the same ingredient in the cake. And the cake is not a lie.

  3. #13
    Join Date
    Jul 2014
    Location
    Vista, CA
    Posts
    1,937

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Nicholas Racculia View Post
    And the cake is not a lie.
    Soylent green is people!

    Could we not acheive both. AJVD seems to be approaching it from a question of marketing: can we say, based on the data: "If you are a healthy X# male/female and comply with the program, you can expect X(ish) gainz." If I understand the article correctly, the end goal is more definitive: "SS is demonstrably a more efficient novice program than X, and after running that over X cycles/comparing it to X number of programs, we are reasonably confident it approximates the ideal."

    After a sufficient number of studies (or using the database Rip keeps hinting to), could we not reasonably provide both? If, across 8 comparative efficiency studies (or after thousands of inputs to a database), 50+ healthy 180# (starting weight) males end with a 1RM squat of X, then the low minimum of 1 standard deviation from that mean is a reasonable expectation for that cohort, and an SSC could advertise that so long as the athlete sticks to the program. If programmatic volatility is low enough, you might even be able to reverse-engineer it: "If my client doesn't achieve X, I need to look into my coaching and their compliance (or both) for problems." This assumption is already in SS 3rdE in the example Novice program ("if you haven't achieved X by now, YNDTP"), there'd just be the data behind it.

  4. #14
    Join Date
    Feb 2012
    Location
    Greensburg, PA
    Posts
    400

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by CJ Gotcher View Post

    Could we not acheive both.
    Yes definitely yes.

    Quote Originally Posted by CJ Gotcher View Post
    After a sufficient number of studies (or using the database Rip keeps hinting to), could we not reasonably provide both? If, across 8 comparative efficiency studies (or after thousands of inputs to a database), 50+ healthy 180# (starting weight) males end with a 1RM squat of X, then the low minimum of 1 standard deviation from that mean is a reasonable expectation for that cohort, and an SSC could advertise that so long as the athlete sticks to the program.
    I think that is a great use of the data for sure.

    Quote Originally Posted by CJ Gotcher View Post
    If programmatic volatility is low enough, you might even be able to reverse-engineer it: "If my client doesn't achieve X, I need to look into my coaching and their compliance (or both) for problems."
    By separating out idiosyncratic and programmatic deviations from expectations, and recording them as such, I definitely think this clever idea would work. Assuming the client is being truthful (and accurate) when recording meals, sleep, etc, this is a great self-test of coaching.

  5. #15
    Join Date
    Sep 2014
    Location
    Champaign, IL
    Posts
    469

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by CJ Gotcher View Post
    If programmatic volatility is low enough, you might even be able to reverse-engineer it
    If programmatic volatility is low enough, you might have a quantitative definition for being a pussy.

  6. #16
    Join Date
    Feb 2012
    Location
    Greensburg, PA
    Posts
    400

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by ajvd View Post
    If programmatic volatility is low enough, you might have a quantitative definition for being a pussy.
    No. That's not how we are defining it at all. You want programmatic volatility to equal 0. Look, if I say "do this program and you will see your squat go up by 180 lbs in 3 months, as a result of linear (quasi-linear) progression." You follow the program as prescribed and let's this happens:

    Case 1. If you follow the program and the program gets you to increase your squat by 180 lbs, then it has 0 programmatic volatility.

    Case 2: If you follow the program and the program gets you to increase your squat by 150 lbs, then it has 30 lbs of programmatic volatility.

    Programmatic volatility (and idiosyncratic volatility) are universally bad.

  7. #17
    Join Date
    Aug 2017
    Posts
    1

    Default

    Where can I find the references ([1] - [29]) of the article?

  8. #18
    Join Date
    Nov 2009
    Location
    Texas
    Posts
    3,111

    Default

    References are in the pdf link of the article.

  9. #19
    Join Date
    May 2017
    Location
    Boise, ID
    Posts
    237

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Nicholas Racculia View Post
    Programmatic volatility (and idiosyncratic volatility) are universally bad.
    No, only downside programmatic volatility (semi-vol) is bad.

    Fun finance analogies for strength training since I often think of performance in a finance context with strength training analogies -- not so much about markets, but about portfolio manager on-job performance.

  10. #20
    Join Date
    Feb 2012
    Location
    Greensburg, PA
    Posts
    400

    Default

    starting strength coach development program
    K Schwarz,

    Is there a specific question on one of the references or just a general request?

Page 2 of 2 FirstFirst 12

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •