Individual Differences and Program Design

The biggest impact individual differences between athletes will have on program design will be the athlete’s ability to recover from hard training. There are some key factors that play a role in the effect on the differences between athletes in their ability to recover from training.

Gender: Typically women have a higher ability to recover because they are generally smaller and less muscular.

Experience: A more experienced lifter will have a greater ability to perform work in each session throughout the week. This will cause more damage and require more recovery.

Age: As an athlete gets older their ability to recover from training will slowly decline.

Weight: The larger the athlete the more muscle mass they will have. With more muscle mass, there is more damaged muscle mass in need to recover.

Height: A taller the lifter the further the distance the barbell will travel. Each rep for the taller athlete will be more fatiguing than it would be for the shorter athlete.

Strength: The stronger the athlete, the heavier the sets they perform will be. With the higher stimulus the more fatigue is generated.

Diet: A caloric surplus with proper macro breakdown will allow the athlete to recover better. In a caloric deficit the body has a smaller budget to spend on rebuilding tissue structures, reducing the athlete’s ability to recover.  

Sleep: Without proper sleep the athlete’s ability to recover will be greatly reduced.

Stress: Stress, regardless of source, will be interpreted the same by the body. Stress from outside of the gym will take away the amount of physical stress the athlete will be able to handle 

PED: Performance enhancing drugs will allow an athlete to recover easier. The athlete will be able to lift heavier and train harder, so the overall net effect on training volume is minor but still present.

History: Some people naturally have a better ability to handle training volume than others. We will need to look at their past ability to handle volume in determining their current training.