1. Emerging Strategies emphasizes learning from an athlete’s response. What evidence do you look for before concluding that a particular approach genuinely suits that athlete, rather than reflecting day-to-day fluctuations?
2. While developing Emerging Strategies, was there an athlete whose response led you to change a training principle you had strongly believed in? What convinced you to reconsider it?
3. You’ve written that fatigue and performance on a given day don’t always line up. If an athlete’s performance is still improving but the recovery demands are also increasing, how do you decide whether the approach is worth continuing or needs adjusting?
1) We are never completely certain, but our certainty increases with more
evidence. We look at the results of the block review. If only one block
gives a positive indication, then the evidence is not very strong and we
should not be very certain. But if we have several block reviews pointing
in the same direction, that's much stronger support.
2) Yes, many times. Athletes often will have some specific detail that must
be changed to make the program fit them best. Probably my most famous
example is when I prepared Brett Gibbs for the 2018 World Championships.
His deadlift in particular responded best to lower intensity work, so his
deadlift training actually got lighter on average as the competition drew
near. This worked beautifully as he peaked all 3 lifts extremely well. He
set a world record in the total and at the time was the heaviest lifter to
total 10x bodyweight. And the training that got him there (at least his
deadlift) I would have never guessed. There have been many other such cases
of lifters who peak best with 6 rep sets or need high frequencies. Or low
frequencies. No lifter is average in everything.
3. Always keep the goal the goal. Our goal is to improve the 1RM strength.
As long as that goes up, we keep going. The only exceptions would be for
situations where a lifter might become injured. Usually general fatigue is
not such an indicator. It may still be important information, but we don't
let fatigue make decisions on its own.
