Overview
It’s very easy to get lost in the minutia. This is the logical, step by step process to diagnose your own progress.
This is a sequential list, taking into account the order from most importance to least, and also which factor comes first from a diagnosis and troubleshooting perspective.
Because of this order it’s important to emphasis there’s no point jumping to the bottom of the list. As we’re moving from ‘big rocks’ to ‘small pebbles’, we have to realise fixing the smallest issue won’t have the same impact. In fact it’s often the case that without addressing the major fundamental issues first, you may see minimal or zero progress with fixing up a minor issue.
The 13 keys of progress
- Step count
- Consistency
- Execution
- Effort
- General recovery
- Diet strategy
- Movement/exercise selection
- Micro progression
- Isometrics
- Locomotion
- Mobility
- Cardio
- Macro periodisation
Troubleshooting details
1. Step count
Seemingly most basic concept, but not to be forgotten or dismissed. Having a baseline level of simply moving around will have cascading qualitative benefits.
- For beginners: 6000 steps a day
- For intermediates: 8000 steps a day
- For advanced: 10000 steps a day
2. Consistency
If you don’t hit the minimum thresholds here, the data you’ll have will be so skewed it is difficult to assess further. Without a doubt the second thing to clean up.
- For beginners: 3x sessions a week for 44 weeks a year
- For intermediates: 3x (or more) sessions a week for 46 weeks a year
- For advanced: 3x (at least) sessions a week for 48 weeks a year
3. Execution
Execution and effort are two sides of the same coin. Without both, each individual rep and each individual set has less and less efficiency.
This is done by reviewing filmed videos of your sets; going by feel or glancing at the mirror doesn’t count.
- For beginners: elbows for push and pull, butt down for squat, butt back for hinge
- For intermediates: add in bracing and irradiation
- For advanced: add in intra-thoracic, intra-abdominal and pelvic floor pressure with breathing, keeping the stack of neck, rib cage and pelvis, keeping pressure on contact points of hands and feet, and applying individual adjustments
4. Effort
Execution and effort are two sides of the same coin. Without both, each individual rep and each individual set has less and less efficiency.
This is both in a general sense, with applying mental focus on each rep (if you’re still chatting to friends the first three reps of a set, you’re probably not focused), and more specifically taking a set close to failure. This doesn’t mean every single set needs to be taken to true failure, but as your experience increases so too your average proximity to failure will have to increase.
This is done by reviewing filmed videos of your sets; going by feel or glancing at the mirror doesn’t count.
- For beginners: can perform a set without form deviation to 2 RIR
- For intermediates: can perform a set without form deviation to a true 0 RIR
- For advanced: can perform a set without form deviation to a true 0 RIR with intensifiers
5. General recovery
As repeatedly mentioned, stimulus and recovery is the yin and yang with all things fitness. Let’s assume your training is generally on point; the next step is to get the basics of recovery correct.
- Diet: 80-90% of your diet consists of relatively clean, minimally processed foods
- Sleep: 6-8 hours of sleep a night
- Stress: minimise controllable stressors and manage uncontrollable stressors
6. Diet strategy
First is having an intentional diet strategy.
Second is being cognisant of realistic rates of progress between bulking and cutting.
Assuming we are following the diet strategies:
- Clean bulk: aim for 1% bodyweight increase per month, expect solid progress in lifts
- Perma-main: aim for 0.5% bodyweight increase or decrease per month, expect moderate or gradual progress in lifts
- Cut #1: aim for ~1% bodyweight decrease per week, expect a decline in performance
- Cut #2: aim for ~0.5% bodyweight decrease per week, expect a possible decline in performance
7. Movement/exercise selection
Introducing a new movement, or a specific exercise within a movement slot, may target a weak point or underdeveloped area and provide a breakthrough. This isn’t haphazard muscle confusion though, we’re talking about strategic and intentional choices. Specifically, we have three potential options:
- A new movement slot that hasn’t been trained (for example, the adductor machine if you’ve spammed squats and never trained direct hip adduction)
- A different exercise within the same movement slot that hits the muscle in a different range along the stability continuum (for example, the chest press machine if you’ve been spamming barbell and dumbbell benching)
- Unilateral exercise options of the target muscle (for example, dumbbell glute biased split squats if you’ve been spamming hip thrusts)
8. Micro progression
This is not so much a measurement metric, but a critical point to stocktake. If your execution and effort are on point, you’re already 90% there. Simply assess if there’s a balance between the two:
- Are exercises kept long enough to see progress from linear progression, to double progression, to (a sprinkling of) triple progression?
- On the flip side, within movement slots are exercises rotated out, varying both exercise tempo and different exercises?
9. Isometrics
We’re reaching a point of diminishing returns here, and there’s an extremely high chance any plateaus you see is as a result of the factors listed above. To repeat, assess long and hard to ensure the problem isn’t with one of the earlier issues; otherwise improving any of the factors here will have little to no impact.
Isometrics is the other half of what we’re defining as ‘strength’ work. We’re getting more time under tension and training often undertrained areas (such as wrists and scapula) with minimal fatigue cost. Of course it doesn’t replace resistance training, but adding this isometrics as a complement may ease you through what would otherwise have been a stalled plateau.
- For everyone: 2-3 minutes duration daily
10. Locomotion
Locomotion is the next key; we simply need some time with movement through space under control.
- For everyone: 15 minutes total duration weekly, or 2-3 minutes total duration daily
11. Mobility
We’re going back to the fundamental training attributes here as a refresher on their importance.
Mobility work can’t be discounted; as you progress in experience it’ll become more important to view your joints and muscles as two distinctly different training.
- For everyone: 2-3 minutes duration daily
- If you have a specific trouble area, identify an appropriate static stretch with a full 2 minutes PAILS/RAILS stretch.
12. Cardio
Same point as above, cardio is another fundamental training attribute.
- For beginners: 30 minutes total duration weekly
- For intermediates: 60 minutes total duration weekly
- For advanced: 90 minutes total duration weekly
13. Macro periodisation
Similar to our micro progression, there isn’t a set standard here.
Rather it’s a mental checklist on the following:
- Are intensity, volume, and frequency appropriate for the training block?
- Are we rotating training blocks and shifting the focus in training attribute and/or body parts?
- Are there sufficient devolume weeks and re-sensitation months?