The research MVIII programs from

211 peer-reviewed citations between them. Meta-analyses, systematic reviews and position stands where they exist; controlled trials where they do not; nothing from forums, coaching sites or magazines. Every citation was retrieved and its abstract read on the date its document states.

Four things are worth saying before you open any of them.

The grades are not uniform, and the documents say so themselves. The programming and protein entries rest on randomized-trial meta-analyses. The technique entries are acute biomechanics: they describe how a movement shifts mechanical demand, not that it produces more muscle over a year. The injury entries are retrospective epidemiology. A grade C row is the best available evidence, not an established fact, and the pages mark every one.

Not every document is a training document. Five of these are about the parts of MVIII that are usually left unexamined: the psychology under how the coach speaks, the behavioral structure under the schedule, the attentional research under the cues, the physiology under the stillness sessions, and what is actually known about skin after a large weight loss. They are held to the same standard as the training files, which means several of them mostly report how weak their own field is.

The progression document is the weakest, and it says so at the top. Progressions toward a first pull-up or a target pace have force-plate measurements of how heavy each step is, and no trial has ever compared one step order against another. Two of the numbers MVIII prescribes there have nothing published behind them at all. Both are graded as having none and both are printed, because a number the app programs from with no evidence should be visible rather than missing from the table.

Each document publishes what it refuses to prescribe. Optimal calorie surpluses, maximum recoverable volume, return-to-training protocols after injury, meet-day nutrition, sex-specific programming, that a wide grip works your lats harder, that it takes 66 days to form a habit, that shame motivates anybody, that meditation beats exercise for stress. These are things widely prescribed with confidence that the research does not currently support, and MVIII programs none of them. That list is the most useful part of every file.

Nine rows across these documents are graded as having no evidence at all, and most of them are things MVIII does anyway. The tone the coach speaks in. The absence of streaks. How long a stillness session should run. Whether a cue read off a phone works the way a coach saying it works. Each was searched for specifically and each came back empty. They are printed rather than quietly rounded up, because a decision the app makes with nothing behind it should be visible as a decision.

If you want the short version of how these turn into a training week, and where MVIII deliberately stops short of what the research would allow, that is written up in the library.

General fitness and wellness information, not medical advice. Nothing here substitutes for assessment by a qualified clinician. Consult your healthcare provider before changing your diet or exercise.