Repetition Is Not Redundancy

Not all reps count the same. Anyone who’s coasted through a gym session just moving weight knows the difference: one set burns time, and another builds awareness, precision, and strength even if the numbers on the bar don’t change. The same split shows up in a sprint. Repetition isn’t redundant when it’s intentional, when you use it to test assumptions, refine interfaces, tune performance, or build something just a little closer to what users actually need. That’s the kind of rep that moves things forward.

But repetition alone isn’t enough, and variation is what makes repetition transformative. In strength training, that’s where Renaissance Periodization’s framework lives. Dr. Mike Israetel teaches a structured progression, Minimum Effective Volume (MEV), Maximum Adaptive Volume (MAV), and Maximum Recoverable Volume (MRV), that lets lifters build under load without burning out. The concept isn’t about working hard so much as working smart, within boundaries that adapt to you.

In training we use blocks for different goals: hypertrophy to build muscle, strength to build expression, deloads to recover and grow. We manipulate movement, load, and tempo to avoid stagnation, so a paused bench press, a deficit deadlift, or chains added to a bar each target a different adaptation even though the base movement stays the same.

Product teams run on the same idea, whether or not they call it that. You might run a block of sprints to achieve a specific outcome, refining onboarding, improving performance, or tackling tech debt, and then shift into a new block with a new goal. Like training, it takes enough intention to complete a cycle, maybe one, two, or three sprints, before you vary the focus. Progress comes not from flailing in every direction but from focused variation over time.

And just as strength doesn’t grow without tension, product insight doesn’t grow without diverse input. You can’t loop with your own team forever. Sometimes you have to stretch and go talk to sales, to customers, to analysts, to skeptics, even when it’s uncomfortable, and especially when it is. Frans Johansson’s Medici Effect is built on exactly that principle: stepping into an intersection of fields, disciplines, or cultures lets you combine existing concepts into extraordinary new ideas. In the gym, that might mean lifting with people stronger or different than you. In product, it means bringing in voices from outside your echo chamber, the support calls, the sales objections, the person who almost churned.

Reps alone build endurance, and smart variation builds power. That is how you break through the plateau, not by abandoning the reps but by evolving them.