Outcomes.

16 weeks of strength training led to a group-level increase in MVC (19 ± 14%), RFD (58 ± 80%), qCSA (3 ± 4%), and type II fCSA (14 ± 25%).

There was no group-level improvement in the sedentary group.

Although some sedentary individuals did enough physical activity to see some mild progression with some metrics.

Yes, biking, taking daily walks, a hike, or running up and down stairs can be enough to prevent your health and fitness metrics from free falling off the cliff.

Substantial inter-individual variability was, of course, observed. And the reason we will always see some individual variance is found both in how different people exhaust themselves on the same fitness plan, as well as differences in nutrition, rest, sleep, and recovery.

Push a harder effort every week and session, without overshooting your capacity for recovery ( and remaining injury free ) and you will gain a bit more than others who hold back a little more. Over the same period of time, be it weeks, months, years and decades.

Assuming you meet the higher price of recovery with good enough nutrition, sleep, and rest.

And that brings us to the other end of that equation. Food habits and sleep, rest, and recovery. 

We know perfectly well that a body that is energy and nutrient-deficient will progress worse than a body that is eating properly. 

And even with healthy food habits, we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that a protein intake of 1.6 g per kg of bodyweight and day generates slightly better outcomes than an intake of 1.2 g when you conduct the same fitness plan.

And when compared to RDA, the difference has been measured to be as much as 2x.

How many non-responders did they find?

After 16 weeks, 82% of the participants who exercised three times per week were classified as Robust or Excellent responders; while only 5% were designated as poor responders.

And when your brain absorb that word “poor responder” keep in mind, that a slower progression, is still not a non-response.

Every poor responder client I have ever met just had to dial in their habits better than the higher rate responder, be more persistent, miss less workouts, take less nutritious shortcuts, make sleep a higher priority and never stop.

When this is the response to being ” poor responder” the outcome is that  one day you might have outgrown that person who had a better progression during that shorter period of time. So you are merely a slower responder, not a non-responder.

And yes, after 30 years of training hard, coaching people and athletes, and competing in sports myself, I have still never encountered an actual non-responder despite having met, trained with and coached many who feared they would be a non-responder.