Good programming is a balancing act worthy of a Game of Thrones episode: on one side sit the foundational movementsâpushes, pulls, hinges, squats, and carriesâwhile on the other sit the latest and greatest in cutting-edge research-velocity based training, blood flow restriction, PRI, post-activation potentiation and more. Stuck neatly in the middle is the modern-day coach, like Jon Snow caught between the white walkers and the mortal threats from the seven kingdoms. How much credence should be given to the up and coming methods? Is it really worth abandoning tried-and-true approaches? Today’s article is an attempt to help answer that question, providing some guidance for just how to navigate the relatively narrow space between these two worlds. It’s a strategy I’ve been able to use to help me be both innovative and effective, allowing me to use some of the more exciting things I’ve come across while not abandoning some of the staples of strength and conditioning. In fact, aside from the principles of specificity and periodization, this one idea has done more to inform my programming choices than anything else I’ve come across.
70/20/10
The idea at the heart of today’s conversation is borrowed from Stuart McMillan, one of the industry’s preeminent sprint and speed coaches. He mentioned something he called the 70/20/10 rule in passing, and while I can’t remember anything else from that article, this one has stuck with me. Put as simply as possible, 70% of his programming is made of up things he knows, 20% is comprised of things he thinks, and the remaining 10% is left to things he guesses.
My first thought was to wonder where that particular breakdown had come from. I’m the first to acknowledge when someone’s smarter than me, and I’ll happily be deferring to Stu for years to come, but I wanted to understand the 70/20/10 on my own terms.
70%âTHE MINIMUM ADAPTABLE LOAD
Minimum Adaptable Load (a concept previously covered on this site) is the point at which the applied stimulus or stress is sufficient to cause an adaptation or change in the athlete. The stimulus applied can vary, from the weight on the bar and how many times its lifted on one end of the spectrum to sprint distances, times, and rest intervals on the other. Adaptation is simply the goal of that particular training cycle; hypertrophy, maximum power output, body composition or the like. Minimum Adaptable Load is important for one very basic reason: change doesnât happen during the session; change happens when we recover from the session.
The exact threshold for Minimum Adaptable Load changes from athlete to athlete, and even within athletes as their training age, their nutrition, or even their lifestyle changes and it can be tough to hit a moving target. While this presents a challenge, a good coach or trainer should be able to adjust training stressors appropriately for their athletes and clients. By devoting 70% of the sessionâs volume to the strategies we know to be effective, we are likely to meet the threshold needed for adaptation while not exceeding it by so much that we donât have room for additional strategies.
Consider a strength athlete; with goals of improving their ability to squat, press, pull, lift, carry, and potentially throw the greatest amount of weight possible, what would constitute their 70%? Depending on the specifics of their sport and what season they were in, my programming would likely include big, heavy compound movements loaded from 85% up to 100% of 1RM. In short, theyâd spend more time squatting, carrying, pressing, pulling and lifting than they would curling, sprinting, jumping, or walking. While those movements could very well have a place in their programming, they donât offer the greatest ROI for the athlete, and Iâm reserving this 70% for my heavy artillery.
Once Iâve chosen my movements and loading schemes, itâs time to consider overall volume in the context of the larger program. Again, Iâm only allowing 70% of my session for these movements, so depending on total volume, I may pull a movement out, drop a set or two, or break the workload up differently to allow me to focus on what I think is most important without overtaxing the athlete.
20%âA GOOD BET
With 70% of an athlete’s time and energy accounted for, it makes sense to give the bulk of the remainder to something we’re confident in, but hasn’t stood the test of time. Too little investment here and we’re unlikely to see enough influence (or lack thereof) to inform our future programming choices, too much and there’s nothing left for the real cutting-edge work.
Continuing the example of our strength athlete, plyometric work (either on its own or for potential post-activation potentiation effects) are one possible choice. Since true explosive power and speed aren’t are primary goals, we don’t need to devote the same number of reps or contacts we might for a pure throwing or jumping athlete, but a few sets and reps or our most transferable movement patterns make sense. In this case a squat jump (loaded or unloaded, with or without counter movement), a broad jump, and maybe a hinge or rotationally-driven throw could be helpful.
10%âROOM TO PLAY
I look at this final piece of the puzzle as playtime… a crazy idea I had, something a single study hinted at, an intuition that an athlete might benefit from something. I’m not ready to devote much of an athlete’s training or recovery to something that may be half-baked at best, but as long as I’m confident I’m not doing any harm, this gives me a chance to insert an extra little “kick”. It may not work, but again, as long as it’s safe, we can probably consider it GPP (General Physical Preparedness) at worst, right?
Maybe strength athlete benefits from working with unstable loads, using something akin to an earthquake or bamboo bar, or possibly moving a barbell with an uneven or hanging load. The instability certainly won’t hurt him in his training (provided it doesnât detract from his primary training modalities), and has some potential carryover to his specific sport and goals, from injury prevention to improved neuromuscular communication.
PUTTING IT TO WORK
A few days after first running across this concept, I sat down to rework some of my own programming. Knowing I was hoping to put a little more muscle on, and feeling a little bored at the prospect of another body-part split filled with sets of 6-12, I decided to put this idea to the test.
I began with the basics, as I knew they’d work, and wrote a workout that followed some solid principles; progressive overload, moderate weights and rest periods etc. In anticipation of adding to this foundation, I left the volume a little lower than I knew I could handle, allowing for the think and the guess. From there I chose two methods, one I’d seen solid research on, and one I just wanted to play with, and filled in the rest of the volume.
Specifically, I chose to include some traditional explosive plyometric work (as both a Post-Activation Potentiation (PAP) element and to directly target fast-twitch fibers) as well as something called Velocity Based Training (VBT). I’d seen some interesting research on VBT using only 35% of 1RM for cluster sets of 5-6, and wanted to give it a go.
I thought the plyometric work would help, and so gave it a good focus, particularly on lower body days, emphasizing either vertical (quad-dominant) or horizontal (glute and hamstring focus) patterns depending on the days movement patterns. This made up the 20%.
I hoped the VBT protocols would work, but wasn’t ready to let it overrun my program. I added a set or two at the beginning of days that didn’t include plyometric training. If I was pressing, I’d follow VBT protocols with a machine-based press in the hope that I’d target fast-twitch fibers, spark some hypertrophy, and perhaps even see a carryover through the rest of the workout.
DETERMINING VOLUME
At this point at least a few of you have your hands up, waiting impatiently for the teacher to call on you. Let’s get to you guys now:
“How do you determine volume? Is it sets and reps, time, or what?â
“Yes.”
In short, use your best judgement in choosing a method to measure volume and determine your 70/20/10 workload. For a Hypertrophy cycle (typically a volume-driven cycle) I might use sets and reps. For a power/speed athlete I might use time or RPE. Ultimately volume will likely play a role, but there’s room to interpret “workload” here in a way that matches the stresses of the training cycle.
EVALUATION
If weâre going to introduce new methods into our programming, then ultimately weâd like some sense of their effectiveness; at some point in the misty past most of what we take for granted as known was merely thought or guessed. Itâs tricky to separate one aspect of a program from another, and if we were to follow stricter scientific methodology, weâd likely only introduce one variable at a time for testing. Still, there are a few benchmarks Iâve looked for in deciding whether an idea had merit or not.
- 1) The athlete or client progressed within the specific mode being employed. If we add plyometric work to improve max strength, did the athlete jump higher or farther?
- 2) Assuming you have some sort of expectation for the athleteâs progress (i.e. last off-season they gained 5 pounds of lean mass in 20 weeks), did this program exceed those expectations?
- 3) Did the athlete and I look forward to this section of their programming? Itâs a little subjective, but on some level I think we have a sense of whatâs paying dividends, and in the absence of other evidence, itâs at least worth recognizing.
- 4) Were there any other unexpected benefits observed during the training block? Case-in-point, while I was experimenting with VBT protocols for some of my upper body pushing movements, I found that my bench press felt a little more explosive through the sticking point. I hadnât done anything else to directly target that adaptation, and so itâs conceivable that there was some impact from the explosive, lighter weight work I was doing at the time.
THE HIDDEN BENEFIT
As clients and athletes finished their own cycles, I started applying the lens of 70/20/10 to the work they were being given. I love some of the work coming out of the PRI world, but I’m not ready to abandon the foundation of a program in favor of these drills. Adding one or two movements a week? That felt about right, and forced me to choose the best drill for the athlete. Similarly, PAP has some good research behind it, and I have some athletes with goals that I think can be helped by its inclusion, but I’m not ready to pull too much volume away from their main lifts. Could I give 20% of a session over to it? Absolutely, and again, I’m forced to prioritize the application of a technique.
Limiting yourself to the 70/20/10 framework offers a self-editing process of sorts, forcing the coach to whittle away at their programming until it’s lean and mean. Instead of including five or six lower body patterns in a given workout, maybe I’m limited to four. Inherently I’ll choose the four that are most effective. The basics will likely become even more basic as you search out the movements that give you and your athletes the biggest payout.
WHAT NOW?
For those of you who enjoy your highlighters, you’ll love this part: grab a program you’ve written (hard-copy) and mark that sucker up. Highlight your basics, the 70% built around things you know will drive the right adaptation. Find your next tier of movements, the ones you think help the athlete, and highlight those as well. Finally, highlight the movements you’ve included based on some good solid guesswork as to how they may help.
Step back and look at what you’ve got. How much time is being devoted to each avenue of attack? How many sets and reps, how much mental energy? If something seems out of line, tweak it a bit, and as you continue to move forward, take some notes and keep track of what you find. After all, there’s no substitute for lessons learned through experience.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jesse McMeekin has been toiling away in a weight room for more than 20 years. A former competitive lacrosse and football player, as well as drug-free bodybuilder, Jesse currently works with world-class athletes, paramilitary members, weekend warriors, desk-bound CEOs, and a variety of other clientele and athletes. Jesse holds multiple certifications including the CSCS, USAW L1 SPC, Pn1, and FMSC. Wearing a number of hats, Jesse runs his own website (www.revolutionstrengthcoach.com), trains clients privately and through Equinox, and is an Equinox EFTI Master Instructor. He currently lives in Westchester County with his beautiful wife and their dog.
