If you haven’t heard, we have a Level Method Version 2.0 that will be rolling out over the next 6 months or so.
We’ve always viewed Level Method as a dynamic technology. What happens with technology? It evolves. The calibration of Version 1 of the MAP was based on the best available information. It was painstakingly developed. Version 2 is an extension of that work. A layering and inclusion of hundreds of thousands of data points gathered over 3 years.
The number one reason we’re moving to a Version 2 is data.
The second reason is feedback … experience. We took into account what the most experienced Legion Owners and best coaches in the world were telling us. The number one thing was that Version 1 of the MAP needed more progressions for regular people in the earliest stages.
Crunching Numbers - Beginners and Elite
Version 1 was based on individual-category percentile scores of athletes -- these we’re work-capacity fitness-type people. Additionally, those individual scores didn’t take into account the difficulty of achieving multiple scores in that range ie. it’s easy to have a 90th percentile score in ONE test … but what about 90th percentile in 13/15 tests?
When we looked at everything we found that less than 2% of people were PURPLE or above, and not a single person was BLACK. Elite is great, but when we're looking at a regular gym population, what’s the goal? Achievement, recognition, powerful moments!
At least SOME portion of the gym population should be capable of hitting BLACK. If high-level competitors can’t achieve BLACK, there’s a problem when we apply it to regular folks.
We learned too few people we’re achieving the highest levels -- BROWN and BLACK -- and too many were stuck at the lower levels -- YELLOW and ORANGE. We needed to blow out the progressions, and add more steps -- more progressions -- for regular people, and further move the emphasis to the majority of the gym population.
In order to adjust the calibration, we added new Levels. There are now 4 BLACK Levels and 5 RED ELITE Levels. RED ELITE is competitor territory. With these adjustments, more people in a regular gym environment will be capable of achieving BLACK.
Ironing Out Bottle Necks
Imagine a chart highlighting bottleneck hotspots on every progression of the MAP. The bigger the hotspot, the more people are stuck there. There are lots of people getting stuck right HERE. Maybe double-under, or first strict ring dip, or first strict pullup … if we could see those hotspots (which we can) we could blow out the progressions. And that’s what we’ve done: ironed things out to make sure that the steps are a little bit more manageable, a little bit smaller and more doable. This provides more opportunities to WIN.
An Indisputable Conclusion It’s hard to argue with data and experience. Although, we could have neglected updating the MAP based on all this information -- doing nothing would be the easiest thing in the world to do. The truth is, we HAVE to migrate to Version 2, because the data and feedback tell us it’s time to evolve and adapt.
