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Key Takeaways

1. For beginners, the primary limitation is motor control. Program design should facilitate skill acquisition by providing lots of reps.
2. Intermediates with lots of muscle to gain should optimize for mechanical tension. Train in the 3-10RM range with approaches to failure.
3. Advanced athletes who have already tapped most of their muscle growth potential should utilize both training close to failure for muscle growth and explosive training for neural adaptations.

Beginners - Motor Control

Most programs will work for beginners - everything is new to them, so the learning happens quickly.

While almost any program will result in short-term gains, the best program is one that will set up a beginner for continued adaptation over their career.

For beginners, one of the primary limitations is motor control.

Beginners need lots of opportunities to learn the movement.

This comes into focus when you view every movement - squatting, bending, lunging, pushing or pulling - as a skill.

For a beginner, the primary goal of the program is skill acquisition.

Intermediates - Muscle Growth

Once the basic skills have been acquired (not mastered, which is a careerlong pursuit), then what primarily limits intermediates is they have not maxed out their potential for muscle growth.

Muscle size and muscle strength go hand in hand, which is why strength gains in the long term are highly correlated with muscle growth.

Advanced - Muscle Growth + Neural Adaptations

For intermediates, muscle growth can happen quickly.

However, all athletes will eventually reach a settling point in their muscle size.

Once this happens, muscle growth slows to a rate of about 1-2 lbs per year.

This does not mean you abandon training close to failure altogether. Only that neural adaptations become even more important.

The best indicators for neural adaptations that scientists have measured in the lab are muscle activity and force production.

Contrary to what sounds intuitive - these things actually go down when you train close to failure.

Instead, what drives muscle activity and force production the highest is training explosively.