The mental model of strength development theory applied to cognitive development in work and life.

Periodization & Applying it to Strength Development.
The sport of powerlifting is about being stronger. Strength being determined by the total amount of weight one can move in the exercises of squat, bench press and deadlift. Muscle/physique development are secondary… what I’d consider to be side effects on the result of strength development. 

To develop strength, there are various training philosophies one can incorporate. At a very high level, there is the linear step ladder approach, the cycle approach, and the variable approach.The first follows slow, linear progression and adaptation. Commonly used by beginners. The latter two are used by many competitive powerlifters and strength athletes. Most follow the cycle approach and it’s been the dominant system in North America.

Most periodization systems follow this pattern: 

1. Train with stimulus (current program)

2. Body adapts and grows from stimulus

3. Adaptation nears maturity so variation in form of new stimuli is introduced for further development

4. Repeat. 

The approach is commonly referred to as block periodization. It’s the idea of having various blocks where one first develops strength (the dev block), then has a peaking block to train the central nervous system (CNS) with progressive overloading of the weight so it learns to fire everything for that single repetition at a competition. 

True strength development happens in the dev blocks. In a dev block, there are various ways of building strength but the overall theory is that you introduce a stimulus (your exercise regiment) and that is a new stimulus and that requires your body to grow. 

Soon, it will adapt to the new stimulus and growth will diminish and your body may cease to grow and indicate this via a decline in strength. This is your body telling you of the law of diminishing returns. 

Then, you need to reset the body with a washout/deload period to clean the slate (confusing it and getting it ready for a new stimulus)… and then get ready to introduce a new set of stimuli that are slightly different. This can be variations in exercises, volume (how many reps and sets you do) or intensity (how heavy the weight is). 

With the new stimuli, your body is ready to grow further. But the requirements are the same: Stimulus, Train hard, rest intentionally, introduce different stimulus for growth. Rest is absolutely critical. It’s common for coaches to recommend powerlifters to sleep 8-10 hours a day, more sleep on training days as the body needs more time to recover. 

Most programs range from 3 to 4 training sessions a week so athletes have ample time in between to rest, recover and become stronger. In most cases, dev blocks will not require the athlete to train in a hyper-intensive zone non-stop. Contrary to the many bootcamps and popular ‘fitness’ classes, this is not a way to build strength. The ‘burn’ is not related to strength, it’s just psychological insecurity for those that haven’t trained enough. 

This could be the fundamental law of any kind of growth. I could argue that you cannot grow without constantly changing stimuli and ample rest. 

This is a sustainable approach to growth. Some may believe rest is for the weak but that is a short term approach that will lead to burnout and injury. I haven’t seen many who can sustain peak performance and growth over a long period of time without rest and changing stimuli. 

My Stupid Youthful Self At Work. 
The reality is that “balls to the walls”, “no pain no gain”, “one more rep” type of training mentality is extremely prevalent, no matter how foolish it is. The best strength athletes who can compete for long periods of times with consistent performance like the legendary powerlifter Ed Coan, do not train with that kind of mentality. He famously said that the only time he ‘maxes’ out his lifts are in competitions and they don’t have a place in your training periods. 

But just like how the amateur, short-term minded gym-goers advocate for the “burn” and pushing your body till failure in training, this mentality is not lost at work. 

I would wager that the corporate world still advocates and awards for foolish use of time. I am referring to those who wear their “busy-ness” and long work-weeks as a badge of honour. 

Working 100s of hours showed work ethic but also an exorbitant amount of stupidity in my youth. Just because you can do it, doesn’t mean you should. It’s like applauding someone for being able to withstand pain for a very very long time. Kind of like those YouTube videos of a monk who can take a lot of kicks to his groin….“Good for you but did you really have to do that?”

I believe I was extremely immature and naive. I have improved since then but I digress that I’m not stating I’ve achieved maturity (whatever that is). I am merely certain that it was utterly foolish to think working stupidly hard with no rest was something to brag about.

Pushing, Pushing… For What? Not Longevity. Not Sustainable Growth. 
The reality for many Type-As in white-collar jobs (i.e. consulting, law, accounting, finance etc..) is that they will push themselves. Not saying others don’t either. But from my life, this is a reality I can speak about.

Whether it’s ambition, the acceptance of superiors/peers, or what have you. They will push and push until they break. That’s what burnout is like. That’s what makes people quit professions entirely, go to therapy, awaken to ’truth’ and maybe even start a website writing every week about his own thoughts. 

Early in my career, I had done what many Type-As do and focused on over-optimizing my career. I was on schedule to fast-track all my promotions in my accounting career. It was then that a mentor took me aside and told me what lay on that path. 

She had taken that path like me. She had fast-tracked ahead of all her peers and what she showed me was how those who fast-tracked were awarded the most difficult clients and the hardest working hours because they were deemed the ones able to take it. Many will wear it as a badge of honour. But she helped me see that in one way… these “learning opportunities” are in fact the firm’s way of taking advantage of your single-minded psychology to burn you to the ground. 

Many of these fast trackers end up burning out, having marriages fall to the wayside, damaging social relationships and eventually leave it all. I’ve seen many a case first hand. 

It’s usually the most ambitious ones that blow up. In the prime of my stupidity, I believed my ability to withstand pain was worth it all. To be alone in the office where all lights had turned off at 1 am on a Sunday with nothing but my monitor lighting my face. Thinking I must be hardcore because I had grabbed lunch with a friend once in 3 months. 

The fact is that it was utter stupidity. 

Applying Periodization
Like in strength training, one needs to find breaks to ‘deload/washout’ the mind as well as monitoring the week to week stress one puts on their mind. A tired mind can lead to soreness, inflammation and all the weird aches you feel that give you the false impression of age (I roll my eyes when a bunch of 26-year-olds complains about not being 21 anymore). The body and mind are linked. If you run your body into the ground, your mind will be tired and unable to perform fully on cognitive tasks and the same applies the other way. 

This would be one of the proper uses for vacation days. To use it intermittently when your mind and body are hitting a roadblock. Some companies have unlimited vacation policies… which, if used properly, can be amazing for helping people truly plan out rest so they can perform even better after recovering by using what they learned.

Unfortunately, the ‘overwork-porn’ culture pride themselves in not taking vacation days because they are tough and work so hard because they are so important. Some have a mix of issues where they don’t do so out of fear that it’ll make them look weak and will get them fired. A combination of toxic organizational cultures and short-term mindsets. 

The unfortunate thing is that bosses and managers (not leaders) are so afraid of people abusing breaks and rest. They fear that they will get fucked over by giving people free-range over vacations or taking breaks throughout the year. Well, have they thought about why they might get fucked over? Is it because they know that they and the company are fucking over the employees? 

People aren’t born with the attitude that others are waiting to fuck them over. No, it’s the result of the environment they were nurtured in. So, if that is your fear as a boss you have to look within… it’s either you or the rest of the upper management in the organization that is brewing this mentality and it’s up to you to change it. 

That’s the difference between long term thinking companies and short term ones. The difference between those that see people as assets that the organization needs to help develop vs. wage slavery. 

The Choice Is Yours. 
As much as it is the organization's responsibility to build a system that incentivizes its employees to rest, introduce new stimuli and develop, it is up to the individual to make the decisions. Whether the decisions be to partake in the various options the organization provides and/or to create options if none exists. The individual who does not take a view on sustainable development of the self will not effectively utilize the systems set by an organization whether the options exist or not. 

The choice must come from within. It’s a shift in mindset where you can choose to go hard for an allotted period of time, letting the system fully rest and introducing a different stimulus after. This doesn’t mean that you are going hard every week either.  Just like how some athletes can do 4-hour training session while some are better off doing 1-hour sessions, you have to figure out what manner works best for you. That’s also something you need to try and monitor and record for. 

This includes various factors at a psychological level whether it’s doing activities that consistently put you in a state of flow, that engages you, energize you vs. doing things you just absolutely hate. That’s a different problem for a different essay. But the point is that you need to control your pace in your work, rest and exposure to variation.

Listening to Your Body.
As mentioned above, athletes have various response patterns in regards to training loads and length of development cycles. Some athletes will ‘peak’ in 4 weeks and some in 8 weeks. Lots of training journaling and analysis can help show a pattern over time and that forms the baseline for developing new programs and planning out for competition. It’s all about bottom-up data collection. 

This is the same for knowledge work. At least from my experience. 

In the first year of building OMD Ventures, I experimented with taking quarterly breaks. Every 3 months, I would take 2 weeks off to not take any meetings, reflect on past projects and plan for new projects. This was hard. I had to adjust and really work hard at telling myself to stop working. Fair to say… by the 3rd attempt, I was able to not do anything for a full week… because I caught a horrible flu. 

But this is the process required to understand one’s pattern in various environments (i.e. occupation, career field etc…). It takes time to learn to listen to your body. Some people are in luck because they might be in a company that runs everything in 4-week sprints so they are forced into a mindset of assessing everything every 4 weeks and have a way of continuously collecting data. Some will have to create such an environment themselves or at least take notes on what the existing process feels like for their progression. 

Over time, I’ve noticed that I seem to get tired at some 6-week mark… so I may consider experimenting with 4-week sprints with 1 week off. This week off can be used to set things aside to review the past sprint and then focus on the next sprint. It might make things more manageable as I build out various projects. I also get antsy quite often to variation is important for me. So, instead of doing 3 projects at once for 3 consecutive months, I may do 1 project per every 4 weeks so it feels like 3 completely new projects each 4-week sprint. This is something I’m continuously iterating on. 

But just like how my strength training program is not the same as another athlete, my work/project program probably won’t be the same for other knowledge workers. I mean, we seem to all understand that every athlete needs to have a customized training program… yet this does not seem to be the case at work where everyone is expected to work from Monday to Friday from 9 to 5 all from one location, until a set hierarchy etc… What a joke. 

Rest Is For The Strong.
Rest is what allows strength and muscle to develop. That’s why those who do not sleep and get adequate off days from training in the week will not see muscle and/or strength development. 

I’d wager it’s the same for cognitive development as well. Without rest, for your brain to digest everything you’ve learned, I doubt it will really stick. I doubt you’ll actually be able to build upon the various mental models you’d learned. 

If one were to consider creating periodization in life and inside the company for employees…one will realize that rest is not something to be considered a luxury but something to be purposefully scheduled in because it’s essential to the development process. At the minimal micro-level, one could call that sleeping as well. Variation can be added later. 

Disclaimer - I’m writing this for myself. For my past, present and future self. Much of what I write is my opinion. If it somehow ignites agreement in you then great, I’d love to hear about it. If it sparks disagreement in you, don’t reach out because I don’t care for it. There always are obvious exceptions and the flawed person in me hasn’t considered them all.