Letting Go of the “Perfect Plan”: How I Discovered the Principles that Matter Most

 

By Samuel Johnson

When I first started lifting, I wasn’t thinking about structured programming—I was just training. In high school, I followed the structured plan laid out by our strength coach: three days of lifting, two days of speed and agility. It was consistent, progressive, and well-balanced, even if I didn’t know the terminology at the time. And it worked.

After high school, I started training on my own—and that’s where things got messy. I chased size and aesthetics with high-volume bodybuilding splits stacked on top of main lifts. I trained every muscle group almost every day, trying to do everything at once. I burned out fast, made minimal progress, and felt constantly beat up.

As I gained experience, studied exercise science, and coached others, I started to see what was missing: restraint, focus, and purpose.

During an internship with Georgia Tech Baseball, I arrived with a shoulder injury and an eagerness to train hard. But a back injury quickly reminded me that pushing through wasn’t always the answer. With help from my mentor, I simplified everything. I ran a 5/3/1 program, scaled it to my capacity, and built back slowly. It worked—not because it was flashy, but because it was appropriate.

Later, after another back injury, I stepped away from lifting entirely and trained for an Ironman. That shift taught me even more about pacing, long-term thinking, and respecting recovery. I wasn’t chasing the “perfect” plan anymore—I was chasing consistency I could sustain.

When I talk about the “perfect plan,” I’m not referring to formal periodization models like linear or block periodization. I’m talking about the broader obsession with finding the one “optimal” approach—the idea that if you just structure things perfectly, you’ll get perfect results. That mindset misses the point.

That’s not to say programming doesn’t matter—quite the opposite. A great training plan provides structure, direction, and progression. But it has to be built on the right foundation.

There are infinite ways to reach your goals in training. But the best programs tend to follow the same core principles:

– Minimal Effective Dose
  Do just enough to stimulate adaptation without tipping into overload. This means managing volume and intensity in a way that challenges and progresses you—but still allows you to recover and stay injury-free.

– Simple, Specific, Goal-Oriented
  Train directly for the result you want. Don’t chase variety for its own sake—chase effectiveness.

– Consistency & Sustainability > Everything
  The best plan is the one you can stick to. Long-term progress beats short bursts of intensity every time.
  Think tortoise, not hare—steady effort beats short bursts of intensity every time.

– Discomfort Without Misery
  Change requires effort, but if you never enjoy training, you’ll never stay with it.

What This Looks Like in Practice

Shifting my mindset didn’t just change how I think about training—it changed how I actually train.

For starters, I stopped obsessing over arbitrary exercises or modalities other people said were essential. A good example is core training. I used to do a lot of the McGill Big 3, thinking stability work was the “safe” or “right” thing to do. But I kept getting hurt. Eventually, I moved toward full range-of-motion, loaded core work in every direction—like Jefferson Curls and weighted GHD sit-ups. Those had a much greater carryover to both my lifting and daily life.

I also scaled back the volume and intensity structure I used to treat as gospel. At one point, I was doing programs with four sets of ten for six or more exercises per session, multiple days per week. It was linear progression in theory—but unsustainable in practice. Now, a session might include just one or two movements at 4×10, and I auto-regulate assistance work based on how I feel that day. No magical rep scheme fixed me—just learning, through trial and error, how much work I could realistically recover from.

Another major shift was realizing that training is largely skill acquisition. I stopped rotating through endless variations and instead focused on repeating key lifts throughout a training block. Those movements go first in the session, when I’m freshest, and get the most intensity. Everything else is programmed around supporting that goal—whether through work capacity, muscle mass, or mobility improvements. It’s stripped-down, but it’s effective.

Finally, I’ve learned to listen to my body better. Some pain or soreness is normal. But through years of pushing too hard, I’ve developed a clearer sense of what signals I need to respect—and which I can work around. That also changed how I deload: I used to follow a strict every-four-weeks model, but now I let life, stress, and joint health dictate when I pull back. This gives me the flexibility to push when I’m capable and rest when I need to—without rigid timelines.

In short, training with intention now means doing what works, not what looks good on paper. It means building each session around specific outcomes, and letting the program evolve with me—not confining me. That’s what sustainable progress looks like.

Zooming Out

The biggest shift in my mindset has been moving from short-term urgency to long-term thinking. I used to ask, “How strong can I get this month?” Now I ask, “How can I keep training for the next 30 years?”

The truth is, the strongest programs aren’t the ones built on overly complex systems or rigid structures—they’re the ones grounded in clear, effective principles. When a plan is simple, goal-directed, adaptable, and built for continued improvement, it creates real progress. There are endless ways to structure a training program, but the ones that work—truly work—are those that stay mission-driven, evolve with the athlete, and actually impact performance where it matters most.