First off, apologies ahead of time if you’ve covered this in another medium. I follow your content pretty closely, and I’ve gathered that LP is no longer a go-to recommendation for a rank newbie with absolutely no lifting experience, but I’m not really sure I’ve come across any sort of concrete explanation as to why. Like I feel like I grok the downside of LP for the novice-transitioning-to-intermediate lifter (the repeated bout effect leading to lower stimulus despite increasing intensity leading to an overall lower training adaptation). But let’s say I have a friend with zero experience who wants me to coach him for a bit and I want to turn him on to the fancy new Beginner Template, what’s a good argument for the beginner template over any of the other relatively well-tested LP programs out there?
If I could make a few guesses:
- Judging RPE is a skill that is useful to begin training on day 1 so that you can have a more efficient intermediate phase
- GPP is useful at all stages of your lifting adventure
- Progressive overload on LP is actually too slow in the very very early stages, using an autoregulation scheme can help a particularly talented beginner more quickly reach adaptive intensities
- (this is kind of a reach) Running rank beginners through an autoregulated program is something that is fairly novel and gathering research on it is useful
I understand that this is kind of a moot question given just how wide the spectrum of training is, it’s more of a philosophical question that I’ve been turning around in my head lately.