Have you noticed how some coaches produce outstanding athletes on a regular basis? Look at Louie Simmons or Josh Bryant, for example, they always have some of the strongest men in the world under their tutelage. This isn’t some kind of supernatural coincidence, it is because they understand the laws of training and how to piece it all together to create better training programs. Like legendary moonshiner Popcorn Sutton, theses coaches know just the right amount of each ingredient to include to create a superior product.
The Seven Granddaddy Laws of Training
There are some hard and fast laws of training that must be followed. These are not suggestions, they are LAWS. It is within these laws that the variation in programming can take place. The 7 Granddaddy Laws according to Dr. Fred Hatfield (Dr. Squat) are as follows:
The Law of Individual Differences: We all have different abilities, bodies and weaknesses, and we all respond differently (to a degree) to any given system of training. These differences should be taken into consideration when designing your training program.
The Overcompensation Principle: Mother Nature overcompensates for training stress by giving you bigger and stronger muscles.
The Overload Principle: To make Mother Nature overcompensate, you must stress your muscles beyond what they’re already used to.
The SAID Principle: The acronym for “Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands.” Each organ and organelle responds to a different form of stress.
The Use/Disuse Principle: “Use it or lose it” means that your muscles hypertrophy with use and atrophy with disuse.
The GAS Principle: The acronym for General Adaptation Syndrome, this law states that there must be a period of low intensity training or complete rest following periods of high intensity training.
The Specificity Principle: You’ll get stronger at squats by doing squats as opposed to leg presses, and you’ll get greater endurance for the marathon by running long distances than you will by (say) cycling long distances.
Creating a Program Within These Laws
So, when you are creating a program for yourself or your athletes you need to make sure that all of these laws are being followed. The art of programming is knowing how and when to adjust variables, while still adhering to the laws of training. This is why I am in constant communication with my online clients, feedback is crucial to the process.
Knowing when and how to adjust training variables is a skill that takes some experience and knowledge, but following these laws will make it a much easier task.
