The Quest Chapter — Part 1

Where I have been since 2018

Origins of the Quest Methodology.

Silence

Where have I been? In 2018, I was consistent — pushing weight and blogging (original, rewrite). Then life happened — job switches and increasing professional demands.

In 2019, I switched from being a Software Developer to a Quant at a bank. This transition resulted in 'implicit' learning of the fundamental principles of quantitative modeling and I realized... the methodologies I had already been cooking up for Jackked weren't far off from how a bank builds quantitative models.

This period gave me the confidence to formalize the mathematical foundations of my training philosophy. I discovered a 'magical constant' that maps the relationship between load and repetitions. It works universally, providing a single, coherent framework for strength that holds regardless of muscle group or body type. You may have noticed the origins of this discovery in the strength-to-reps relationship that I penned over half a decade ago.

We're about to touch upon THE key concepts that started it all for me. Answering the fundamental question of "how to program one's workouts" and building a system out of it was NOT what I had in mind when I started this journey. I dived in, saw patterns that no one else was talking about and pushed a little deeper with a little bit of logic and rationale... here we are.

Question: How do you decide how much to lift based on your recent performances?

The 3.2% Rule

Simple Decay

Think of the 1-rep-max of a lift as your 100%. A natural question is: what is the n-rep-max i.e. what is the maximum weight you can lift for n reps (given 100% is your 1-rm)?

More specifically, what is the maximum weight such that

  • it is impossible to perform n + 1 reps with it AND
  • it is impossible to perform n reps if you add any amount of weight to it?

Here is the relationship at the heart of the Jackked engine:

$$ nRM = \frac{1RM}{(1.0 + 0.032)^{(n - 1)}} $$

Put simply: All else being equal, the Load decays by ~3.2% for every additional Rep performed. The more curious reader may have noticed that this is along the lines of existing RM calculators. But structuring it this particular way, as we shall see, serves as middle-ground across a wide range of applications

Understanding exponential decay

  1. Think of a bank that gives 3.2% interest. If you put $100 in, you get $103.2 a year from now

  2. Now imagine you had a target payout: suppose you want to receive $100 one year from now. How much do you deposit today? The answer is ~$96.90
    $$ \frac{100}{1.0 + 0.032} = 96.90 $$

  3. What if you want that $100 four years from now? How would you deposit right now? The answer is ~$88.16
    $$ \frac{100}{(1.0 + 0.032)^4} = 88.16 $$

Now, Barbell Math

While lifting, your 1RM is the $100 payout you desire. But you're smart and NOT willing to hit 1RMs directly — you want to be, say, 4 reps away and do safer 5RMs. So, how much do you lift to display an equivalent performance? The answer is ~88kg (100kg / 1.032^4) because 5 reps vs 1 rep is like a '4yr gap'.

Conversely, if you know you can lift 88kg for 5 reps, you can estimate your 1RM without ever testing it. Just multiply by the gap: 88kg * 1.032^4 ≈ 100kg. This allows us to normalize any single maximal set, whether it's 5 reps or 12 reps, back to a single 'Strength' metric. Any maximal set can now be a proxy for an actual 1 rep max.

We dive deeper and test the resilience of this line of thinking even in more complex situations — sub-maximal sets, intensity scaling, multi-set fatigue modeling — in The Jackked Model.

The Pandemic

All was well and then, COVID-19 hit. The pandemic forced a sabbatical from physical training and I wasn't able to fully experience the power of the Jackked 2.0 method. But my Quests didn't stop, they pivoted. I traded the barbell for a keyboard and dived into LeetCoding.

Back in 2019, a close friend of mine challenged me with a LeetCode problem. For context, I'd never once visited a single 'Coding Practice' website in my entire life. I was 4 yrs into Software Development and my 'Data Structures and Algorithms' knowledge came from the countably few extra courses I had done back in college (yup, not a CS major). So I created an account and began something - a journey that I did not expect would have as much impact on my life as it did. Yes, it more than tripled my already decent salary over the course of the next 5 yrs - but that's secondary. The three biggest wins came as follows:

  • Engagement: In the TikTok era, LeetCoding was my antidote to doom-scrolling — real accomplishment instead of empty dopamine.
  • Better Developer: If your 50-line LeetCode solution isn't readable, your 10,000-line production codebase doesn't stand a chance.
  • Neural Connections: The gym fights sarcopenia. Algorithmic thinking fights cognitive rust. And that level of pattern recognition doesn't stay in a LeetCode tab — it bleeds into everything.

Benefits aside, leetcoding sounds like a drag. A chore. Surely this wasnt fun?

Quite the opposite. I'm the guy who cannot do anything if it's not fun. That isn't to say I'm lazy. No, I make every effort to try and make things fun. Most things just aren't, despite trying (running on a treadmill ugh). But leetcoding is. All it needs it a tiny bit of gamifying.

Based on all the progressive overload related questions I'd been tackling in the lifting world, I stumbled upon a system — one that made NOT gaining LeetCode-solving momentum an impossibility. It starts with a simple question:

How do you decide which problem to solve next, given 3,500+ options?

Between 2019 and 2021, I pumped my numbers up from 600 to 2,500 solved problems — never once looking at a solution or a guide. This was more than hobbyist coding; it was 'working the mind out' using the same intensity and discipline I had applied to the gym. It was during this period that the Crackked Methodology was born — applying progressive overload to build algorithmic fluency. I'd have problems in my TODO list for 2 years, out of nowhere something would click while I was asleep and I'd wake up with solutions to hard problems. I could FEEL the neural connections forming. How??

We explore this system — the crux being 'How to rate any LeetCode problem?' — in The Crackked Model (coming soon).

The AfterMATH

As the world reopened, I faced a new challenge: regaining two years of lost strength and muscle. I applied the newly-devised Jackked methodology blindly. Within months, I hadn't just reclaimed my former self; I was setting new PRs. The system worked.

I emerged on the other side of COVID with the ability to grow my mind and my body. These discoveries have since been formalized into two apps — Jackked for strength training and Crackked for algorithmic thinking. Both are now available on Google Play and the App Store.