Are all training programs created equal?

In a perfect world there would be one way of training, and one way of eating. Easy, just follow that one specific plan and bingo….RESULTS. This isn’t a perfect world and there is no one way of eating and training that covers the entire population. Take these examples: An undertrained 48 year old female training to live a healthy functional life, 20 lbs overweight, high stress, sleeps 6 hours a night and a right knee injury verus a 21 year old male training to place in the top 10% at Crossfit Sectionals, 8% bodyfat, deadlifts 415lb, 43 inch box jump, runs a 5:30 mile, sleeps 9 hours a night and has limited stress. Would it make sense for these two individuals to be following the same training and nutrition plan? (these are made up examples) Our 58 year old female would be training 2-4x per week for 30-40 min a day focusing on proper form, and movements that relate to everyday life, bending, squatting, pushing and pulling at a low intensity and low volume with plenty of rest between sets and sessions. While focusing on a nutrition and lifestyle plan designed to help her improve body composition, and decrease inflammation within the body. Our 21 year old male (assuming he’s 12 weeks out from competition and has been training at Garage Gym for 1+ years) would be training 6-8 times per week with multiple double sessions, 2-3 ice baths per week, consuming 200+ grams of quality carbohydrates per day, napping as much as humanly possible and following a training program that is moderate strength training volume (15-20 sets), mixed modality anaerobic and aerobic based sessions, multiple crossfit testers, aerobic power work and 1-2 flow recovery sessions per week which would include 5000m rows at 65% effort and 3-4 mile airdyne rides at 65% focusing on breathing and relaxation. Different? I think so. We can use hundreds of examples just like this. Senior in highschool preparing for his football season versus a Marine recruit preparing for Recon indoc versus a 61 year old male who has COPD, smoked for 25 years and has diabetes.

Moving forward I want you to become aware and notice (two very powerful words) the differences in the needs/wants/priorities of all individuals when looking at a training, nutrition and lifestyle prescription. An important question to leave of with…. is your plan working(seeing constant results) and not causing you harm(injury, bored etc) while leaving you with a sense of enjoyment and understanding?