Mastery Simplification

There are bound to be questions on the changes coming tonight to how we label mastery, so here are the important points ahead of time. The way the actual programming works is not changing, simply how we word it.

1. There are no longer week labels. Students were fixated on this too much and moving on regardless of whether they could actually complete the required programming. The mastery programming is now steps. Lower level steps must be mastered before 
2. Deload will be 50% of whatever step you are currently on. Pro+ will be 50% of what the student actually did (e.g. 3x10s would be 3x5s deload). We left the deloads in the mastery chart so the visual structure stays the same and cause less confusion.
3. We've always encouraged taking smaller increases between steps where needed and this will continue to be the case. Students should still strive wherever possible to shoot for the current step. We don't want a student getting comfortable thinking it's an excuse to not push or give less than a personal best.
4. The workout scheduler now automatically handles mastery tests. If someone tests out, it will continually bump on the next progression until either strength or mobility has been failed. New students in particular will benefit since they simply choose "Start from the beginning" and the system will figure out which PEs for every element they need.

Below is a quick chart to reference how the changes look.

To summarise, if i have it straight, one must hit every step to complete a 4-step block, ideally completing one step a week but no more (regardless of workouts per week).

Correct?

1 hour ago, Jon Douglas said:

To summarise, if i have it straight, one must hit every step to complete a 4-step block, ideally completing one step a week but no more (regardless of workouts per week).

Correct?

No, not exactly.

It will take as long as it takes.  The 'weeks' timeframe has no bearing on their progress.  It has always been our intention, for people to stay on a single week until mastered.  However many people were simply moving on to the next week; even if they failed to master the previous week.  Hopefully now the new verbiage of 'steps' will make that clearer to the students.

They will now stay on a 'step' as long a necessary to master it.  Those students on GB Pro+ will also receive granulated programming to help them overcome sticking points and plateaus.

The system will automatically generate their deload every 4th week based upon whatever 'step' they are on currently.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

20 minutes ago, Coach Sommer said:

No, not exactly.

It will take as long as it takes.  The 'weeks' timeframe has no bearing on their progress.  It has always been our intention, for people to stay on a single week until mastered.  However many people were simply moving on to the next week; even if they failed to master the previous week.  Hopefully now the new verbiage of 'steps' will make that clearer to the students.

They will now stay on a 'step' as long a necessary to master it.  Those students on GB Pro+ will also receive granulated programming to help them overcome sticking points and plateaus.

The system will automatically generate their deload every 4th week based upon whatever 'step' they are on currently.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

I just want to have this explicitly in my head as if this occurred to me now I know it will be asked a lot down the track,;

What I understand here is that time as a parameter is basically being removed from the programming. So in the position of someone training eg) 3 x F7, if they are able to accomplish step 1 on Monday, they will move to Step 2 on Wednesday and Step 3 on Friday, and continue that way until a) the element is mastered or b) they stick at a step, deloading every 4th week independent of the step or for that matter element they are on. It takes as little or as much time as it takes and progress will be viewed more as, indeed, steps rather than the bigger jumps of 4-week blocks.

Do I have that right? If so, it makes a lot of sense so as to dial in on working level pretty quickly and more specifically.

Well done! I think the wording with step instead of week will have a better psychologial effect on people. A step is step. I think people have an easier way of handling a "step" . A step can take as long as it takes. A "week" is more like, ohh I didn't master that week I suck etc.

2 hours ago, Jon Douglas said:

I just want to have this explicitly in my head as if this occurred to me now I know it will be asked a lot down the track,;

What I understand here is that time as a parameter is basically being removed from the programming. So in the position of someone training eg) 3 x F7, if they are able to accomplish step 1 on Monday, they will move to Step 2 on Wednesday and Step 3 on Friday, and continue that way until a) the element is mastered or b) they stick at a step, deloading every 4th week independent of the step or for that matter element they are on. It takes as little or as much time as it takes and progress will be viewed more as, indeed, steps rather than the bigger jumps of 4-week blocks.

Do I have that right? If so, it makes a lot of sense so as to dial in on working level pretty quickly and more specifically.

 

One step per week still, the mastery testing feature in the scheduler will automatically handle the placement according to ability.

Got it, thanks. I should have figured that would be incorporated in the scheduler.

Just now, Jon Douglas said:

Got it, thanks. I should have figured that would be incorporated in the scheduler.

You should have read the original post all the way  Point #4

nice work. This will solve a lot of questions regarding the schedulers.

I think this will work really well. I like this feature in thrive. If you don't complete the step you satay there until mastered. 

The automatic deload will be good as some people get stuck on an early week and have deloaded but done more reps. 

I note that questions about multiple steps in a week are coming up, so i feel less obtuse now