THE BEGINNER’S PARADOX

Unlike my re-release of “defeating the prisoner’s dilemma”, I KNOW I’ve written about this topic in the past, but I still see it come up enough that I want to tackle it again, perhaps with some new words that will help those that are a bit lost on things.  I’m a fan of logical paradoxes, which is why I named a squat protocol after Zeno of Elea, and because of my fandom I can recognize when someone is trying to hoodwink me with some sort of sophistic paradoxical nonsense when it relates to training.  Which brings us, once again, to beginner trainees.  Despite my long era of unsustainable training insanity, I am honestly a big fan of reasonable and sustainable programs that allow for incremental growth over the long haul, to include 5/3/1, Tactical Barbell, and Dan John’s Easy Strength.  And, in my fandom, I frequently find myself offering to young trainees the suggestion that they look into these programs from the start if they are interested in making gains for the long haul.  And, inevitably, some all-too-helpful chucklehead will come out of the woodwork and exclaim “those programs progress too slow for beginners”…and herein we have our paradox.

These two in the same photo contain more combined knowledge than the entire army of bros populating your favored social media platform

 

Allow me to explain.  What is being argued is that, BECAUSE a beginner is prone to fast progression, this program’s “slow” progression is not suited to the progression rate of a beginner, and will therefore prevent them from being able to progress to the best of their ability.  On the absolute surface, this makes sense, but as soon as you dig even SLIGHTLY into the statement, it completely falls apart on itself and the paradox is revealed.

 

The argument here is that the program itself is ineffective for a beginner to realize their fast gains.  However, IF that were true, wouldn’t that mean that the beginner who ran the program would NOT progress too fast for the program?  By nature of the argument that the program is ineffective for the beginner because it progresses too slowly, this should mean that the beginner who uses the program will ALSO progress too slowly while on the program.  The program should reduce the progression speed of the beginner, right?  But then, if that’s true, then the beginner WON’T progress too fast for the program: the program will actually make the beginner match the rate of the program.

You'd basically end up in one of these situations

 

But we’re arguing the opposite, right?  That the beginner is just going to blow through the program’s progression speed?  That the program will say to add 5lbs, but the beginner is going to be ready to add 10, 15 or 20lbs?  Wouldn’t this be an indication of the program working…excellently?  If the beginner is running the program and he is just progressing by leaps and bounds the entire time that they are running it, isn’t that a sign that this program is absolutely crushing the goal of making the trainee stronger?  Have any of you ever run into an issue where you were just getting too damn big and strong too quickly?

 

So then we get to the argument that, no, the beginner trainee is progression IN SPITE OF the program, because beginners will progress on anything.  If THAT’S true, then why NOT have the beginner START with a program with a logical and sustainable progression scheme that will set them up for long term gains for YEARS rather than some en vogue nonsense that just has them race as fast as possible to their first plateau?  If beginners progress with anything, why NOT start them off with something GOOD vs forcing them to endure some sort of training “rite of passage” with a party approved beginner program?

Because if we're GONNA have rite of passage programs, I got a few ideas...

 

And then the argument turns to 1 rep maxes, and how a beginner on a “beginner program” could be squatting 315lbs in months, whereas a beginner on a “slow” progression program won’t reach those numbers for perhaps YEARS, and will instead just find themselves performing 20, 30 or 40+ reps with 135-225lbs.  But, once again, we run into the paradox of how this beginner is simultaneously progressing rapidly and not at all at the same time.  A trainee that takes a weight that they could initially squat for 1 rep and, in a matter of weeks, is now able to squat it for 20 has absolutely gotten stronger.  People fixate on the low numbers when it’s about going from 135x1 to 135x20, but if took a trainee with an 800lb deadlift for a single and had that trainee manage to deadlift it for 20 reps, there is NO one who wouldn’t say “that trainee got STRONGER”.  Hell, most of us would DEMAND to know what they did in order to achieve such an absurd outcome.  In turn, we accept and understand that taking a weight you could initially move for 1 rep and growing to move it for 20+ reps is yet another way of growing in terms of strength, so now we just analyze the significance of a 1 rep maximum.

 

Is a 1 rep maximum ALSO a means of evaluating strength?  Yes, absolutely.  Some would argue it’s the best measure of evaluating maximal strength.  HOWEVER, we must appreciate that the very nature of “peaking programs” is indicative that there is MORE to a 1rm than simply strength: that a 1rm is also a SKILL that can be improved through the matter of practice.  Which is what many “beginner programs” offer: the opportunity to practice closer to one’s limits to better develop the ability to move maximal weight for minimal reps.  But, in turn, by understanding and accepting this, we ALSO understand that a beginner trainee following these “slow” progression programs has just as much opportunity to take some time developing the skillset of the 1rm IF they wish to maximize their ability to lift maximal weights in order to express the strength that they have built ON these “slow” progression programs.  Put simply: that high 1rm is simply a training cycle or 2 away from being realized, but the “strength” behind it has already been developed over the long periods of training.  Much like how the trainee who only ever trained 5 reps per set will need time to adapt to hitting a 20 rep max, the trainee that has kept things light, reasonable, logical and sustainable will need a little time to adjust to lifting near maximal poundages, but this is not indicative of a lack of strength.  Jim Wendler has many stories of trainees using a training max of something like 275lbs and then going on to move 400+lbs on the lift once they are given the clearance to go ahead.

Derek said the reason you didn't see guys in his era deadlifting 1000lbs is that there was no demand for it...so here he is pulling 800 for 9 reps...little did he realize you can't get strong with high reps!

 

So let’s break this down.  If the programs DIDN’T work, then the trainee WOULDN’T progress too quickly…which would actually make the programs work perfectly, because the program’s progression rate would match the trainee’s progression rate.  If the trainee DOES progress “too quickly for the program”, this indicates that the program DOES work, because the trainee that is following the program is progressing VERY quickly and absolutely crushing the program.  If the trainee is progressing in SPITE of the program, then the program itself is immaterial to the trainee’s success, and in such a case, it makes more sense for the trainee to FOLLOW one of these logical and sustainable programs in order to make continued steady progress over the long haul vs some flash in the pan program that has them race into their first plateau.  The notion that a beginner will simultaneously be progression so quickly they invalidate the effectiveness of the program yet the program will also limit them from progressing due to the slow rate of progression is, in itself, an impossible paradox, and anyone trying to tell you this is most likely trying to sell you something.