Why Trainees Seek Complexity

We seek complexity in our training as it provides a form of novelty and an antidote to boredom. Effective resistance training, be it strength or hypertrophy training, requires a certain level of discomfort to create adaptations. This discomfort makes it difficult to do on a consistent basis. It also requires a very high level of repetitions, literally doing repetition after repetition through specific movement patterns. This level of repetition can create a certain amount of boredom with the task. It doesn’t jump out as something that is extremely fun to do for most people. Mixing a task that is both physically difficult and repetitive can easily lead us to seek complexity as a practitioner. When we are bored of doing lunges we convince ourselves we need some new complex way to stress the body that will be more effective and more exciting.

Adding novelty into our training is important as it can help drastically with our long-term motivation, but we need to understand that the novelty will most likely be slight variations on movement patterns you are already training. Take for example the lunge. If I have been doing a squat in lunge for three months and I want to add some variety to my single leg training, I could run a training cycle on a B-Stance Squat, an excellent variation to the lunge with high carry over to the back squat. Then I can run a single leg step down and after that a rear foot elevated single leg squat in lunge (Bulgarian Split Squat). This could make up an entire year’s training on the unilateral squat. It provides novelty when moving to a new exercise while keeping the same principles of training.

Novelty can also be found in training new physiological characteristics. I have recently started bouldering and love it. It has made me realise how weak my grip strength is compared to climbers and now I am working hard to improve this physical characteristic. This is something new and interesting in my training. I still touch on all the classic movement patterns but have added in some extra work to improve my grip strength. Novelty needs to be built into resistance training in a way that allows training to be both fun and effective. None of these examples involve replacing excellent resistance training exercises that have stood the test of time with some strange exercise that makes no sense that you saw on Instagram. We can fall into the trap of believing there are magic exercises or training methods that we are missing out on and that this is why we are not achieving the results we are striving for.

Why Coaches Seek Complexity

Coaches seek complexity in their training for many reasons. They make their training too complex in order to make it novel and fun for themselves and for their athletes. As a coach, it is very easy to know what is effective, but we also need our clients’ training to feel interesting and exciting. This can lead coaches to make poor training decisions in order to make their job more exciting. Remember, there is nothing wrong with novelty in training if it leads to effective results. But when it leads to overly complex training that doesn’t make sense or is ineffective, it starts to have a negative impact.

The most common reason that coaches seek complexity in their training is to differentiate themselves from the pack in order to sell their training. They have the secret and you have to buy it. The fitness industry is a nightmare for this and a huge number of online coaches are trying to make sales through pushing complexity in their training. It is hard to sell simplicity and consistency, so in order to have a thriving business people push complexity. I understand it as a business model, but it often leads to poor and ineffective training practices, even if it is effective for marketing.

A final reason a coach might seek complexity is tied to their own self-concept. As someone with a job that feels intellectually challenging, they want their work to be more complex than it actually is. This happens very often. Excellent coaches can feel the need to believe that there are high levels of complexity within the realm of resistance training that will impact their clients or audience. There are a great deal of complexities within the science of resistance training and sport science. Having studied sport science myself at university, I am aware of them. But the reality is that the complex part about physical training for health is getting people to show up 2–5 times a week for years. The more a coach understands the body, most of the time, the simpler their training becomes.

Why Simplicity Is King

Resistance training involves applying a stress to a muscle or movement pattern in order to achieve an adaptation. There are many different movement patterns and muscles that can be targeted, along with different physical qualities such as strength, muscular size, and power or speed production. We select exercises to stress these patterns, ensuring the exercise creates enough stress to cause adaptation but not so much that it causes injury or excessive fatigue for little reward. Then we let the body rest, recover, and repeat the process. Slowly but surely creating adaptations. Simplicity works not because it lacks depth, but because it allows consistency to compound over time.

Simple Doesn’t Mean Reductionist

Doing 100 press ups and 100 Air Squats a day is a reductionist approach to resistance training that doesn’t take into account key principles of training. Trying to make physical training too simple means you will never be able to reach a level of physical excellence. In his book Exercised, Daniel Lieberman takes an extremely reductionist approach to resistance training and in doing so prevents himself from reaching peak physical health.

Effective resistance training requires some level of planning, action, review, and repetition of this cycle. It involves making the resistance progressively harder while also targeting all movement patterns. If you just do press ups and squats it is far better than nothing, but you are missing vertical pulling, vertical pushing, horizontal pulling, horizontal pushing strength work, hinging, carries, unilateral squats, and bilateral squats with any meaningful load. If your goal is to be in mediocre physical condition and to remain there, then continue with your press ups in your morning routine.

Simplicity Doesn’t Need to Mean Boring

You need to work towards adaptations that are dopaminergic. You want to move towards them, they inspire action. This is why having big goals can help drastically when it comes to resistance training. They demand action.

I keep my training very simple, often running a block on a group of exercises for 2–3 months and making a few tweaks when needed. I stress all the movement patterns in such a way that I am either progressing or maintaining. I design my training so that it is motivating. I have goals associated with most of the exercises in my block, and this creates an energy to move forward during the session. It makes training satisfying and also more effective as we drive towards a goal. Simple doesn’t have to mean boring or repetitive.

Intensity Combats Boredom

Doing training that is too easy is very boring. Bringing a certain level of intensity to your resistance training is crucial if you want to find it enjoyable. Training that feels easy will not feel effective (because it isn’t) and it can make the whole experience very demotivating. There is a satisfying element to doing something challenging that is lost when training is too easy. This is often why rehabilitation is very difficult. It requires repetitions that do not provide much physical or mental challenge, even if they are essential to getting back from an injury.