Understanding the "What The Hell" Effect

by Ben Powers

Understanding the “What The Hell” Effect

The “What The Hell” effect (WTH) is commonly used to explain adaptations associated with kettlebell training. In fact it is so commonly used that it has largely lost its meaning. You might see people say “The WTH effect is real!” when they share results about doing a strength and conditioning program…and getting stronger and more conditioned. This is not the WTH effect. So then…what IS the WTH effect?

The first thing you need to understand is the concept of transference. You can have positive, negative, or neutral transference. That means that the trained skill may improve performance, reduce performance, or have no impact on performance for a different skill. As an example, you may run a program with a lot of overhead pressing and then find that your bench press got stronger. This would demonstrate positive transfer from the overhead press to the bench press.

The second thing to understand is how transference may change as you get more experienced. For absolute beginners, pretty much any training will have positive transfer to a wide variety of movements. You can just do clean & press and front squat and you will probably improve damn near everything. As you progress to higher levels, you’ll have to get a bit more specific. You may find that adding volume to your cleans no longer improves your ability to snatch. This is a good sign, because it means you’re developing past the infancy of your training career.

The final thing to consider is expectation of results. The WTH effect hits when you expect one thing (negative or neutral transfer), but experience something different (positive transfer). But this gives us an amazing opportunity…we can update our expectations. Expectations are built on mental models.

One of my favorite quotes is: “All models are wrong, but some are useful” - George Box. We start with the simplest of models (if I lift weights, I’ll get stronger). Over time, those models add a bit of complexity (if I lift with different rep ranges, I’ll get stronger in different ways) and the layers can continue to progress as much as you want to learn. But no matter how much you update your understanding, there will still be variables you can’t account for. This means there will always be opportunity for misalignment between your expectations and your results.

With this understanding, I believe we get a chance to reframe things a bit. Rather than the “What The Hell” Effect, try considering it as the “WHY The Hell” Effect. Why the hell did this clean & press program improve my pullup strength? Why the hell did that snatch program improve my 5k run time? Why the hell did I expect X results from Y program, but I actually achieved Z results?

If you’re curious enough to ask the right questions, you can update your mental models and improve the accuracy of your expectations. If not, you’ll find yourself at the end of the next program asking yourself the same question…”What the hell?”