The concept of one is a training concept which I’m sure that I didn’t invent but that I feel like I did. It’s that our work on our movement can be traced back to only one repetition, one routine, one movement.
If you slip and fall, you just need to get up once to get up. If your going on a bike ride and your bike is hanging up, you just need to get it down once, and maybe back up once when you return. These are everyday applications of the concept of one, but it relates to fitness in that recommendations are always to perform many repetitions of component movements. I’d contend that isn’t the most efficient strategy.
If you want to do a muscle up, in order to do it you need to do just one. Practicing the components, positions, and framework may take isometric moves, negatives and partial repetitions, but theoretically they’re all in pursuit of the one. I started getting vastly improved results when trying to do less repetitions but things that were more like the one movement that I wanted.
Additionally, if I completely taxed a muscle group and had to wait multiple days to recover, I also notice slowed progress. So for me, less is more. I’m talking like I may do only two sets of 3 reps of a movement. The following day I might try a bigger set of 4, and a smaller set of 2 equaling the same amount of work but just seeing if I can add the next rep. Then on to trying 5 the following day. If I can do 5 reps then I think it might be time to make the movement more difficult rather than adding more reps. After all your going for 1 of the most difficult. It would only make sense that fewer repetitions that more resemble the 1 would be better than 100 repetitions that don’t resemble anything.