Deliberate progression

Iterate

Composability

Be better, be specific

Focus on what matters

Measure what matters

Force adaptation

Microprogressions become progress

Connect

Get started

0) Work

Progress in fitness is a function of energy.

The 0th Principle of Progress is Work.

Work drives the human body machine. It is fundamental to progress; without work, there is no progress.

Work is energy transfer.

Energy

Your body is an energy transfer system.

In the physical world, energy exists in six forms: chemical, electrical, radiant, mechanical, thermal, and nuclear.

Machines transfer energy from one form to another. Cars convert energy in fuels into mechanical work to transport us around. Light switches convert electrical energy to light. Your air conditioner transfers the heat in your air to a coolant liquid using electrical energy.

The human body is a machine built of energy transfer systems. Energy enters your body as food and your body turns it into work, heat, and mass.

But humans are driven by complex inner machinery (emotion) that makes behavior—especially our own behavior—difficult to predict.

Machines that we build operate very predictably. When you press ‘start’ on your dishwasher, you can expect it to reliably perform the same function every time.

Humans don’t work like this. People with intentions, goals, and plans reliably fail to change their bodies.

Progress in fitness is really just a physics problem. Do the work: (lift the weights).

While progress in fitness is just a physics problem (do the work), the reality is that the amount of progress made depends entirely on whether you care enough to put the work in, which in turn is dependent on whether you have the inner motivation to put in the effort required.

In Engineered Fitness, energy is exchanged in four forms: purpose, effort, work, and calories.

It can be expressed by the equation:

f(E) = p(E) + e(E) + w(E) + c(E)

where $f(E)$ is a measurement of progress in fitness, $p(E)$ is your purpose, $e(E)$ represents effort, $w(E)$ is work, $c(E)$ stands for calories.

Progress is positive growth in fitness $f(E)$ over time, which is accomplished by putting in work in the gym and eating the proper number of calories. In order to accumulate enough progress in training and nutrition, you must be driven by your purpose and put effort in every day.

f(E) = \int p(E) + e(E) + w(E) + c(E) \ dt

Progress isn't an overnight state change. It's an accumulation of lots of little chunks of progress.

Goals

Goals are overrated.

Well, long term, results-oriented goals are overrated. Shorter term goals, like ‘improve on last week’s workout’, are perfectly fine.

Focusing on the process of making progress is almost always better than focusing on results.

Implementing a process (preferably with a system), and repeating that process is how goals are achieved. Goals aren’t achieved simply because you set them.

Focusing too intently on results-oriented goals can be counter-productive. First of all, goals are inherently predictions about the changes that will occur to your body. Most fitness professionals struggle to make accurate predictions about client progress over time because prediction is hard.

When our goals are reached, we can feel like the work is done and let off the gas. When we fall short, we can feel like we’ve failed. As misguided as results-oriented goals can leave us, they are nonetheless important because they serve as the underlying spark for our purpose.

Goals are the ‘what’, purpose is the ‘why’.

We are irrational humans, we sometimes need a story to tell ourselves about how happy we will be when we [insert goal here].

Your starting goal should be more like a compass than a destination. You should feel accomplished when you make progress towards your goals, whether that’s losing fat, gaining muscle, getting stronger, or looking better.

The goal of Engineered Fitness is to give you the information, tools, and incentives to confidently move in the direction of your goals.

Purpose

Your purpose is the internal stimulus for wanting to change

If you don’t have a reason to improve, you probably won’t, and if you’re not driven emotionally by a desire to get better, it’s unlikely you’ll make progress.

Whether the progress you seek to make is related to body composition, strength, or self-image, it must be rooted in some fundamental desire to change and improve yourself.

If you don't have that why, you're probably not going to push yourself hard enough, be consistent enough, or stick with it long enough to reach your goals.

A strong purpose will allow you to structure your life in a way that sets yourself up for success. It will animate you to get into the gym and do the things that make progress, but it will also be what you fall back on when your motivation wanes.

💡

Examples of goals + purpose:

I want to add 10 lbs of muscle mass because I want to look like a beast.
I want to lose 50 lbs because I don't want my kid's friends to call me the fat mom.
I want to get to 10% body fat so I can see my abs for the first time in my life.
I want to get to 5% body fat because I want to see what my peak physique looks like.
I want to lose 30 lbs because I’m 45 years old and my father died of a heart attack at 50.

Effort

You also need to put effort in consistently over time in order to achieve the progress you're looking for. Just wanting it isn't enough, you have to work for it too.

Effort is required to show up every day and build consistency.
Effort is required to put your body through the stress necessary to adapt and change.
Effort is required to push yourself to improve each week.
Effort is required to shop for, cook, and eat the food you need to make progress.
Effort is required to prioritize your time to reduce the personal strain of having a workout routine.

You only have so much energy you can convert into progress each day, so you want to be efficient with your energy, and you need to be consistent over a long period of time to accumulate enough progress to be able to notice a significant difference in your physique.

External Stimulus

Human bodies evolved by adapting to external stimuli. To develop a stronger, more muscular physique, you need to constantly expose your body to mechanical stimulus that will cause it to adapt, becoming stronger and more muscular.

Strength adaptations occur primarily through central nervous system adaptations. When you lift heavy weight within a few reps of failure, your central nervous system is sending out signals to muscles all throughout your body to fire and contract.

Hypertrophy, or muscle growth, is the result of your body adapting to the stress and intramuscular tension you impose upon it.

Your body needs an external stimulus. Creating a stressful environment for your muscles forces them to grow.

Many beginners who have never had a serious routine will make progress because they’re doing something for the first time.

To make consistent progress over long periods of time, you’ll need intentionality. For many people unaccustomed to a serious training program, the biggest roadblock can simply be trying really hard.

By trying really hard, you are providing your body with the stimulus necessary to adapt. This adaptation is what causes physical changes to your body.

Lifting weight makes your muscles adapt and grow bigger and stronger, but these adaptations are hard.

You must constantly fight the urge to avoid stress in order to push yourself hard enough to generate sufficient stimulus. This is usually pretty uncomfortable.

You can learn to love the pain and the pump, but if you're just starting out training like a bodybuilder, this may be quite shocking. This is by design. Progress usually hurts.

Obviously this comes with plenty of caveats: if you're feeling pain in your joints, spine, ligaments, or tendons, this is not the type of pain we're talking about.

The pump you get from lifting should cause muscular pain.

You know that this is okay, and that it’s part of the plan, but some part of your brain will tell you that it’s hard, and that you shouldn’t do it.

Sufficient stimulus does not always feel good. But you should embrace doing hard things, and be willing to try really hard, every workout, every set, and every rep.

Your ability to progress will be improved by pushing yourself past your comfort level.

Work

In physics, Work is a form of energy, which is applied force over a distance. When you lift weights, you provide force to an object (the weights) over a distance (the range of motion).

W = \vec F \cdot \vec d

The intramuscular force generated by performing reps causes stress. Your body then adapts to these stressors, resulting in hypertrophy, or an increase in muscle size.

You can produce more maximum work (although less total cumulative work) by increasing the total weight you’re lifting. The stress caused by lifting heavy weights makes you stronger.

Progress in training is made up of workouts, sets, reps (the work you put into the system).

The metric that correlates strongest with progress is the number of hard sets, each of which can be measured in volume. ‘Hard’ in this context means a set that is taken close to failure, but that will be explained in 3,2,1, None (see 1) Deliberate progression).

Volume can be expressed as

V = Weight \ * \ Reps \newline

so the cumulative volume for a set is the weight summed over the total number of reps in the set N.

V_{set} = \Sigma_{r=1}^N W_r

Total weekly volume per exercise is the primary metric that will be used to measure progress. If you’re increasing your volume over time, while making sure each set is challenging, you’ll make progress. The volume for $M$ number of sets consisting of $N$ number of reps is as follows:

V_{exercise} = \Sigma_{s=1}^M \Sigma_{r=1}^N W_r

To improve, the exercise volume needs to increase over long periods of time.

\frac{\Delta V_{exercise}}{\Delta t} > 0

Calories

Changing your mass (gaining or losing weight) requires consuming a quantity of calories that is aligned with your goals. This is due to the 1st Law of Thermodynamics:

E_{in} - E_{out} = \Delta E_{stored}

which states that the difference in the energy (calories) entering and leaving the system (your body) is equal to the energy stored (body fat and muscle).

Your body will only change with the proper energy balance: the number of calories you consume and burn. When it comes to changing your body composition, you need to have an energy balance that supports your goals.

If you eat the same number of calories that you burn, you won't gain or lose any weight (maintenance).

E_{in} = E_{out} \newline \Delta E_{stored} = 0

If you are trying to gain muscle (bulk), you need a caloric surplus.

E_{in} > E_{out} \newline \Delta E_{stored} > 0

If you're trying to lose fat (cut), you need a caloric deficit.

E_{in} < E_{out} \newline \Delta E_{stored} < 0

Any body composition change takes time. A pound of fat contains approximately 3500 calories. If you’re in a 500 calorie deficit, you should lose about 1 lb. of fat per week (we’ll leave a discussion on metabolic adaptation for later). That means for a person whose body burns 2500 calories per day, it will still take 10 weeks to lose 10 lbs. eating 2000 calories assuming no metabolic adaptation occurs.

Adding muscle is generally harder than cutting fat. Estimates are hard to come by, but it probably takes about 3000-4000 calories to build a pound of muscle. Keep in mind, however, that your body will convert some (most) of your excess caloric surplus into body fat as well.

Either way, progress in nutrition takes time to be realized as body composition changes. It takes months of eating in alignment with your goals to see measurable changes to your body.

Progress Accumulation and Feedback

The accumulation of progress isn't apparent on short time scales. It's only after weeks or months of accumulating progress that you will notice any changes at all.

As you accumulate progress, you will move towards your goals. If you’re measuring progress effectively, the progress you see can be incredibly motivating. This motivation makes it easier to do the right things and continue accumulating progress.

This is the feedback mechanism you should strive for.

In 1) Deliberate progression , we’ll investigate a protocol to follow to start making progress in training.

← Previous

Principles of Progress

1) Deliberate progression

On this page