The pursuit of optimal training efficiency over a lifetime, or lifting career, seems rational. But if you’re going to limit your definitions to just the novice stage of a lifting progression it seems a bit extraneous.
I’m probably just missing something obvious but why aim to prove something about predictable maximal efficiency for novices? It just seems like a very high bar (hurdle not squat) when a much lower one would suffice.Hypothesis: The Starting Strength Novice Program is Optimal with respect to Strength acquisition.
... The goal of each experiment is to reject the hypothesis.
Suppose you can demonstrate a Starting Strength progression gets 70% of trainees in a given demographic group to 225/315/405/495 within 18 months. I would think a lot of serious trainees would trade the potential of a better program for a high degree of certainty in results. People make analogous choices with their financial investments all the time.
It might be more productive to quantify what your protocol does, let ACSM demonstrate that their program is better. I would think there are enough novice trainees with certified coaches already to yield some reliable data. Maybe this has already been done, or maybe no one cares to do it.
Thanks for an interesting article.