Zero Progress, On Purpose.

There is a trap to training programs. That trap is progress.

There is a trap to training programs. That trap is progress.

It’s natural. You go to the gym and put some weight on the barbell and you put it on your shoulders and squat a few times. You repeat the same effort three or four or five times and then you check that box for the day. The next time you come back to the gym, you look at what you did last time and decide whether you can do more. One of the great beauties of almost any strength program is that the answer ends up being yes fairly frequently.

In any strength program, we will see generally positive progress over 10 to 15 training sessions before the athlete hits a hard plateau. At this point, the athlete can take a short breather and then reengage with the exercise. Typically this involves changing the movement slightly or changing the loading and intensity, but overtime, and athlete can continue to progress in their strength and power for a very long time.

One of the less glamorous parts of training is including recovery, sessions or recovery weeks in training. As I’ve aged, I’ve not only accepted this reality, but I have come to recognize it as an essential piece of progress. These days, if I chase a linear progression in my weight room sessions, I end up leveling out around three weeks into the program.

I understand that in your 50s, progress doesn’t come as easily, but it can continue to come if we’re smart about it.

It is with this in mind that I started doing a “no progress” session once per week. I’s not a revolutionary training idea. In fact, some of the greatest athletes of all time would do just one overload session per week, and a whole bunch of not-so-hard stuff in between. I just fell into the always harder trap for a long time.

I still build out my training program as generally progressive, aiming to increase either my total volume or my total load over the course of a training month. In the spirit of being able to go hard on each of my overload days, I started simply eliminating additional strength training from the program. This ended up dropping my program to only one or two days a week of strength, and the result of that was a noticeable decrease in capacity. My numbers were still OK, but I just couldn’t handle higher training volumes.

I started adding in an easier session each week, but I fell into the trap of trying to progress that easy session, as well as the “hard” ones, and ran into the plateau again. It wasn’t until I was reading an old book by Tommy Kono that I realized that not every single session needs to progress. Sure, in the past, I have allowed for sessions where I couldn’t go harder, but I have never intentionally built one or I wouldn’t go hard harder.

Starting maybe six months back, I put together a session planned for one day per week where I’d just do the same stuff every time. Same exercises. Same sets. Same reps and load. Same order. Usually the same day of the week. It turned out to be the opposite of boring. It turned out to be a revelation in my training.

When we have a fixed point in the schedule like this, not only is the pressure of performing very low, but the training session becomes a barometer for overall performance. At first, my workout was somewhat challenging and took around 35 minutes. Over time, it became easier and easier, dropped to 25-30 minutes, and was a welcome session each week. I hadn’t realized what the pressure to progress did to me until I started going out in with no intensification in mind.

My typical week for the past few months was like this:

• Monday: Rest or short walk with dog

• Tuesday: Hard bouldering, 45 minutes / Hard Strength Training

• Wednesday: No Progress Strength / Easy volume climbing

• Thursday: Longer hike with dog

• Friday: Medium bouldering, 60 minutes / Hard Strength Training

• Saturday: Hunting or climbing outside

• Sunday: Hike or easy climbing

I found that in the past, I’d skip the Wednesday workouts altogether as the cycle got more difficult. I simply needed more recovery after the hard Tuesday session and couldn’t rally to do much of anything. I’d take a rest day and then kick myself for not sticking to the plan. But by planning for it to feel too easy...

When you wake up on Wednesday and have a short session planned that isn’t going to tax you at all, it becomes a lot easier to motivate.

The hardest part of it all was not allowing myself to change the loads. When you go into the gym and rip out three sets of eight pull-ups with little effort, it’s very hard not to try to overload it a little bit next time. I held fast to my rule and over the course of the last four training cycles have forced all of the progress into the Tuesday and Friday sessions. My success in moving those sessions forward still varies, but overall, my progress feels more manageable, and I am enjoying the training much more.

I don’t think having a no progress session is some kind of Shangri-La nor do I think it is the basis of a crazy new training program. It’s just a simple way to keep from putting too much pressure into every single training day. It’s a simple way to make sure that I am cycling in some lower intensity work. It’s also a great barometer of how I am feeling in my training.

Of course, there are people that are stuck on the other side. Same morning run. Always the same workout and loads. Going to the same sector of the crag. If this is you, then an intentional “progress session” is in order. We each have to find a way to make the training work for us.