Accelerating Progress Through Rapid Prototyping

Philip Pape 0:00

Are you the type of person who devours health and fitness podcasts , who pours over the nutrition science and the studies and people talking about optimal protein ? Are you always trying to plan ahead for the next six months , 12 months , exactly how you're going to eat , how you're going to train , whether you're going to lose or gain weight , at what rate ? And yet , despite all of that preparation and planning , you're not necessarily getting the results you want . In engineering , when they design a product , there's one phase of that process that takes up to 70% of the time , and it's not planning , it's not researching , it's not designing . It's something else entirely . And we can apply that same principle to your fitness journey to dramatically accelerate your progress . In today's episode , we're diving deep into a game-changing engineering concept that could transform your physique faster than ever , and what you should be spending 70% of your time on if you really want those rapid but sustainable results .

Philip Pape 1:04

Welcome to Wits and Weights , the show that blends evidence and engineering to help you build smart , efficient systems to achieve your dream physique . I'm your host , philip Pape , and today we're continuing our Wednesday series on applying engineering principles to health and fitness , and we're tackling a concept called rapid prototyping , also known as iterative design or experimentation or testing . It's all part of the same bucket . And before we dive in , as always , if you're enjoying the show , if you want more content on building muscle , losing fat efficiently , applying some of these concepts to your fitness journey , coming at it from a different angle than you're going to hear on other podcasts , please go ahead and hit , follow , subscribe whatever it's called in your podcast app right now . Please go ahead and hit follow , subscribe whatever it's called in your podcast app right now . It'll help people find the show , for sure , but it also helps ensure that you never miss an episode . You'll get notified when future episodes come in and , if you're not aware , recently we reduced the frequency of episodes down from five a week down to just three , and today is the special Wednesday series on applying engineering to your fitness . So let's get into it .

Philip Pape 2:06

Let's start by something that affects many of us who are perfectionists , and that is analysis paralysis . We often spend a lot of time trying to find the perfect plan right that we'd never actually get started . You might've heard the phrase don't let perfect be the enemy of the good . It's that same concept . Even worse , though , is we will . We'll pick a plan , we'll start it . We'll stick to it religiously , even when it's not working , because we believe it's the right way . And even worse than that , I'll say if you're working with a coach and the coach says here's your plan , oftentimes it's like a macro coach or just a personal trainer . They give you your plan and they kind of set and forget it . You run with it and within a week or two you're like something's not quite working . But well , this is the plan , so I've just got to stick to it . And there's definitely value in patience . I've talked about that before . There's value in sticking to something when you know that it is working or has a high likelihood of working . But that is different from sticking to something stubbornly that may not be right for you or may not be working and you know it's not working pretty quickly .

Philip Pape 3:08

Now , as an engineer , this reminds me of project management . There's something called the waterfall methodology or waterfall design , where you plan everything up front and then you execute the whole plan and it falls down like a waterfall right From one phase to the next , all the way down to the end . And it might take two years for like a complex you know , air , air , aerospace type project . I don't know what I was trying to say there Aerocraft Uh , it sounds like something from steampunk , sci-fi , but anyway , and you execute it all the way and there's no room to adjust right , there's no room to adjust . And in the real world , of course , anything that's complex , like in engineering , but also like the human body and your mind and your lifestyle , this approach often fails , and it fails hard and it fails quickly , and that's not a bad thing , because this is where we can learn from how modern engineers use the design process to deal with complex things that change quickly , that are unpredictable . And the concept I want to focus on today is rapid prototyping and iteration .

Philip Pape 4:12

In engineering , a designer will spend often 50 to 70% of the entire process on this part prototyping , testing , iterating . A lot of people think it's the opposite . People think well , you have to have really good design , really good plan . You spend a lot of time , whether it's in software , writing code , or it's in electrical engineering designing a circuit , or mechanical engineering designing a model , whatever . Actually , that's like 10 , 20% of the time , at least in good companies that know how to take advantage of prototyping and testing , and they , they put the majority of their time and effort into that phase , and the reason why is because in that phase is where we learn what actually works . And here's the thing , here's the big irony . Right , with the waterfall method , you're violating what it means to be an engineer .

Philip Pape 5:00

In my opinion , in many cases , an engineer takes theory and complexity and chaos and like things we think are going to work , from science , from evidence , and says how do we actually make it work in the real world ? Because , guess what ? We may be , we may be wrong , we may be way off , just based on what the quote , unquote science says . And so by jumping as quickly as we can to this messy action , to testing , to experimenting , we actually learn what works , not just what should work . And when it comes to the human body , it's a very individual thing . That's why I think it's important , because science is based on population and groups and you are an individual that may fall on one extreme or the other of that population and you won't know it until you get all the way to this point of testing it out .

Philip Pape 5:45

Right , and I'll tell you , my personal experience with this is lots of frustration over several decades , whether I was doing CrossFit or doing diets of always trying to follow someone else's plan or follow a fixed plan and it was like this is how you do it . All right , I lived this way before and now I'm going to live this way , and then I'm going to get the results and be happy for the rest of my life . No , no , no , it doesn't work that way . Also , I might figure out what works this week and then , all of a sudden , three weeks later , it's not working anymore . So , if you're frustrated , if you're like you know , I'm 45 and I'm , you know , post-menopause or what am I trying to say Pre-perimenopausal right as a woman , or I'm a guy , you know , and I've got kids and starting to go get out of shape . Here I'm in my forties and you are questioning what's going on because I go to the gym right , or I eat well , or whatever , even if you are already doing certain things and they're not working anymore .

Philip Pape 6:40

That's not an indictment on you . That's just an indictment on the fact that things are changing and you've got to have a new approach to change with them , and change with them rapidly . And guess what , when you can change with them rapidly , you can get a rapid result . I'm not talking about a quick fix . I'm not talking about doing something to the extreme . I'm talking about doing something efficiently and precisely for you and changing with it quickly so that you get the result faster , but in the most sustainable way possible . It's really powerful shift in how we look at it .

Philip Pape 7:10

So how do we do this ? How do we break down this concept and apply it to your journey ? All right , step one is what do engineers do very first ? Well , you do have to have some sort of plan and you do have to have some information . You have to understand your current state and your requirements , your goals , right . So for you as an individual , that's okay . You know , how much do I weigh ? What are my demographics ? How am I eating right now ? What is my schedule ? How much sleep can I get ? All the things that , with our private clients , we would go through an intake assessment together .

Philip Pape 7:41

Right , it's like you're not state , you're sub-zero . Right , it's your very initial state . Whatever it is right here at this point in time . Okay , so that's everything about you , your training history , your engineering history , your mobility , all those fun things . You don't have to overthink it . You know that about you right now .

Philip Pape 7:58

If I asked you , you could spit it out in like five minutes . All right , I get on these 15 minute calls with people all the time and they can tell me their life story in about five minutes , assuming I can control the conversation right . For those of you talkers out there , I know I understand I get it . So , understanding your current state , that's number one . And then saying , okay , what is my , what is my goal , what is my requirement . Now , my goal is something like , okay , I'm going to lose X amount of pounds of fat or what have you , and we're not even going to get into , like value-based goals and your deep why and all that . Yeah , that's all important , but I'm just breaking it down to like what is the mechanical or the physical goal we've got um for for this podcast episode ? All right , so let's say it is to you know , to lose 20 pounds of fat .

Philip Pape 8:41

And then you've got your requirements . Your requirements are just your constraints , like your constraints are what make you different ? Right , you've got three kids , or you homeschool , or you work two shifts , or you , um , you know you can only get five and a half hours of sleep a night , for whatever reason . I mean , that's your current state and those are your constraints going forward . So some some 20 year old fitness trainer comes in and says you got to get nine hours of sleep , like that's what you got to do , you got to get nine hours of sleep , and you're like , uh , nope , impossible . And it's okay to say impossible , like I'm not telling you to think about your reality and your constraints . So we have realistic expectations , okay , so you have your goal , you have your constraints and you have a plan . Okay , that's oh , no , you don't have the plan yet . That's step two .

Philip Pape 9:35

So step two is to come up with your initial plan . Now , instead of thinking of this as this big , complicated , you know schedule with a week-by-week like checklist and a million habits you've got to put in place , I want you to think of it as like a rapid prototype , a quick prototype it's . Here's the workout program I'm going to use . I'm going to start tracking my food and I might adjust . One thing I might adjust I might start focusing on my sleep , right , consistent bedtimes , or drink more water , or I'm going to throw in a 10 minute walk after lunch , right .

Continuous Improvement Through Rapid Prototyping

Philip Pape 10:09

And again , when I work with clients , we we try to break it down Like what is the one big thing that's going to bear a lot of fruit , or what's the low hanging fruit ? To mix analogies here and you just come up with a very quick prototype fitness plan . So when people join Physique University , I give them a custom plan and it's a little bit detailed and it has kind of every piece in there , but I tell them multiple times in that document . And then when we , when we um , when we meet the first time , I say , look , let's not be overwhelmed , we don't , we're not going to try to do all this stuff . This is like the end goal . We're just going to do one or two things and we're going to focus on that . That's your rapid prototype , all right , so now you've spent all of maybe less than a day I mean a couple hours thinking you don't have to spend much time putting this all together .

Philip Pape 10:52

Now is where the magic happens , okay . This next phase is your testing and iteration phase . This is where you experiment on yourself . You start executing your plan today , okay , and again , that's not doing everything , that's doing one thing . You start executing it today and then guess what you do ? You track and measure and pay close attention to the results immediately . By immediately , I mean literally that day .

Philip Pape 11:15

If you go to the gym and you work out and you can't hit the reps , that's data . Or the next day comes and you don't hit the reps that's data . Or you know the next day comes and you don't hit your protein that's data . Always look at it , adjust information as part of your prototyping process that feeds back to allow you to change . That's all it is . It's not failure , it's not disappointment , it's not an indictment on yourself and your identity . It's none of those things . It's just you've attempted to execute . Here's what happened . Here's the results . Now , if you execute what you think you should be doing and the results are not what you want , that's excellent data . If you fail to execute , as in , you're not consistent or you just didn't do the thing , well , you know you didn't do the thing . It's all data .

Philip Pape 11:59

And then you say , okay , how do I reduce the friction and make it so it's inevitable that I do these things ? Now ? This is where motivation or not motivation . This is where um , accountability and support . You know , having somebody in your corner , having a coach , a community yeah , it can be very helpful . But also simply having a positive growth oriented mindset that , whatever happens , I can always tweak the next day and keep going . There's no track that I'm on , there's no plan that I'm in , that I'm just fixed to . All right . How do I feel ? Am I seeing changes ? Is this sustainable ? What is my biofeedback telling me ? Right , all of those things . And then be prepared to make those adjustments quickly if they're not working . And this is where I have the caveat . Okay , this is where I have the cat .

Philip Pape 12:43

Yes , I want you to do rapid iteration , but rapid is relative to the context . So I'll give you an example . If you start a new workout program and you go three days this week so you're being consistent , you're doing the thing you're . You're doing the exercises , the number of sets and reps you're going up in weight , right , and after a week you're like well , I don't have a bunch of muscle . Well , obviously that's unrealistic expectations . We don't expect that outcome for just three days of training . But if you squat on Monday , right , and you do three sets of five at 135 , and then you go in Wednesday and you attempt three sets of five at 140 and you fail the reps , well , that's information that tells you something needs to change . Either you didn't get enough sleep , you're not resting long enough , you're not eating enough , you went up too high in weight . You know there's something that's causing that , because otherwise you would , you would have been able to progress , right , and that's assuming you should be able to progress . You get what I'm saying , so it's got to be realistic for the timeframe .

Philip Pape 13:47

But let's say , let's talk about food . Right , if your goal is to eat 150 grams of protein and today you ate 80 , okay , you've just fallen short , no big deal . Tomorrow you try to eat more , maybe you get 90 . And you sort of work your way up , right ? That's , that's just simple data that's telling you through your food logging app that you haven't quite hit your protein yet . Okay , great , you're continuing to go . Now you've hit your protein and you're doing so consistently , day after day .

Philip Pape 14:13

But you find that you're hungry . And you know you remember Philip saying protein has the highest dermic effect of feeding and it's highly satious and it'll fill you up and it causes you to eat whole foods . Why am I hungry ? Well , maybe it's not the protein , right ? Maybe there's something else going on . But you've locked down the protein , you've gotten your protein . That's one variable out of the way . Now you can focus on something else . Maybe it's the amount of calories , maybe it's the timing there . Timing , there's something there going on .

Philip Pape 14:39

But the cool thing is , by collecting the data , which seemed inconvenience at first , and you're like oh , I got to collect all this data . You're able to make rapid changes like within days or weeks again , depending on the context , and start making progress much more quickly , much more quickly . And again , the same thing applies to your biofeedback How's your sleep , how's your energy , how's your recovery ? Again , all things that you know . We track this with private clients . I track this in the physique university . We've got a tracker for our biofeedback . We've got a tracker for our body measurements . We've got a tracker for our food , like , we've got trackers in place so that , within days , somebody can raise their hand and say something's not working and instead of saying , oh , this just stinks , it's not working , it's hey , something's not . And so that's 50 , 60 , 70 , 80% of the time that is what you're doing and it never really ends . It never really ends for the rest of your life , to be honest , and that's why the process itself can be a lot of fun if we focus on that .

Philip Pape 15:37

Anytime something's off , if your metabolism's slowing down , if you're not losing weight or gaining weight as fast as you expect , something can always be tweaked . Something can always be tweaked , and every time you tweak it . That's your new plan . That's it . That's your new plan . Then you start executing and then three days later , the plan might change again , and if you accept that that's the case , you're going to grow so quickly mentally , physically and personal growth . So here's something that might surprise you from the engineering world .

Philip Pape 16:03

In engineering , we always 100% of the time expect our first design to be flawed . Yeah , always , 100% of the time expect our first design to be flawed . Yeah , failure is actually expected , and I don't want to say desired , but we know we are going to fail across so many variables and so many elements early on , and because of that , we don't see it as a failure . We see it as valuable data . That's it , and the same should be true for your fitness journey . If a certain workout split is not yielding results , if a certain approach to your diet is leaving you hungry and low energy , that's not a failure . It's crucial information . It's telling you exactly what doesn't work for your body , which is just as important as knowing what does work .

Philip Pape 16:43

And now you have freed yourself from the pressure of finding the perfect plan , because there is none . Instead , you're going to constantly evolve . You're going to improve your approach based on real world data , your own results , your own experiences and , yes , it can help to have somebody in your corner who has gone through this , who knows how to look at the data and help you discover it . And by applying the engineering principle of rapid prototyping to your fitness journey , you are becoming the chief engineer of your own body . You're designing a dynamic , evolving system for achieving your goals Dynamic , evolving system .

Philip Pape 17:19

So let's recap you spend the first 20% or so of your time at most identifying your goal , doing some research , setting your constraints and coming up with your plan , and we're talking just a few hours at most . Then , once you've got that initial prototype , you start executing it , and the remaining 50 , 60 , 70 , 80% of your effort is just execute , test , refine , execute , test , refine . The goal is not to find the perfect plan from the start . It's to start with a solid foundation in the ballpark and then continuously refine , based on real world results , and that's what leads to faster progress . It also ensures that your plan , at any one given time , is actually the perfectly tailored plan for you in the end . All right If you want help applying these types of principles to your fitness journey , if you want to learn how to track the right data , how to look at it and see what's going on and then make the adjustments you need , without just somebody giving you a workout or giving you a macro plan or giving you a guide .

Philip Pape 18:17

I'm offering free 15-minute rapid nutrition assessments . So this is a Zoom call where we look at your current approach . We talk about what one thing is holding you back yes , how we could apply a rapid prototyping philosophy to your plan and give you three steps to move forward with . And those are the three steps your rapid prototype right out of the gate . You get started working on those and you'll start getting results and then data to make changes from . So if you want to have that free rapid nutrition assessment , click the link in my show notes or go to witsandweightscom and click the big button on the top . Again , it's a free rapid nutrition assessment . Just click the link in my show notes . Until next time , keep using your wits lifting those weights and remember , in fitness as in engineering , progress comes from doing testing and refining , not from a perfect plan . I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits and Weights podcast .