Rip: The Minimum Effective Dose of Training

[Mark Rippetoe]

The Minimum Effective Dose of Training | Mark Rippetoe

[David A. Rowe]

Coach, I appreciate the article... so let me ask this here (will still work with my SSC, too). I'm 34 and training across strength, HIIT and running out of necessity for time and requirements of the military. As I participate in training phases (OSUT, SOPC, etc.) where I have little control in scheduling my own physical training, is there a simplified and effective strategy for implementing strength ad hoc? I was never an impressive athlete (20" vertical), so every opportunity I get I intend to use... even if sub-optimal.

Example: while at OSUT... I talk the instructors into letting me have access to the gym for barbell training 2 times a week, but I still have to participate in the running, unit PT, etc. Keeping MED in mind, and working around the unknowns, what plan would you advise to see someone through until they can get back to a full training schedule? (ie. work up to 5s across? 3s to hit intensity and limit volume? Squat/bench and deadlift/press splits?)

[Mark Rippetoe]

Ask your SSC about this.

[tallison]

This is really, really good and probably answers some of the questions I had about the definition of “stress” in the Wittgenstein piece... I will need to find some time to reread it slowly a few more times to offer any really useful comments, but fwiw, the zeroing in on/defining “dose” and it’s relationship (or lack thereof) to “volume” is fantastic and much needed in many discussions of strength training. Also “it's hard, but it's not useful” is a very helpful distinction to let sink in for an engaged but wrong-headed segment of the population.

Thanks for writing it.

[Ivan Stepic]

This is a tough fight... Because there is Dose Response relationship between "volume" and "hypertrophy" shown in meta analysis done by highly respected researcher Brad Schoenfeld. That makes it evidence-based and if you slightly disagree you're a flat earther.

I used to enjoy Sully dismantling shitty papers but I can see why he probably lost interest. It's just not worth the effort.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Yeah, takes a lot of time, and people pay no attention to logical refutation if it provides benefit to ignore it.

[chrisza]

I realize that I am only n=1 but I have experienced the full scope of everything in this article. I am a very youthful 46 and I dove headlong into one of those higher volume RPE templates thinking it would break me out of some plateaus . It felt great at first training nowhere near to failure with many more sets than I was used to, but each week I found I was becoming weaker, more fatigued and had to keep taking weight off the bar. At the conclusion of eight weeks, I felt like shit, and my lifts all dropped significantly even without cutting weight. It took me at least 3 months to get back to my old strength levels. I've done all kinds of training programs ( mostly bad) and using a MED approach with planned progression has yielded all my best lifts .