Coach Ted talks about how all repetitions are not created equal, and how to avoid getting caught up in repeating things that ultimately don’t do you much good.
The Fallacy of the Repetition-based Model
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The Fallacy of the Repetition-based Model
Season 4/Episode 06
March 7, 2022
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
This is the Ted O'Neill program where we explore the science and philosophies of performance optimization, and the elevation of the human experience, mind of Ted O'Neill with John Leon Guerrero.
0:23 Jon
Welcome to the Ted O'Neill program. This Monday, we're going to discuss the fallacy of the rep-based model.
0:29 Ted
This is something that I wanted to really put the magnifying glass on. And we did touch on this a little bit in the PPT overview and season three. And I'm calling this the fallacy of the repetition-based model, which is a little bit of a nod to Mel Sif, Mel Sif, I believe was maybe the greatest sports scientist. He wrote a number of really instrumental books on training in a very non-traditional way. Like his book Super Training is basically a textbook. And that's one of the things I say that I know someone's lying to me. When they say I read Super Training and that book changed my life. Okay. And I know their lives. I tried to read that book. At least the time I engaged that it just wasn't going to happen. And I was all there. So yeah, Mel was a brilliant sports scientist. He also wrote a book that was very accessible, called facts and fallacies of fitness.
1:28 Jon
That one was very accessible.
1:29 Ted
Yeah. And so, it's a little nod to the late great Mel Sif, the fallacy of the repetition-based model. And I say this because if you look at, you know, really any training protocol, whether it's an Olympic lifting powerlifting and that doesn't matter if you're training on linear periodization, progressive overload to conjugate method, bodybuilding, CrossFit, even general fitness activities like running or rowing, swimming. The commonality of all these protocols is they're all rep based. So, we could say that everything in programming from volume considerations to preset based training to max effort work to time under tension, to perceived rate of exertion to what they call sometimes in CrossFit AMRAP which is as many reps as possible is all based on the concept of the rep. Now, generally most of the modalities don't really, I don't think that much thought into how to perform the rep. I mean, there's clearly a difference like if someone is really training as an Olympic lifter, there's a lot of technique there that's probably gone into pretty thoroughly versus like if someone's going to a CrossFit gym and learning Olympic lifting it's probably a pretty deep separation, but even in sports like bodybuilding, so much of it seems to be interpretive or loose idea of good quote form. So, there's usually basic guidelines on what is good form, which I think is almost completely universally misunderstood, maybe a different kind of conversation.
3:02 Jon
If you want to actually get an example of the misunderstanding of good form, look at an accomplished power lifters blog or Instagram or whatever. And look at the comments. Because people chime in with their cockamamie ideas about what's going on there. And you're looking at an accomplished powerlifter perform a feat of strength. And then you have a comment on the form and performance of it.
3:27 Ted
Right. Yeah. So, this Yeah, well, this is also why don't go on social media. That's, you know, that's kind of like the melting pot of all things that would be negative to do with anything here someone's accomplishment here's someone who can't do anything near that telling that this person did it wrong. But you know, there's something a little bit to that in some of this that we're going to get into but you know the concept of this elusive perfect rep. Really seems to be just that it's a concept without a clear way to reverse engineer optimal performance. So today, I really want to go much farther than just the concept of good form or even the perfect rep. But you know what I like to say when we're talking about a repetition-based system as the first question I ask is, what is it exactly that we're repeating? Okay, if repetitions are things that you repeat, yeah, it's a series of one thing done time after time. You're doing a bench press. You're doing five reps; you press the bar but not five times. But how are we repeating that movement? Yeah. You know, is there one universal standard for everyone? There are a series of things and so this to me is, is so much at the heart of progress, because you can make you know, this is why I said, online, everyone has an online coach today. Everyone wants to, it's just it's such. It's not my preferred thing. Everyone has an online programmer. They call them coaches. But to me, that's just a list of exercises on a piece of paper, which is fundamentally useless. You know, I can write up a perfect program for somebody or we can even say historically, this is what led to this in a contest. I can give you exactly what they didn't give to someone else. It means nothing. Yeah, literally zero, because it presupposes that a person can execute the same way. With the same technical prowess and the same mental focus and the same ability to ride through the rough spots emotionally. That's a person who was successful. Which is not only a huge task, it's completely unrealistic. And it's completely unrealistic because you're basing this one off the person's current interpretation of what proper mechanics are, and you're basing it off of their prior learning in their brain and in their body. So, let's talk about that real quick. Because to go anywhere with this, we have to first step outside of just the physical. And that to me is one of the biggest fallacies of the rep base model. Yeah, you have all these people who want a list of exercises to do well.
6:16 Jon
You just demolished anything that can be casually replicated, because now we're talking about starting with intention and, and all of those things that you don't write on a piece of paper.
6:29 Ted
Yeah, so there's a huge piece to this. And so, what is that well, first, it's, it would be understanding optimal mechanics, at least in some kind of a functional way. Now, I'm not proposing someone needs an engineering degree or advanced physics to do this, but you have to really know what it is and how to put your body in certain joint angles to be successful like in the case of powerlifting. On the main lifts, we would mechanically want to do the least amount of work possible, which is why a lot of people squat wide, which is why a lot of people bring your chest up to the bar when you're benching. It's why a lot of people do a sumo deadlift versus conventional but if someone has really long arms, and short femurs, maybe they're going to be a conventional puller, so you're trying to optimize your mechanical advantage on the barbell so this can be broken down. And what I like to say when someone's brand new at Diablo my goal for anyone brand new coming in to learn the lifts is if someone who is equally new came in half hour later and watch this, this newbie lift, I'm hoping that they will have learned enough about application of movement that the person who's almost exactly in that same boat with being new, just 30 minutes removed, can look at the person lifting and say you know, I don't know anything about bench pressing, but I know that that person clearly that person. Yeah. So, they should appear to have training, everything that they're doing is based on intention. Okay. And to me that's such a huge part of this because there's no magic to laying down on a bench and pushing up and down. Yeah, like that alone isn't going to transform you. It's, it's so much the performance of, of how you approach that lift. And knowing what muscle groups and a lot of people still think that if you're lifting big weights or bench press it's a pec exercise. Right. You know, bodybuilders bench with their pecs in a very, very different ways to retention, right? But in powerlifting, your lats and your triceps are your only primary mover and your lats are your biggest stabilizer. So, if you don't have triceps and laughs It doesn't matter how strong your pecs are. You're not going to be a big venture. Or at least you're going to be robbing the greatest potential to lift just based on a misunderstanding of the mechanics and the process of the bench-press. So, you know these concepts, although maybe seemingly revolutionary to someone who's brand new, are not even minimum expectations at Diablo. So, the mechanical performance of how we do this. It's not cookie cutter where it's the same for everyone. But the template on how we would approach this would be almost identical for almost everyone. And then their own unique leverage is going to customize this to a certain point. But just the fundamental mechanics of what we're trying to accomplish those things and if you apply it in short order, you should see a massive shift in your ability to perform. And part of this is because we're going to ask the question, what is it exactly that we're repeating? And so, we're going to get in greater detail as the week goes on to the fact that suddenly some reps are much more important than others.
0:23 Jon
Welcome to the Ted O'Neill program. This Monday, we're going to discuss the fallacy of the rep-based model.
0:29 Ted
This is something that I wanted to really put the magnifying glass on. And we did touch on this a little bit in the PPT overview and season three. And I'm calling this the fallacy of the repetition-based model, which is a little bit of a nod to Mel Sif, Mel Sif, I believe was maybe the greatest sports scientist. He wrote a number of really instrumental books on training in a very non-traditional way. Like his book Super Training is basically a textbook. And that's one of the things I say that I know someone's lying to me. When they say I read Super Training and that book changed my life. Okay. And I know their lives. I tried to read that book. At least the time I engaged that it just wasn't going to happen. And I was all there. So yeah, Mel was a brilliant sports scientist. He also wrote a book that was very accessible, called facts and fallacies of fitness.
1:28 Jon
That one was very accessible.
1:29 Ted
Yeah. And so, it's a little nod to the late great Mel Sif, the fallacy of the repetition-based model. And I say this because if you look at, you know, really any training protocol, whether it's an Olympic lifting powerlifting and that doesn't matter if you're training on linear periodization, progressive overload to conjugate method, bodybuilding, CrossFit, even general fitness activities like running or rowing, swimming. The commonality of all these protocols is they're all rep based. So, we could say that everything in programming from volume considerations to preset based training to max effort work to time under tension, to perceived rate of exertion to what they call sometimes in CrossFit AMRAP which is as many reps as possible is all based on the concept of the rep. Now, generally most of the modalities don't really, I don't think that much thought into how to perform the rep. I mean, there's clearly a difference like if someone is really training as an Olympic lifter, there's a lot of technique there that's probably gone into pretty thoroughly versus like if someone's going to a CrossFit gym and learning Olympic lifting it's probably a pretty deep separation, but even in sports like bodybuilding, so much of it seems to be interpretive or loose idea of good quote form. So, there's usually basic guidelines on what is good form, which I think is almost completely universally misunderstood, maybe a different kind of conversation.
3:02 Jon
If you want to actually get an example of the misunderstanding of good form, look at an accomplished power lifters blog or Instagram or whatever. And look at the comments. Because people chime in with their cockamamie ideas about what's going on there. And you're looking at an accomplished powerlifter perform a feat of strength. And then you have a comment on the form and performance of it.
3:27 Ted
Right. Yeah. So, this Yeah, well, this is also why don't go on social media. That's, you know, that's kind of like the melting pot of all things that would be negative to do with anything here someone's accomplishment here's someone who can't do anything near that telling that this person did it wrong. But you know, there's something a little bit to that in some of this that we're going to get into but you know the concept of this elusive perfect rep. Really seems to be just that it's a concept without a clear way to reverse engineer optimal performance. So today, I really want to go much farther than just the concept of good form or even the perfect rep. But you know what I like to say when we're talking about a repetition-based system as the first question I ask is, what is it exactly that we're repeating? Okay, if repetitions are things that you repeat, yeah, it's a series of one thing done time after time. You're doing a bench press. You're doing five reps; you press the bar but not five times. But how are we repeating that movement? Yeah. You know, is there one universal standard for everyone? There are a series of things and so this to me is, is so much at the heart of progress, because you can make you know, this is why I said, online, everyone has an online coach today. Everyone wants to, it's just it's such. It's not my preferred thing. Everyone has an online programmer. They call them coaches. But to me, that's just a list of exercises on a piece of paper, which is fundamentally useless. You know, I can write up a perfect program for somebody or we can even say historically, this is what led to this in a contest. I can give you exactly what they didn't give to someone else. It means nothing. Yeah, literally zero, because it presupposes that a person can execute the same way. With the same technical prowess and the same mental focus and the same ability to ride through the rough spots emotionally. That's a person who was successful. Which is not only a huge task, it's completely unrealistic. And it's completely unrealistic because you're basing this one off the person's current interpretation of what proper mechanics are, and you're basing it off of their prior learning in their brain and in their body. So, let's talk about that real quick. Because to go anywhere with this, we have to first step outside of just the physical. And that to me is one of the biggest fallacies of the rep base model. Yeah, you have all these people who want a list of exercises to do well.
6:16 Jon
You just demolished anything that can be casually replicated, because now we're talking about starting with intention and, and all of those things that you don't write on a piece of paper.
6:29 Ted
Yeah, so there's a huge piece to this. And so, what is that well, first, it's, it would be understanding optimal mechanics, at least in some kind of a functional way. Now, I'm not proposing someone needs an engineering degree or advanced physics to do this, but you have to really know what it is and how to put your body in certain joint angles to be successful like in the case of powerlifting. On the main lifts, we would mechanically want to do the least amount of work possible, which is why a lot of people squat wide, which is why a lot of people bring your chest up to the bar when you're benching. It's why a lot of people do a sumo deadlift versus conventional but if someone has really long arms, and short femurs, maybe they're going to be a conventional puller, so you're trying to optimize your mechanical advantage on the barbell so this can be broken down. And what I like to say when someone's brand new at Diablo my goal for anyone brand new coming in to learn the lifts is if someone who is equally new came in half hour later and watch this, this newbie lift, I'm hoping that they will have learned enough about application of movement that the person who's almost exactly in that same boat with being new, just 30 minutes removed, can look at the person lifting and say you know, I don't know anything about bench pressing, but I know that that person clearly that person. Yeah. So, they should appear to have training, everything that they're doing is based on intention. Okay. And to me that's such a huge part of this because there's no magic to laying down on a bench and pushing up and down. Yeah, like that alone isn't going to transform you. It's, it's so much the performance of, of how you approach that lift. And knowing what muscle groups and a lot of people still think that if you're lifting big weights or bench press it's a pec exercise. Right. You know, bodybuilders bench with their pecs in a very, very different ways to retention, right? But in powerlifting, your lats and your triceps are your only primary mover and your lats are your biggest stabilizer. So, if you don't have triceps and laughs It doesn't matter how strong your pecs are. You're not going to be a big venture. Or at least you're going to be robbing the greatest potential to lift just based on a misunderstanding of the mechanics and the process of the bench-press. So, you know these concepts, although maybe seemingly revolutionary to someone who's brand new, are not even minimum expectations at Diablo. So, the mechanical performance of how we do this. It's not cookie cutter where it's the same for everyone. But the template on how we would approach this would be almost identical for almost everyone. And then their own unique leverage is going to customize this to a certain point. But just the fundamental mechanics of what we're trying to accomplish those things and if you apply it in short order, you should see a massive shift in your ability to perform. And part of this is because we're going to ask the question, what is it exactly that we're repeating? And so, we're going to get in greater detail as the week goes on to the fact that suddenly some reps are much more important than others.
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