Minimum Effective Dose...

When you've got a headache and you rush to the bathroom cupboard for some pain medication, your thought is "I need the whole damn bottle!", but your logic is sound and you take the recommended dose. If the headache is bad enough you take the top end of the recommended dose and if its not too bad you take the low end. If you're familiar enough with Advil and Ibuprofen then you know that the low end recommendations most often do the trick just fine. This low end recommendation is the Minimum Effective Dose of the medication you are taking. The least volume needed to reach the required stimulus. The idea of Minimum Effective Dose (M.E.D) can be applied to all sorts of situations. Today I wish to apply it to training, as it is so often done with athletes.

Now, more so then pre-pandemic, with lockdowns and restrictions, gym closures, and winter in full swing, being adaptive with your training is difficult to say the least. Those with the luxury of a warmer climate can find ways to get outside (run, swim, bike, outdoor gyms etc.), but those not afforded such a treasure it can be exceptionally tough to find alternatives. Yes skiing, snow shoeing, and other outdoor winter sports are good alternatives, but often have a limited return on investment compared to warmer weather alternatives. SO! What to do? I know the vast majority don't get overly thrilled by the prospect of home body weight workouts, but when applied correctly, it can be a real fitness saver. This is where the M.E.D comes into play. If we approach training with the M.E.D, shifting the mentality away from strictly gaining and focusing on maintaining then we are all served the chance to continue improving and keeping what we've worked hard to achieve. The M.E.D is most frequently applied within the field of competitive sport, specifically during the season. When athletes are in-season they face a great deal of volume and intensity. Whether in University sport, juggling school. social life, and sport or in professional sport and having to treat each aspect of the sport as a job, applying the minimum effective dose allows for steady, sustainable growth whilst limiting diminished returns. Even with 2 hour practices, 90 minute games, and 5 hours of homework, a University soccer player can still see progress by monitoring their volume and applying the least amount of external stimuli as needed to make progress.

How does this apply to you in lockdown wanting to lose weight or maintain mass with bodyweight/minimal equipment workouts? Quite simply, although the alternative to being in the gym is less then exciting, getting in a properly programmed workout, even if it is 20-30mins, results in the minimum effective dose of volume and intensity your body needs to continue making progress. As long as the stimulus matches the intended outcome, then the body will make necessary changes.

Reminder, M.E.D. is not necessarily a less = more approach, it does however, run against the grain of the conventional more = more ideology that far too many fall into. The intention is still to get faster, stronger, leaner etc. but in small incremental steps vs. large bounds. In a circumstance that requires adaptive thinking and training, the most important component of the equation is determining the low end recommendation of the medication you are prescribing yourself, medication in this case being exercise.

EXAMPLE:

If you currently have a 1 rep max bench of 225lbs and don't want to lose the strength to be able to perform that 1RM lift, approach it from a mathematical standpoint. If 1 single rep of bench at 225lbs takes you 3 seconds to lift, for the whole lift, and it requires 9-10/10 effort, then we can simulate this same perceived effort and intensity with a long eccentric/concentric push-up. For example (and this may take trial and error for some): Perform 5 sets of 5 pushups with the tempo 5-1-5-0 = 5 seconds down, 1 sec pause, 5 seconds up, no pause at top. If performed with clean technique this should stimulate similarly to that of a 1RM at 225lbs. This will vary for most, but trial and error is a large part of determining your M.E.D. You can apply this across the board to all major lifts. Another possibility is to replace high load with high volume and intensity. Switching a few sets of heavy bench for 2-3 sets of high volume pushups (20-50) thus stimulating the musculature with high strain similar to that of a heavy bench press.

Where things get tricky, as it would in the above example, we start to teeter between different methods of stimuli. Thus, switching a heavy set of bench press for a few sets of high volume push-ups is switching from a strength biased workout to a hypertrophy biased workout. This calls for considerations if you are transcribing your gym based workout to an at-home workout. If the intention is to just remain fit, then apply M.E.D in whichever way best suits your equipment and space availability. If those aren't an issue and you aim to maintain the same stimulus then it is important to tax the musculature in the same fashion as you would with weights. i.e Heavy bench press --> high tempo, low rep body weight alternative vs. heavy bench --> high volume bodyweight alternative. Where the first option better suits the intended outcome of the stimuli vs. the second.

How you approach your workouts when faced with restrictions as we see now will determine the outcome of your success. Going from a well designed program to a bunch of random exercises just to get the work done will leave you lost and behind come the re-opening of the gyms. Either asking your coach or doing the grunt work yourself to develop a sufficient program is vital in your success through the pandemic. Determining the least amount of work needed to see progress takes trial and error but becomes an effective tool as we continue to navigate this new Covid world.

Overarching message: More volume, more intensity, and more load doesn't necessarily result in more speed, strength, and weight gained, correctly applying the minimum effective dose does, as it provides the least resistance in acquiring the return on investment of a changing body.

Make a plan.

Stick to the plan.

Fret not that you are seemingly doing less then before

Approach and attack each workout with intent

Recover and refuel the same.

Hire a professional, they're here to help and guide you.

"Progression is built through consistency and tested by passion"

JB