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CUSTOMIZED PROGRAM DESIGN

In the current fitness industry, there seem to be only 2 approaches to individualized program
design. On the one hand we have the bros whose interpretation of ‘customization’ is
randomness. They have a vague idea – a feeling – of how different individuals respond better to
different programs. However, there is no system. All customization is done ad hoc, on the fly.
So almost identical clients can get wildly varying programs.

One the other hand we have the nihilist science crowd who do not deviate from the ‘optimal
system’ other than for practical considerations. Here identical clients will rightfully get the same
program, but so will an old male Olympic level sprinter and an adolescent female former
marathon runner that’s now getting into strength training.

The best of both worlds is achieved by systematic customization. In this week we’ll upgrade your
client assessment skills so you can systematically prescribe individualized training programs.
There are several evidence-based ways to achieve this, but before we get into the practical
implementation, we first have to discuss genetics.

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Genetic muscular potential

DNA testing

Inside cells with a nucleus – a cell core – lie chromosome pairs that contain your DNA. DNA is
basically the blueprint that your cells use to construct your body. Your DNA can be
functionally divided into a large amount of genes that together make up your genome. Each
gene encodes information, a little blueprint, about specific aspects of your body.

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It is generally estimated that ~40-60% of most aspects of your body are genetically determined.
Certain aspects, like your eye color and whether you have boobs or a penis, are of course
more fully genetically determined, but the ~50% figure is remarkably constant for other traits
that have an obvious environmental influence as well, like your personality. If you’ve ever
looked around in the gym, it should be obvious that someone’s capacity for strength sports and
muscular growth are obviously largely genetically influenced as well. So it would be very useful
to look into someone’s genetic blueprint to be able to customize their training and nutrition.

The most straightforward way to assess someone’s genetic potential would seem to be to have
a DNA test done. Many companies advertise such a service these days: you identify someone’s
genes and that will tell you how someone should eat and train. However, there are many
problems with these kind of tests that limit their practical usefulness.

 A good test may look at some 20 of your genes. The Human Genome Project has
identified over 20 thousand genes. So even if you’re looking at particularly interesting
genes, it’s still much like looking at a single computer chip and trying to figure out how
the entire computer works based on that single chip.
 Just knowing the configuration of your genes does not necessarily tell you what their
practical results in your body are. Many genes share information and interact with each
other to encode the structure of any part of your physiology. You may have a gene that
has the capacity to encode your body with cells that can produce extremely high rates
of muscle proteins, but it may be useless because the rate limiting factor is a certain
enzyme you don’t have enough of. It’s like trying to predict how a soccer team performs
by only looking at a single team member.
 Science is still in its infancy in terms of figuring out what each gene does in the first
place. Research is greatly limited by not being able to conduct many controlled
experiments in humans. Because it’s difficult to implant genes or knock them out, we’re
largely limited to associative findings right now, e.g. ‘most world class sprinters have this
gene, so this gene is probably good for sprinting’.

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As a result, even state-of-the-art laboratories are generally only capable of predicting a few
percent of the variance in genetic capacity for certain manifest features, like strength or
endurance exercise potential or your metabolic rate. And that’s the average from the group
level. Within individuals, the accuracy is far more variable. Not to mention, this only looks at
evident outcome variables like athletic potential. We’re nowhere near being able to go into
details yet that have practical meaningfulness, like what your training volume should be or if you
should eat a high or low carb diet. A consensus statement from genetic researchers in
December 2015 concluded: “The general consensus among sport and exercise genetics
researchers is that genetic tests have no role to play in talent identification or the individualised
prescription of training to maximise performance.”

So how come DNA testing is so popular these days? It’s the same scam as fortune telling, hand
reading or looking into a glass ball. As the above consensus statement concluded: “There is
concern among the scientific community that the current level of knowledge is being
misrepresented for commercial purposes.”

A 2016 review paper similarly concluded: “currently available genetic tests [...] cannot predict
athletic performance with any accuracy.”

The state of DNA testing in the field of nutrition (nutritional genomics) is similar [1, 2].

In short, the science isn’t there yet for individual DNA testing with relevant practical
applications for training programming or nutrition.

Fortunately, there are other indicators we can use to proxy for direct DNA analysis that not
only work better in practice but are far simpler.

1. Secondary Sex Characteristics

Throughout childhood and especially during puberty, testosterone produces masculine body
features. In case you were paying more attention to the opposite sex than your teacher during

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your high school biology classes, here’s a reminder of what male secondary sex characteristics
are.

- Large vocal cords, a big Adam’s apple and a deep voice.

- A hairy body, especially on the face, forearms, abs and chest. However, in older men,
balding is actually a sign of high testosterone production. DHT, a derivative of
testosterone, produces hair growth in the above body regions but over time it makes
your hairline recede and causes the top of your head to go bald. Doctors call this
androgenic alopecia.
- A square face. We know this intuitively. A square face makes you look manly and
formidable. You can even predict a martial artist’s fighting ability from how square the
person’s face is.

Note: Remember the topic on fat intake for more information about androgenic hormones like
testosterone.

2. Stature Matters

“I started weight training at age 18. Right from the start I was strong. The first time I ever lifted
I squatted 500 pounds and deadlifted 600 pounds. Lads from the gym thought I had trained
before, but no, it was my first time. That's when it all started.”

- Andy Bolton

What made the untrained Andy Bolton stronger than most lifters will ever be? For one thing,
his build. The image below shows what Andy looks like next to Pavel Tsatsouline, who is
himself renowned for his feats of strength. Andy dwarfs Pavel not just because he has a lot
more muscle and fat mass. His skeletal frame is immense.

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Having a large skeleton with thick bones helps support muscle mass. The thicker your frame,
the more muscle can be built around it. Frame size correlates with body composition, so most
people with big joints and bones are naturally more muscular than their slimmer built
counterparts [1, 2, 3]. Large built people also gain muscle faster during weight training. Top
Olympic weightlifters, powerlifters and bodybuilders all have large bone girths and frame size is
a good predictor of success in all 3 sports [1, 2, 3].

One study measured the bodily dimensions of Oceania’s national and higher ranking
powerlifters compared to various scientific standards. The majority of powerlifters literally
scored off the chart on the indices (image below) and one guy scored 14.8 on what is supposed
to be a 7-point scale [1].

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Contrary to the natural freaks who are large all over, most people have good and bad body
parts. It is not uncommon for someone to have broad shoulders but tiny arm bones, for
example. This allows you to assess naturally weak body parts and exercises. This is also one of
several reasons why structural balance theory is flawed: you can’t always expect different
people to have similar strength ratios between all exercises.

Interestingly, it seems to be primarily frame size itself, not the associated muscle size per se,
that matters most. Ahtiainen et al. (2016) found that baseline body composition and strength
level did not predict subsequent muscle growth and strength development during strength
training in previously untrained individuals, even though there was marked variation in the
response to strength training. Certain ‘high responders’ had a 30% increase in muscle size and a
60% increase in strength, whereas certain ‘non-responders’ actually lost 11% muscle size and 8%
strength.

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So if you have a client with huge joints, broad shoulders, a square face and massive hands, you
may have found a future Olympian.

As an objective guideline to classify someone’s frame size, you can look at someone’s wrist and
ankle size and use those as a proxy for the person’s total frame size. The following reference
data from the US National Library of Medicine can be used for wrist size.

Women
 Height under 5'2"
o Small = wrist size less than 5.5"
o Medium = wrist size 5.5" to 5.75"
o Large = wrist size over 5.75"
 Height 5'2" to 5' 5"
o Small = wrist size less than 6"
o Medium = wrist size 6" to 6.25"
o Large = wrist size over 6.25"
 Height over 5' 5"
o Small = wrist size less than 6.25"
o Medium = wrist size 6.25" to 6.5"
o Large = wrist size over 6.5"
Men
 Height over 5' 5"
o Small = wrist size 5.5" to 6.5"
o Medium = wrist size 6.5" to 7.5"
o Large = wrist size over 7.5"

For ankle size, we have the research from Karakas & Bozkir (2007). Note that overweight
individuals may have inflated ankle sizes: fat should not be mistaken for good genetic potential
to build muscle mass.

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 Ankle females: 21.9 +- 1.3 cm (8.6”)

 Ankle males: 23.5 +- 1.5 cm (9.3”)

3. The 2D:4D ratio

This one is less intuitive. The shorter your index finger and the longer your ring finger, the
higher your prenatal exposure to testosterone. Most people have ring fingers that are slightly
longer than their index fingers, men especially.

So if you have a low 2D:4D ratio and a long ring finger, you tend to have a higher potential for
strength sports. Research has found this relation in a wide range of sports and physical
activities, even sumo wrestling. It also affects your health and psychology as shown in the
overview from Wikipedia below.

Low digit ratio High digit ratio

Physiology  Lowered sperm
and disease counts[42]
 Increased risk for
heart disease in
males[43]

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 Increased risk of
obesity and metabolic
syndrome in males[44]
 Reduced risk for
prostate cancer[45]
 Reduced birth size in
males[46][47]
Psychological  Increased rate of ADHD in  Increased risk for
disorders males[48][49][50][51] depression in males[55]
 Increased rate of Autism Spectrum  Increased rate of
Disorders and Asperger syndrome schizophrenia[56]
(when comparing digit ratio to general  Increased rate of
population)[52] psychopathy in
 Reduced risk in females for anorexia females[57]
nervosa[53] and in males for eating  Reduced risk of
disorders[54] alcohol dependency[58]
 Reduced risk of video
game addiction[59]
 Increased anxiety in
males[60]
Physical and  Reduced performance
competitive in sports[61]
behavior  Reduced financial
trading ability[62]
 Right handedness
skills[63]
(inconclusive)[64]
Cognition  Assertiveness in females[7]  Personality traits
and  Aggression in males[15][65] correlated with digit
personality  Masculinity of handwriting[66] ratio, higher being

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 Perceived 'dominance' and masculinity more

of man's face[67][68] feminized[72][73][74]
 In an orchestral context, rank and  Paranormal and
musical ability in males[69] superstitious beliefs
 Academic performance[70] among men with a
 Maths ability[71] higher digit ratio[75]
 Higher exam scores
among male
students[31][76]
Management  Leadership[77] 

 Innovation[78]
Sensory  Smell perception[79]
perception  Color perception[80]
 Tactile perception[81]
Sexual  Lesbians have a lower digit ratio, on  Sexual preference for
orientation average, than heterosexual more masculine men
women[82][83][84][85][86][87][88][89][90][91][92][93] among women[82] and
gay men[94] with high
digit ratio; a
preference for a
masculine facial type
means a more
"feminized" mindset.
 Lesbians are more
likely to be femme
and less likely to be
butch with a high digit
ratio.[84][95] Identical
female twins
discordant for sexual

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orientation still show

the difference (lesbian
less than straight, on
average) in digit
ratio.[86][96]
 Homosexuality for
men,[85][97] but this is
disputed,[92][98] and
subject to geographic
variations[99]

2 of Menno’s male clients. Left: excellent genetic potential. Right: poor genetic potential. Note the
corresponding difference in hair growth and joint thickness.

Astute readers will note that Menno specifically ask for his client’s right hand in his intake form.
There is some evidence that the right hand is a better predictor of prenatal testosterone
exposure than the left.

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Tip: A picture of your client’s hand will not only tell you what his or her 2D:4D ratio is. The
hand is a good place to assess a person’s skeletal frame size due to the extremely high amount
of bones in the hand. It will also tell you something about the client’s lifestyle: look for the
presence of a wedding ring, calluses and nail grooming.

4. The fullness of your muscle bellies

Longer muscles have more mass potential than shorter ones. They are literally longer after all.
As a proxy, flex one of your elbows to 90° and see how many fingers you can put in between
your elbow and your biceps. 0 is amazing, 4 is terrible.

Compare the insertion points of one Menno’s clients’ biceps above (left) to that of Larry Scott (right)
and it’s not difficult to see which one is built to carry more mass.

5. Your birth weight

There’s a reason the ancient warrior Spartans threw away frail babies. The bigger you are as a
baby, the more muscular you’re likely to become as an adult. Fortunately though, it’s a myth
that being large as a baby predisposes you to obesity.

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As a reference, the average Caucasian newborn weighs 7.5 lb (3.4 kg) and anything under 5.5 lb
(2.5 kg) is considered clinically underweight. Detailed reference data for infant weights of both
genders can be found in the National Center for Health Statistics below.

Pt toolkit
Data Table of Infant Weight-for-age Charts

6. Racial phenotype

Politically incorrect as you may find it, skin color is a great proxy for someone’s genetic
capacity to build muscle. In general, you can distinguish between the following phenotypes in
order of genetic potential to tolerate exercise and build muscle: Black > Caucasian > Asian [2].
This also correlates with the factors discussed above like skeletal frame size, muscle belly
length, hormone levels and various metabolic differences, like the degree of metabolic
adaptivity.

Application

Now that you’ve assessed your client’s genetic potential, how do you apply this? You adjust the
training stress based on the expected amount of muscle mass that can be built. A genetic freak
will generally tolerate a higher exercise volume than your typical ‘hardgainer’, even if only
because their connective tissue can simply take more of a beating.

Set volume is the easiest variable to customize without requiring you to redesign the whole
program. It’s advisable to be conservative with the adjustments until you’ve accumulated a lot
of experience as a coach. Adjusting the sets per exercise by +/- 2 per training session is
generally sufficient.

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Training status
Genetic potential is not the only variable to take into account when individualizing someone’s
program. In fact, it is a relatively unimportant one that we have practical data for compared to
someone’s training status. We’ve seen how both diet and training program design should
change as someone gets more advanced. But what constitutes ‘advanced’? In the following
lecture we’ll discuss how to precisely determine someone’s training status.

lecture
Determining training status

In conclusion, to determine someone’s training status, you should relate the individual’s level of
strength and muscle mass to their genetic potentials. The closer someone is to their genetic
limitations, the more advanced they are.

As strength standards, you can use the Kilgore-Rippetoe-Pendlay strength standards. They are
based on a very large sample size of serious strength trainees and have proven over time to
constitute a realistic frame of reference for individuals with normal genetic potential.

The following calculator can help serve as a guideline of how advanced someone is by
comparing their level of muscularity to several reference standards from the scientific literature.
Note how genetic potential is assessed on a per-muscle basis: for example, it it typical for men
who have been training like traditional bros to have relatively underdeveloped posterior delts,
hamstrings, glutes and calves and have highly advanced pecs and arms.

You can also use Menno’s PT Intake Form for your own clients, provided you leave the
BayesianBodybuilding.com marking on it.

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Pt toolkit
 Training status calculator
 PT Intake Form

Since it takes a good deal of experience as a coach before you can accurately estimate people’s
training status, here’s a case study to put what we’ve learned so far into practice.

Case study
Customizing the fundamental program design variables

Note: stress and sleep will be discussed later in the course.

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Muscle-specific hypertrophy
To know how to best train a muscle, you have to first understand its physical structure,
specifically its fiber type composition. This information helps you select the optimal training
volume for that muscle group.

Many lifters don’t specifically tailor these loading parameters to individual muscles. For example,
they’ll dedicate 4-6 weeks to “hypertrophy” and perform every exercise in the 8-12 rep range.

That’s a mistake. Optimal hypertrophy training is muscle specific, because muscle growth is in
itself by and large a muscle specific process.

Fiber One-Two-Three

There are three different types of muscle fiber worth knowing. In order of increasing
contraction speed, increasing force production and decreasing resistance to fatigue, you have
type I, type IIa, and type IIb fibers.

Type I fibers are slow-twitch and type II fibers are fast-twitch. The following table lists the main
characteristics of each muscle fiber type.

Type I Type IIa Fibers Type IIb Fibers

Fibers
Contraction Time Slow Moderately fast Very fast
Size of Motor Neuron Small Medium Very large
Resistance to Fatigue High Fairly high Low
Activity Used for Aerobic Long-term anaerobic Short-term anaerobic
Maximum Duration of Hours <30 minutes <1 minute
Use
Power Produced Low Medium Very high
Mitochondrial Density High High Low

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Capillary Density High Intermediate Low

Oxidative Capacity High High Low
Glycolytic Capacity Low High High
Major Storage Fuel Triglycerides Creatine phosphate, Creatine phosphate,
glycogen glycogen

Each muscle has a different fiber type composition. Some muscles are fast twitch dominant
while others are slow twitch dominant.

Muscle fiber type composition is largely genetically determined and has very important muscle-
specific training implications. Fast twitch fibers are better suited for heavy lifting, whereas slow
twitch fibers are better suited to lighter, longer sets.

Also, fast twitch muscle fibers have significantly greater growth potential, up to 100% more than
slow twitch fibers in some research. Even in untrained individuals, they’re normally over 20%
larger, and it’s not uncommon for them to be over twice as large. However, the slow twitch
fibers should not be neglected. In competitive bodybuilders, equal hypertrophy of both fiber
types has been found. In contrast, powerlifters, and Olympic weightlifters show preferential
hypertrophy of the type II fibers. For maximum muscle growth, you want to maximize growth
in all muscle fiber types.

The fiber type composition of each muscle varies per individual, but as with most physiological
characteristics, people don’t differ that much. In the general population, differences in
percentage of slow twitch muscle fibers are normally above 5% but usually below 10%. So, you
probably aren’t that special in this regard, even though your momma said you were.

In contrast to what you may expect, exercise has only a limited capacity to convert muscle fiber
types and the change that occurs is similar for endurance and strength training. Exercise
generally turns both type I and type IIb fibers into type IIa fibers, with other conversions being
rare. Weightlifters, powerlifters, bodybuilders and sedentary populations differ less than 5%

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regarding the percentage of slow twitch fibers in their muscles, so it’s unlikely that you need to
take fiber conversion into account with your training after you’ve passed the novice level.

Application

In the previous week we determined the optimal training intensity, but we never touched on
how many reps per set you should do. In the following lecture you’ll find out why. The Bayesian
Bodybuilding muscle-specific hypertrophy method is a novel intensity system that does not
involve the traditional fixed repetition or intensity x repetition prescriptions.

lecture
Interindividual variability and muscle-specific hypertrophy

To recap, the logic for the muscle-specific hypertrophy method is as follows.

1. Your muscle fiber type composition influences how many reps you can do at any
intensity. The more slow twitch dominant a muscle group is, the more reps it can do at
any intensity.
2. How many reps you do per set tends to influence the relative muscle growth of slow-
vs. fast twitch fibers [2, 3]. The more reps you do per set, the greater the relative
increase in slow twitch muscle fibers compared to the fast twitch muscle fibers,
especially during isolation exercises.
Note: the English literature on this is conflicting, but the Russian literature is clear as
you can see in the table below.

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As such, it follows that more slow twitch muscle groups have a higher optimum volume than
more fast twitch muscle groups. Implementing test sessions so that you can prescribe an
intensity for each exercise without a repetition number allows you to autoregulate the volume
of each exercise in a way that’s specific to the individual’s muscle fiber type compostion and
maximize muscle growth across all muscle fibers. Maximum muscle growth in all fibers instead
of just the fast twitch muscle fibers is a key reason why bodybuilders tend to be bigger than
Powerlifters and Olympic Weightlifters.

Here’s another example of how this works. Suppose you have an advanced male trainee that
trains 3 times per week. Given that the optimal weekly training frequency for an advanced
individual is generally 3+, this means this individual is effectively doing 3 full-body workouts in
any week. You’ll probably want to create a different workout for each session, as we’ll get into
later, so this person has a 3-split with sessions A, B and C (or whatever you want to label
them). In the first week, you do a test session for each workout where the trainee finds his
1RM for each exercise and performs his remaining number of planned sets with a lower
percentage of that weight. You want to do the same number of sets here as you’re going to do
in the rest of the program, because otherwise you confound the test results by fatigue. The test

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sessions should be done in the exact same order with the same exercises as the regular
program will be done. Suppose during session A the squat 1RM comes out as 455 lbs. As an
advanced trainee, let’s say you’ve determined these squats should be done at an 85% intensity.
In week 2, during the same squat session of session A, you then prescribe a weight of 455 *
0.85 = ~390 lbs. He then does as many reps as possible with that weight (or goes however
close to failure you want him to go, as we’ll go into later). However many reps he achieves is
then a marker of his optimal volume. You’ll get different training volumes for each exercise, in
line with the different fiber compositions of the different musculatures involved in the different
exercises.

The details will all become clearer later and there are many ways to implement this method,
but for now you should understand the logic behind it and how you can autoregulate the
training volume prescription of each muscle group with this method.

Often, you don’t get very surprising numbers. Most people can do 6 – 10 reps with 80% of
their 1RM, for example. However, occasionally you get uncommon results and it’s exactly in
these individuals that the muscle-specific hypertrophy method shines. There are 2 profiles that
stand out in my experience.

1. The very slow twitch dominant woman that grows better in response to high rep
training – as many as 20-30 reps even for compound exercises – than traditional
strength training. This tends to scare coaches and they are then inclined to think the
testing must have gone wrong, so they lower the rep targets. Don’t. This is often
exactly the person that will benefit greatly from the muscle-specific hypertrophy
method.
2. The prototypical strength-power athlete, often male with great genetic potential, that
thrives on very low rep work and just burns out or gets injured doing a lot of volume.

A common objection to the muscle-specific hypertrophy method is that only advanced trainees
can reliably find their 1RM. That’s nonsense. It’s a classic example of ‘pussy lab coats’ training
harder than the ‘guys in the trenches’. 1RM testing in untrained individuals is done all the time

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in research and there is a substantial literature that indicates 1RMs can reliably be found for
pretty much all exercises even in entirely untrained individuals. In fact, 1RM testing is much
easier in untrained individuals, psychologically speaking. As you learned in the course topic on
the optimal training intensity, more advanced trainees can recruit their muscles more
effectively. As a result, 1RM attempts are much more mentally demanding for advanced lifters
than untrained individuals.

Recommended reading
Chapter 6 of The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance
by David Epstein

Note: The Sports Gene by Epstein is overall a great book. If you’re interested in the topic, you should
consider purchasing it.

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4. Work capacity
Another way to customize someone’s program is by looking at the person’s work capacity.
Work in exercise science is the same as that in physics: it’s a measure of the energy it took to
move an object with a certain force over a certain distance in a certain amount of time. In the
case of weight training, it’s a measure of energy expenditure during the lifting of the weight.
More simply, within the practical scenario of a series of training sets for an exercise, your work
capacity scales linearly with the amount of repetitions you do across all sets.

For example, if a person does 4 sets of squats to failure with her 12RM and the repetitions go
like 12, 12, 11, 11, that shows great work capacity. Most individuals lose repetitions across
every set when they train close to failure. If someone’s repetitions go like 12, 6, 3, 2, that
means work capacity is low.

You can quantify work capacity precisely by calculating a measure like the average percentage
repetition drop-off per set. A common fatigue index used in the scientific literature is the
Sforzo and Touey (1996) formula:

Note that if the weight is constant across sets, this formula can be simplified to the percentage
drop in repetitions from the first to the final set, e.g. going from 10 to 2 repetitions equals a
fatigue index of -80%.

In practice as a coach, work capacity is something you should over time learn to eyeball. As a
rough rule of thumb, not taking into account age, gender and training status, if the repetitions
per set don’t drop more than 20% across multiple sets (e.g. 10, 9, 9, 8), work capacity is high. If
repetitions drop 80% or more (e.g. 10, 5, 3, 2), work capacity is low. In my experience, many

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people believe they have low work capacity in an optimized program, but that is often simply
because they weren’t used to pushing themselves truly close to failure.

If you have no idea what normal work capacity is, below is some reference data from untrained
men and women performing 4 sets at 80% of 1RM to ‘voluntary failure’ with a 2 minute inter-
set rest interval (data from Salvador et al. 2005).

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In terms of application, people with a better work capacity generally have a higher optimal
volume level. Various reasons can increase work capacity and practically all of them predispose
an individual towards being able to tolerate more training volume.

For example, as you’ve seen in the section on muscle-specific hypertrophy, muscle groups with
a more slow twitch fiber type composition generally react better to a higher training volume.
They also have a higher work capacity. We’ll see that this is also the case for the sex difference
in fatigue resistance and androgenic-anabolic steroid usage.

So when you see during the first sessions that a client has high work capacity, it can be worth
experimenting with a higher training volume to see how much more they can tolerate.
Interindividual variability is very large for work capacity, so it’s advisable to be conservative with

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the adjustments. As a general guideline, don’t increase training volume more than a set per
body part per training session.

lecture
Program customization based on work capacity

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5. Diet

We’ve touched on this previously in the course. The more anabolic someone’s diet, the higher
the potential for muscle growth and the better someone’s recovery capacity. This includes
nutrient timing and thereby nutrient partitioning, the inflammatory index, whether sufficient
macro- and micronutrients are being consumed, energy balance, food choices, everything.
Energy balance is in practice the most crucial factor though, because it means that people will
tolerate a higher training volume when bulking than when cutting.

So in a deficit, the total training stress should be reduced. This can be achieved by i.a. modifying
intensity, training frequency, proximity to failure or training volume. In my experience and
based on the literature, a 20 – 33% reduction in volume is appropriate during a cut compared
to during a bulk.

In practice though, while training stress can almost always be increased when someone
transitions to a bulk, sometimes it’s not needed to reduce the training stress when transitioning
to a cut. During a prolonged cut, if good progress has been made, it’s not uncommon for
someone to have become advanced enough to handle the same training volume in an energy
deficit. Menno often prefers keeping the training stress constant during the start of the cut to
avoid suggesting to the client: “Welcome to cutting. Prepare for your training sessions to suck.”

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6. Gender

Recommended reading
Gender specific programming & female specific topics

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7. Age

Recommended reading
Age specific programming for the youth and elderly

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