Proven Plan: Level 3 and Beyond

Pick your own damn standards, and break them!

Spoiler Alert: There is no "plan" here.  In this post I want to teach people to fish.  Honestly, if you've hit the "Cut Off" metrics I outlined, you need a better coach than me.  What I can offer as a consolation is a discussion about what I've learned in the process.

Maybe a better term for "standard" is "benchmark."  After all, a bell curve never reaches zero – there is always room for improvement, or decay.  When I originally published my strength and conditioning standards I set the bar high; high enough that it took me a year of focused training to reach "Level 3."

In some ways that was a proof-of-concept, that all of the identified benchmarks could be achieved within a 12-month time frame (demand recency to declare relevance).  With that in mind, there will always be a continuum of diminishing returns.  That's what makes hard things hard; when they're well past fun, or better-than-average.

On Standards:

"I think it gives birth to an idea of being better. A way to reach up and better yourself based on the fact that if "someone" can do it, then so can I. It becomes a beacon for others to aspire to. It allows us to all have deeper conversations because experiences can be measured, related to, and empathized with. It is a way to decide who is IN and who is OUT. It can define entire groups of humans. The very idea of a standard can cause people to migrate closer to one another so that they may embrace an idea together, in proximity of a shared ideology.

It is also a grave. A place where motivation goes to die because a standard is "good enough." A way to excuse our past accomplishments as current abilities. A short hand for group hierarchy that is short sighted.

A standard is an inspiring treasure map for the newly indoctrinated, and a tomb to hang your relevance, if you are older and initiated.

It is useful as a landmark, and virulent as a destination."

~ Michael Blevins (@gritandteeth)

What's Your Budget?

The quest to mastery, or usually just "winning", costs.  The question is not, "where do you want to go?"  It is, "what are you willing and able to pay?"  The currencies we deal in are time and money.  Since you can't buy time, the former is more valuable.  How are you going to spend it?

Hopefully you've read my Barbells and Bell Curves post series to get an idea how to answer that question.

After answering what you have to pay with and if you're willing to pay it; you need to ask why?  What's the point?  Better asked, what's your problem?  Is it technical?  I've seen crusher climbers struggle to wrangle a few pull ups and look like they're passing a peach seed deadlifting 2x body weight.

Or, is the problem mental?  Do you know what it's like to be drug in to deep water?  That is, not just doing more / harder what you're comfortable with or good at.  How far past "wanting to quit" or "just not feeling it" are you willing to go?

What is it about stacking that 4th plate on your squat?  Riding a few more miles?  Would some dismiss this as vanity?  They're right.  It is vain.  Those same people won't do the things you or I will done.  Ever.  They won't even come close.  It's not in their budget.

• How much time do you have to spend?

• How much training volume / intensity can you recover from?

• What is X worth to you?

To avoid getting into a cyclic debate with myself; allow me to illustrate an example:

• Do I want to get stronger?  Yes.

• Is strength my weakest attribute?  No.

• Can I get stronger?  Of course.

• Will the cost required to get stronger detract my ability to train a weaker attribute?  Very likely.

• Will the cost required to get stronger detract my ability to train my sport?  Very likely.

• Will avoiding or otherwise not training my weakness inhibit long(er) term growth (in sport and in life)?  Absolutely.

Past the point of "looking cool", to the point where just about everyone's sure you're crazy, that's when you've really accomplished something worth sharing.  Of course, that likely won't matter since you're focused on the next "vanity" metric after you've passed what others (and you?) once called "impossible."

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Come On, Give Me Something Tangible!

The heart is primary.  You better make damn sure you love something if you're going to blow your life savings, or at least the next 10 years and 10,000 hours, "mastering" it.  That is what success (at hard things, things that change you) costs.  They cost time and love, at the exclusion of other things you also love.

Strength:

Guidelines:
< 60 minutes
< 40 reps total (all sets x reps x exercises)

Go heavy.  Go hard.  Go home.  Protect power with recovery.  If you're timing rests, you're dipping into capacity territory (see below).

Capacity:

Guidelines:
< 90 minutes
> 40 reps total (all sets x reps x exercises)

Initially I considered an operative definition of 100 reps.  While 10 x 10 squat sounds gnarly, 100 x 1 snatches hits on a different level.  Regardless, think about work / time here.

The previous metric I used for this was Watts / Kg over a 20 min ride (Echo / Assault bike).  To save some computational time and energy you could simply ride for 10 / 20 / 30 / 60 minutes and see how many calories you can come up with; or your body weight in calories for time.  The time can always be faster and the calories can always be more.

Endurance:

Guidelines:
> 90 minutes*
fuel and hydration become "necessary" rather than "convenient"
*a pace you can hold for that duration, not necessarily every session that length

To make things less opaque, endurance is literally your ability to endure.  So, don't quit, go further.  "Further" is also not confined to a single session, as all recovery is dependent on aerobic fitness – and is impaired by its deficit.  Contrary to capacity training, you do not (necessarily) need "more miles at X pace", you just need more miles.

Previously I measured endurance via VO2max (estimates); which is somewhat controversial whether it can or can't "be trained."  Fine.  Pick any movement(s) you'd like to keep yourself over 60% MHR and go until you can't.

For the folks still touching grass, that's a great place to start!  How many miles can I cover in a day hike?  What constitutes a "day hike"?  4 hours?  8 hours?  12?  More?  Don't over-complicate things.  Just keep going.

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Periodization vs. Prioritization?

Plenty has been written on periodiazation and it's application to season-based sports or activities with designated competition cycles.  As I'm writing this I'm having to take my humble medicine and focus on decades of neglected endurance work.

So, in the name of "endurance", how can we best plan for the next 10 seasons?

Priority 1: Do the thing you love, you won't live forever.

In the first version of the standards I outlined you can clearly see my naivete and bias:

• Strength: 4 metrics

• Capacity: 1 metric

• Endurance: 1 metric

Priority 2: Be smart.
Output > Feedback > Questions > Tests > New Training Phase

If you've made it this far, you should be smart enough to start asking your own questions (of yourself and your training).  

• What was the last result (of competition or a "hard effort")?

• What are my deficits (that are holding me back, "non-negotiables" are a good place to start looking!)?

• What (starting) metrics will give me an honest perspective of where I'm at (Point A)?

• How can I use those metrics to define where I need / want to be (Point B)?

• What is the plan to get from Point A to Point B and can I afford it (budget)?

Above all you need an honest Point A.  If you can't "afford" the cost of Point B1, then reassess a new Point B2.  Go as far down the line as you need until something fits your budget.  This isn't a personal indictment of character.  You have to start where you're at with the tools / resources you have; at least  until you build better ones.

Priority 3:  Build better tools.

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Conclusion:

• Do more?  That's capacity.

• Do it heavier / harder?  That's strength / power.

• Go further / longer?  That's endurance.

Figure out what you love.  Do it.

Figure out the things that will challenge you, that you can learn and grow from, or that will help you do the thing you love better or longer.  Learn how to measure progress in those things.

Test yourself.  Take notes.  Keep asking questions.  In order to judge a plan based on where it got us we have to actually follow the plan!  Don't fall into the sexy-calendar fallacy (or "planning paradox" as I've called it).

• What do you love?

• What are you willing and able to spend to get better at it?

• How can you use that budget wisely?

• What did you do?

• Where did it get you?

• What did you learn?