 In strength training, your return on investment is used to describe the net benefits of continued strength increases compared to the amount of resources that you must invest to stimulate that increase. The novice linear progression program establishes a baseline level of strength for new lifters. During this period, strength adaptations are large and occur rapidly. You are significantly stronger workout to workout and able to add weight to the bar each time you go to the gym. This is the low hanging fruit of strength gains and it's essential that this period of training is fully utilized because it has the biggest impact on a lifter's life. However, the longer you train, the harder you have to work for smaller and less frequent and less impactful strength gains. In strength training, your return on investment or ROI is used to describe the net benefits of continued strength increases compared to the amount of resources, being time, effort, energy, etc. that you must invest to stimulate that increase. When you're first starting, your resource investment is fairly small. You don't have to spend a lot of time in the gym, you don't have to work super hard at the beginning, and you can loosely track your recovery variables. There will eventually come a point when your ROI reaches its peak and progress beyond this point is not worth the investment and that's okay. It's called the law of diminishing returns. It means the amount of resources you pour into strength training will not be worth resulting strength adaptations. As an example, elite and advanced lifters consistently train for hours and hours every day and maintain strict control over their diet and sleep for a couple pound increase in their one rep maxes. Most people will not want to adopt this extreme lifestyle to add a couple pounds to their squat. The truth is, the average lifter isn't interested in spending more than six hours in the gym every week. They may not want to count all of their macros every single day. They don't want to turn down life experiences to make sure they get 8 to 10 hours of sleep every night. It's important for you as a lifter to figure out where this peak is and plan out how you're going to adapt your training in order to maintain your strength, health, and performance while keeping your life in balance. It's difficult to do, but luckily starting strength online coaches are more than qualified to help you maximize your ROI. Find your peak and plan your training so you can continue to be strong and enjoy your time in the gym. To learn more, click here.