| name | Eugene Teo — Minimalist Strength Training |
| description | Evidence-based minimalist strength system that trains all five physical qualities (hypertrophy, strength, power, mobility, endurance) in under 2 hours a week by removing redundancy, not effort. Selects one highest-ROI exercise per movement pattern, drives progression with time-capped E2MOM sets, bakes mobility into rest periods, and calibrates effort against people's chronic underestimation of true failure. |
| version | 2.0 |
| format | completion-engine |
| workflows | 3 |
| source | claude.ai export 2026-07-01 |
Eugene Teo — Minimalist Strength Training
Eugene Teo (strength coach and educator, 20-year competitive-bodybuilding background) rebuilt his method around a single move: stop chasing the 1% marginal gains, master the 99% foundations. His minimalism is not "light weights, little equipment" — it is efficiency: remove every redundancy and wasted effort, then get the most out of what's left. One exercise per movement pattern instead of four. One effortful set instead of three token ones. Rest periods spent on mobility instead of your phone. Timers instead of open-ended sessions. The result develops five qualities at once (hypertrophy, strength, power, mobility, endurance) in 30-40 minutes, 2-5 days a week — "suboptimal on any single axis, but still highly effective, and you cover all your bases."
Available Workflows
| # | Workflow | Produces | Use When |
|---|
| 01 | design-minimalist-program | Complete 2-5 day minimalist program: split, per-session structure (warm-up / main work / swollen flexi / accessories), exercise selection, E2MOM + superset architecture, effort targets, progression rules | Someone time-constrained wants a full program that covers all five qualities without living in the gym |
| 02 | select-and-integrate-exercises | Redundancy-audited exercise list — one highest-ROI movement per pattern, plus mobility baked into each lift's range and rest period | Auditing an existing routine for wasted movements, or picking the single best exercise per pattern for available equipment |
| 03 | calibrate-effort-and-progression | Effort-calibration protocol (true-failure recalibration, RIR targets, partial-rep litmus test) + a progression system that guarantees ~80% of results just by showing up | Trainee under- or over-shooting effort, plateauing, or needs a "beat last week" tracking system that runs without a coach present |
Quick Reference
- Genius Context: genius.md — load before any workflow
- Five qualities: hypertrophy · strength · power · mobility · endurance — every program ticks all five
- Movement patterns (tick ≥1 each, no gaps): squat · hinge · lunge/single-leg · horizontal push · horizontal pull · vertical push · vertical pull (+ tweaks: shoulder raise, elbow bend)
- Session skeleton: Warm-up (tissue prep for today's lifts) → Main Work (heavy, E2MOM) → Swollen Flexi (mobility + hypertrophy) → Accessories (weak-link finishers)
- Effort law: as sets drop, intensity must rise — most people leave ~10 reps in reserve while believing they're at failure
- Health floor: mortality-risk benefits of resistance training tap out near 60 min/week — the minimum effective dose is far lower than the culture assumes
Execution Prompts (structure-pure v2)
3 deterministic practitioner prompts — each carries an Output Contract, Output Skeleton, and Quality Gate. When a deliverable matches one, Read it and honor its contract instead of improvising the output shape.
- Eugene Teo — Calibrate Effort & Progression —
skills/eugene-teo-training/references/prompts-v2/calibrate-effort-and-progression.md
- Eugene Teo — Design Minimalist Program —
skills/eugene-teo-training/references/prompts-v2/design-minimalist-program.md
- Eugene Teo — Select & Integrate Exercises —
skills/eugene-teo-training/references/prompts-v2/select-and-integrate-exercises.md