Why Optimal Load Is Incomplete Without Developmental Assessment
Why Optimal Load Is Incomplete Without Developmental Assessment
Optimal-load testing can provide valuable information.
It can help identify the loading condition at which an athlete produces the greatest power, velocity, or another targeted performance outcome.
That matters.
But identifying the load that produces the highest output does not automatically identify what the athlete needs to develop next.
Two athletes may demonstrate similar peak outputs or even perform best at similar loading conditions while presenting very different developmental profiles.
One may produce stable, repeatable performance.
Another may achieve the same peak value but demonstrate greater decline, variability, or difficulty reproducing output as demands change.
In both cases, the optimal load may look similar.
The appropriate training decision may not.
That is where developmental assessment becomes important.
Optimal Load Answers Only Part of the Question
Traditional performance testing often asks:
At what load does this athlete produce the greatest output?
That question is useful because it helps characterize current performance.
But coaches also need to know:
What should this athlete develop next?
Those are not the same question.
An optimal load can identify where performance is maximized under a defined condition.
It does not independently reveal whether the athlete’s primary developmental need is:
- Greater stability
- Better transfer across changing demands
- Higher repeatable output
- Improved ability to re-attain previously established performance
Within Evans Velo Zone™ (EVZ™), these priorities are organized through four developmental phases:
Retention → Transfer → Output → Re-attainment
The purpose of developmental assessment is to place performance data into this broader context.
Peak Output Does Not Define the Developmental Priority
Consider two athletes who both produce their highest power output at the same relative load.
Athlete A demonstrates:
- Stable output across repeated exposures
- Low variability
- Consistent technical execution
- Strong performance as demands change
Athlete B demonstrates:
- Similar peak output
- Greater decline across exposures
- Increasing variability
- Difficulty reproducing the same level of performance
A traditional optimal-load analysis may classify them similarly.
Developmentally, however, they may require very different interventions.
Athlete A may be ready to pursue greater output or transfer performance into more demanding conditions.
Athlete B may first benefit from improving retention and stability.
The distinction is important:
The load that maximizes output is not automatically the developmental emphasis the athlete needs most.
The Force–Velocity Curve Provides Important Context
The force–velocity relationship helps explain why athletic performance cannot be reduced to one number.
At higher external loads, athletes typically express greater force at lower movement velocities.
As external resistance decreases, movement velocity can increase.
Between these ends of the continuum are combinations of force and velocity that contribute to power expression.
Force–velocity profiling can therefore help practitioners identify relative strengths and limitations across different loading demands.
One athlete may be more force dominant.
Another may be more velocity dominant.
Another may demonstrate strong power expression somewhere between those extremes.
This information is valuable.
But the force–velocity profile still primarily describes where performance exists.
Developmental assessment asks an additional question:
How does that performance behave?
An athlete may demonstrate an impressive peak value at one point on the force–velocity curve while struggling to reproduce that performance across repeated exposures.
Another may retain high-force performance well but display greater instability at higher velocities.
Another may perform well under familiar conditions but deteriorate when load, speed, direction, complexity, or another demand changes.
This creates a broader distinction:
Force–velocity analysis helps describe the characteristics of performance.
Developmental assessment helps determine what should happen next.
Performance Should Be Evaluated as Behavior
A single peak measurement represents a moment.
Repeated and changing exposures reveal behavior.
Within EVZ, practitioners can examine questions such as:
- Does performance remain stable?
- How quickly does output decline?
- Does variability increase?
- Does movement quality remain consistent?
- Does established performance transfer as demands change?
- Can greater output be developed without losing established qualities?
- Can previously established performance be re-attained?
These questions provide developmental context that optimal-load testing alone cannot.
Rather than replacing peak or force–velocity testing, EVZ adds another layer of interpretation.
The Four Developmental Questions
The EVZ framework organizes athlete development through four phases.
Retention
Can established performance be maintained?
Retention examines whether the athlete can reproduce intended performance across repeated exposures with sufficient stability.
If peak output is high but performance deteriorates quickly or becomes inconsistent, increasing output may not be the immediate priority.
Transfer
Can performance carry across changing demands?
Transfer evaluates what happens when load, velocity, direction, complexity, movement, or other relevant conditions change.
An athlete may retain performance under one condition but struggle when the environment becomes more demanding or different.
Output
Can greater repeatable performance be developed?
Output focuses on increasing force, velocity, power, or another targeted quality while preserving enough stability for the improvement to remain useful.
This is where traditional optimal-load strategies may become especially valuable—but now within an identified developmental context.
Re-attainment
Can previously established performance be restored?
Re-attainment evaluates whether output that was previously available can be reproduced after strategic reduction, disruption, or changing demands.
This adds another layer to performance durability beyond simple fatigue resistance.
Where Durability Fits
Durability is often described only as the ability to resist fatigue or maintain output across repeated efforts.
Within EVZ, durability is broader.
It reflects how performance behaves across the full developmental process:
Retention → Transfer → Output → Re-attainment
A durable athlete does more than decline slowly.
Durable performance can be:
- Established
- Reproduced
- Challenged
- Developed
- Restored
This matters when interpreting optimal load.
An athlete may know where their highest output occurs, yet still lack the durability to consistently access or extend that performance.
The developmental issue is therefore not always:
How do we increase the peak?
Sometimes it is:
How do we make the existing peak more usable?
Measuring Repeated Performance
Within EVZ, repeated-performance behavior can be quantified using the Retainable Power Index (RPI™).
RPI evaluates how well demonstrated performance is retained across repeated exposures relative to a reference output.
Depending on the environment, EVZ can evaluate evidence through:
- Structured observation
- Performance technology
- A hybrid of both
Technology-based evidence may include measures such as:
- Velocity
- Power
- Force
- Jump metrics
- Sprint or movement time
RPI does not replace peak output or force–velocity testing.
It provides another signal.
For example, two athletes may demonstrate similar peak power at their optimal loading condition while producing substantially different RPI profiles across subsequent exposures.
The peak value identifies capability.
The repeated-performance signal helps describe reliability.
RPI provides the signal. EVZ provides the developmental context.
The EVZ Wave™ Adds Another Layer
The EVZ Wave™ Performance Diagnostic extends assessment beyond a single loading condition or repeated-effort sequence.
It examines how established performance behaves as demands change and whether output can subsequently be re-attained.
This allows the practitioner to investigate more than:
Where is peak output highest?
The practitioner can also evaluate:
- Whether established performance is retained
- How it responds as demands change
- Whether higher-level output can be expressed
- Whether previously established output can be restored
This creates a developmental profile rather than a single performance value.
Two Athletes, Same Optimal Load, Different Decisions
Imagine two athletes both producing peak power at 60% of a given reference load.
Athlete A:
- Produces a strong peak
- Maintains output across exposures
- Remains stable as demands change
- Successfully re-attains previous output
Athlete B:
- Produces the same peak
- Experiences progressive decline
- Becomes more variable under changing demands
- Struggles to reproduce previously established output
Their optimal load is the same.
Their developmental priorities are not.
Athlete A may be ready to pursue additional output or more advanced transfer challenges.
Athlete B may benefit from prioritizing retention or another earlier developmental need.
That is the limitation of using optimal load as a programming decision by itself.
It describes an important characteristic of performance.
It does not automatically prescribe the next developmental step.
What This Means for Programming
Optimal-load strategies remain useful.
They can help coaches target regions of the force–velocity continuum and select loading conditions associated with desired performance qualities.
But programming becomes more individualized when those strategies are applied after developmental assessment.
The sequence becomes:
Assess performance → identify developmental priority → select training strategy → monitor the response
rather than:
Find optimal load → train optimal load
The difference is subtle but important.
Optimal load becomes a tool inside the coaching process rather than the coaching process itself.
EVZ Does Not Replace Existing Training Systems
EVZ is not designed to replace force–velocity profiling, velocity-based training, traditional strength programming, or a coach’s existing methodology.
It provides a structured framework for interpreting athlete development within those systems.
A coach can still use:
- Heavy strength training
- Ballistic exercises
- Olympic lifts
- Sprint work
- Plyometrics
- Velocity-based training
- Force–velocity profiling
- Sport-specific preparation
EVZ helps determine why a particular emphasis may be appropriate now and whether the athlete is responding as intended.
That distinction preserves the value of existing performance tools while adding developmental context.
The EVZ Perspective
Optimal-load testing can identify where an athlete currently produces high levels of force, velocity, or power.
Force–velocity profiling can help characterize how those qualities are distributed across different loading conditions.
Neither should be discarded.
But neither, by itself, answers the complete developmental question.
Evans Velo Zone™ adds a structured layer through:
Retention → Transfer → Output → Re-attainment
using:
Observation | Technology | Hybrid evidence
Within that system:
- Peak measures establish capability.
- Force–velocity analysis provides performance context.
- RPI™ helps quantify repeated-performance behavior.
- EVZ Wave™ examines performance across changing demands and re-attainment.
- Longitudinal monitoring reveals how the athlete develops over time.
The goal is not simply to find the load that produces the highest number.
It is to determine what the athlete needs next—and then use the appropriate training tools to develop it.
Optimal load describes where performance is expressed.
Developmental assessment helps determine where development should go next.
