Differences Between Novice and Advanced Trainees

A lot of people become interested in strength training because of the influence of someone they know or have seen compete at a high level. As a result, it is only natural for a novice to be interested in the training methods of someone they idolize or respect, and that has produced results they hope too see for themselves. Unfortunately, this highly motivated desire to achieve results leads them to follow a program that is not well suited to their training status. I hope to outline some of the major differences between more novice and advanced trainees, and thus, the differences in programming that make the most sense for these individuals.

Ability to Tolerate Training Stress

As a novice, the ability to tolerate stress induced by strength training is minimal. This is one of the things that defines you as a novice. Obviously, if you have not been exposed to a stressor previously, or had very minimal exposure, then you have not developed any significant adaptations to resist the disruption in homeostasis that this stressor imposes upon your body. Attempting to duplicate the training program of someone who has spent years conditioning their body to this kind of stress makes no sense. As a practical example of this, imagine how sore you were the very first time you squatted with a heavy barbell. Now, after years of training, evaluate how sore you get after squatting a heavy barbell with the loading parameters you used on day one. I imagine that the difference is pretty dramatic. This is not to suggest that soreness is the only indicator of imposed demand upon the body, but I do think it helps illustrate the point.

There is a balance between the imposition of a stressor, and your ability to recover from that stressor. If you exceed your recovery capacity by a large margin, then your next productive training session will necessarily have to be delayed. As a result, you cannot generate as many instances of stimulation, and your progress over the long term will be blunted. Training stress does not produce linear results. That is, performing 10 sets of an exercise does not produce twice the strength gains as 5 sets of an exercise. As a result, you want to find the appropriate level of volume to stimulate change, meanwhile allowing you to train again relatively soon. Thus, there is a minimum volume required to stimulate change in the first place, but an upper limit to this volume where the level of diminishing returns increases because of the undue need to spend longer recovering.

Margin of Error

Finding the optimal amount of training to allow for recovery and progression is challenging. It is one of the more nuanced aspects of designing a proper strength training program. However, for a novice, the margin of error is much larger than for an advanced trainee. 

As a novice, you can be relatively sub-optimal with your volume selection with lesser consequences. The reason is that you are so inefficient early on, and your body's ability to adapt to this new stressor so plastic, that it's virtually impossible to generate enough stress to exceed your capacity to recover. Thus, if you do exceed the optimal level of volume, the additional time required to recover from this superfluous volume is fairly low. Spending an extra day or two out of the gym is really minimal in the grand scheme of things. For a more advanced trainee, exceeding this recovery capacity could induce levels of fatigue that require a much longer hiatus, or at least a dramatically reduced workload. 

Minimum Threshold to Disrupt Homeostasis

As training status increases, the minimum threshold at which adaptation occurs increases with it. If you've ever broken a bone where a joint had to be locked at a given angle in a cast, or know someone who has, then you've seen the result of this: atrophy. The muscles that move that joint are unable to be subjected to mechanical stress, so detraining occurs and these muscles decrease in size. This is like getting a preview of what a more sedentary version of yourself would look like. 

How much stimulus is required to strengthen and grow these atrophied muscles? Not very much. Your normal day to day activities are sufficient to cause adaptation of these tissues and the neurological pathways that control movement at that joint. Thus, this is an example of an artificially lowered threshold for adaptation. However, relative to a highly trained individual, an untrained individual is much like that atrophied limb: the minimum threshold necessary to induce adaptation is substantially lower. This is true of both volume AND intensity. That is to say, as a novice, you could lift a load that is a small percentage of your 1RM and still see improvements in muscular strength and size. As you progress, the minimum volume and intensity necessary to see progress in strength increases. Thus, as a novice trainee, lifting loads at 90% of your 1RM is completely unnecessary. You can induce strength adaptation at a much lower intensity, which is desirable considering that it also allows for more proficient development of technique while motor learning is still in its earliest stages.

Rate of Progression

I would argue that the single most important determinant of training status would be the rate of progress you can expect. For a complete novice trainee, a fairly linear rate of progression can be expected. That is to say, adding 5-10lbs to the bar every single time you hit the gym is the norm. The duration that a trainee is able to do this is highly variable, and even variable between exercises. Variables that affect this honeymoon period include training volume, training frequency, training intensity, genetics, nutrition, diet, sleep habits, and the rate of implemented progression relative to potential progression. What I mean is that if you had the ability to predict the exact load increase your body could tolerate each time, and dial in that exact increase each session, you would end this period of linear progression much sooner. Since your load increases are just best guesses, it can result in some amount of untapped potential each time you hit the gym, thus prolonging this period of newbie gains.

More advanced trainees, especially as one approaches their genetic limits, take quite a bit longer to see progress. The same relative progression a novice trainee sees in a matter of a few days may take many weeks of training and recovery, wrapped up in a more complex program, for a more advanced trainee.

Practical Application

The bottom line is that novice trainees should stick to fairly basic programming utilizing a linear rate of progression and a low overall training volume. Great examples of tried and true novice programs include Starting Strength and Greyskull Linear Progression. Don't get caught up trying to emulate the programs of individuals much more advanced than yourself. Conversely, recognize when you start plateauing and need to increase the complexity of your programming for continued progress. Happy lifting!