The Minimum Dose Effect For Strength - Dr Pak

The Progress Theory

Hello and welcome to The Progress Theory where we discuss how to implement scientific principles to optimise human performance. I’m Dr Phil Price and on today’s episode, we have the Gains Fairy himself, Dr Pak, Strength coach, researcher, and university lecturer at Southampton Solent.

When training for both strength and endurance simultaneously we need to make sure that we are not training too much to cause an unrecoverable amount of fatigue. We don’t need those junk running miles or those unnecessary work sets. We want to do just enough that will increase performance without affecting our other training. But how do we know if we’re doing too much? This is where Dr Pak comes in as in this episode we discuss the minimum dose effect for strength training.

But before we get to the show I want to thank our sponsors, who the show would not be possible without.

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I can’t recommend these products enough they are a game changer for human performance. And also, while you’re at their website hmn24.com check out there plant protein, which is incredible for smoothies post-training, and their website includes articles and an awesome podcast for those wanting to learn more about human performance. You can even check out the episode I did with them, I thoroughly enjoyed that chat I had with Phi Learney, Co-founder of HMN24, and it has led to an awesome collaboration with HMN24 supporting The Progress Theory. If you want a 10% discount on all HMN24 products either head to their website via the links in the Instagram bios of @theProgresstheory or my personal Instagram @drphilprice or use the code PHILPRICE at checkout.

As always, follow The Progress Theory on Instagram and Youtube, head to our website theprogresstheory.com, and check out all of our other episodes. So here is, Dr Pak.

In this episode, we discuss:

• 1:05 - Introduction to Dr Pak
• 4:20 - Where his research ideas around the minimum dose came from
• 10:59 - The first pilot study on the minimum dose
• 14:32 - What is considered a meaningful strength increase? A detailed history of scientific inquiry into the minimum dose
• 19:38 - The effectiveness of different minimum dose protocols
• 25:30 - Should a hypertrophy block precede a minimum dose block of training
• 27:32 - The problem with too much volume at high intensities?
• 30:00 - Minimum dose for hybrid training
• 36:44 - The 2/3/1 powerlifting split programme
• 39:16 - Aerobic training for Powerlifters and strongmen
• 45:50 - Where to find Dr Pak online

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Explore these Resources or Items Mentioned in the Show

In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

• Dr Pak Research Profile
• Stronger by Science website
• Stronger by Science podcast
• Minimumdose.training
• Southampton Solent University

For all our other episodes and to get in touch please visit www.theprogresstheory.com.

Thanks for listening!

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Mentioned in this episode:

The Science of Hybrid Training

It was originally thought that you could not effectively train for both strength and endurance at the same time because they required different adaptations which were not compatible with each other. It was claimed that ‘an interference effect’, blunted the adaptations for strength if you simultaneously trained for endurance. However, recent developments in sports which require both strength and endurance have really challenged this idea, with hybrid athletes producing impressive performances in both strength and endurance sports together. This had led scientists, coaches, and athletes to rethink what is humanly possible and suggests the interference effect is not as influential as originally thought. But what is a hybrid athlete? What is the ‘interference effect’? And how can we maximize our training to improve at the same time our strength and endurance performance? In this book, Dr Phil Price provides insight into the misconceptions surrounding strength and endurance training by distilling the past 50 years of research and drawing on the conversations he had with great scientists, coaches, and athletes on The Progress Theory podcast. This book is essential reading for hybrid athletes and coaches who are looking to understand the key training variables and their effect on the simultaneous development of strength and endurance performance.

Book