6 min read
Sleep and Recovery for Lifters: The Single Biggest Free Variable
Sleep is the biggest free variable in strength training. What 7 vs. 9 hours does to your squat, and why sleep fixes problems food and deloads cannot.
Tag
science
13 articles
7 min read
Women's Strength Programming: What Actually Differs (And What Does Not)
Most strength programming for women is identical to men's programming. Where sex differences show up in the research — and where they do not.
7 min read
Peri-Workout Fueling: What the Research Actually Shows
Pre-, intra-, and post-workout nutrition is less decisive than it is marketed to be. What the research supports and what is practically worth bothering with.
6 min read
Training Around Life Stress: How Non-Training Load Affects Recovery
Work, sleep loss, and life stress reduce recovery capacity in measurable ways. How to autoregulate training when everything outside the gym is hard.
9 min read
Sleep Science for Lifters: A Research Deep Dive
What the peer-reviewed sleep literature shows about strength, recovery, and training. The mechanisms and the specific effect sizes on lifters.
6 min read
How SBS Reps-to-Failure Autoregulation Works
SBS Reps-to-Failure adjusts loads based on your actual performance. Here is how the feedback loop works and why it beats fixed-percentage programming.
5 min read
The Bulgarian Method: What Most Lifters Get Wrong
The Bulgarian method is famous for daily maxes and brutal workloads. The useful lessons for regular lifters are not the ones usually copied.
6 min read
Nordic Curl Protocols: How to Actually Build the Strength
Nordic curls are brutal. Programming them well means accepting that most lifters cannot do a full one yet — and building toward one intelligently.
6 min read
MEV, MAV, MRV: Volume Landmarks in Practice
Volume landmarks are useful when applied with honesty. Here is how to find your own MEV, MAV, and MRV — and where the framework tends to break down.
5 min read
How Much Volume Do You Actually Need for Hypertrophy?
MEV, MAV, and MRV sound like jargon, but they describe a real volume curve. Here's what the research suggests about how many sets to do.
5 min read
Understanding RPE: When to Use It, When to Skip It
RPE is a useful autoregulation tool. Here's when it adds value and when percentage-based programming is simpler.
5 min read
Progressive Overload Without Adding Weight
Adding weight isn't the only way to drive adaptation. Here are four overload levers to use when the plates stop moving.
5 min read
PPL 6-Day vs 4-Day: Recovery Tradeoffs
Push/Pull/Legs can run on 3, 4, 5, or 6 days. The tradeoffs around frequency and recovery are practical, not philosophical.