Rest, recovery and knowing when enough is enough juxtaposed against laziness
10 August 2005If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
If you weight train hard and heavy the blasted body parts need time to heal, recover and grow. Traumatized muscles need to be fed afterwards; certain nutrients, protein primarily, provide shocked muscles with the fuel needed to complete the hypertrophy process. If you blast a muscle completely, totally and appropriately and blast it again before it has had a chance to recover youll go backwards. This is called overtraining and is a big buzz word in progressive resistance circles. If you blast a muscle then starve it you also go backwards. Backwards is synonymous with catabolism and growth is a synonym for anabolism. The problem is this: unless progressive resistance training is intense you will not trip the hypertrophy trigger. Just because you weight train systematically, diligently and earnestly does not mean you are training intensely enough to trip the trigger. As I like to tell folks, in weight training, effort is no substitute for success. On the other hand, fear of overtraining is often used as an excuse. I would much rather see a trainee do too much too hard and too often and throttle them back than deal with the timid and sensitive types who exhibit fear of over-exertion. In my experience, those who play it safe though they might be regular and methodical in how often they train rarely move past modest initial gains. The firebrands, the crazy people, the daredevils, the reckless types are far more likely to make truly outstanding gains - assuming a little sanity and discretion can be injected into their workouts.
Ive said this before and it needs repeating: Ive seen great gains derived from terrible workout regimens by individuals who are able to generate incredible workout intensity. Conversely Ive seen piss poor results from super-sophisticated training regimens by folks who are unwilling or unable to generate the requisite intensity. The latter types are nice, sane, rational folks who think they are giving 100% but when I subject them to a real workout they either flee in horror or go, Ah Ha! Now I understand! Assuming you are generating the sheer physical effort necessary to trip the hypertrophy switch, over-training needs to be examined and understood. Different muscles have different recovery times and this needs to be taken into account when structuring the workout schedule. Generally speaking, big muscles need longer to recover than small ones. Leg and back muscles need more rest before blasting them again than say, biceps, deltoids or arm muscles. In addition there is the spillover factor to take into account. Many leg and back exercises will use the same muscles. Heavy squats and deadlifts, power cleans and leg presses, for example all require glutes and erectors to complete the exercise. If you were to squat, leg press, deadlift and pull heavy two to three times weekly the hinge muscles would never have time to recover. Performing heavy squats on a chronically fatigued lower back is an invitation to disaster. Inserting space and gaps into the workout template is an art and science in and of itself.
Be aware that just because you are resting a large muscle group does not preclude training a small muscle in a geographically removed area. Just because thighs, glutes and erectors are resting doesnt mean that you cannot train pecs, delts or arms. Just because chest and upper back muscles are recovering from a savage session doesnt preclude a tough session of calf raises, lying leg curls or leg presses. As my accountant tells me regarding taxes, Not paying enough is illegal but paying too much is stupid. So it is with serious weight training: not training hard enough dilutes results into nothingness and training too much is stupid. Strike the balance: the first order of business is learning how to generate the requisite workout intensity. The second order of business is learning to rest a truly blasted body part until it has healed and recovered. All this takes time and requires you learn how to read your body; if you are honest with yourself it is an easy thing to know when its time to hit it again. Extreme muscle soreness is an indicator to take another day; an overall feeling of deep fatigue is a telling clue. I instruct the Purposeful Primitives to feed the muscles immediately after every training session. There exists a physiological window of opportunity that opens during the session and snaps closed roughly one hour after the cessation of the session. Nutrients ingested while the window is open are assimilated approximately 200% faster and more efficiently than normal. The optimal time to drink a liquid protein/carb mixture is at the conclusion of a savage session.
I drink my Parrillo 50-50 Plus concoction roughly of the way through my workout as this takes advantage of the window and helps curtail energy nosedives that hit me at the ass-end of a workout. Ever notice how the exercises done last always seem to suffer? Fatigue can be (somewhat) alleviated by drinking a liquid protein//carb mix as the workout is winding down. Bottom line? Learn how to push hard without hurting yourself. Learn how to structure a workout so that while some muscles rest, you train others and not trigger the spillover. Finally, if you are cracking it as hard as you are supposed to, periodically the fatigue blanket will descend take an extra day off, or two or three, and let the organism, what William Burroughs called The Soft Machine recover from the cumulative pounding. Err towards too much and crank back those who yawn their way through progressive resistance training might as well take up golf theyll get just as much physical benefit and have a hell of a lot more fun.
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Another satisfied customer…
Marty,
Thanks a lot for the fitness camp. It’s one thing to read your training principles, and quite another to experience your coaching in person. I would definitely like to train with you again if possible.
Attached are a few more pics of my ship. I will be on vacation in Key West through Saturday. Luckily there is a Naval Air station here where I can make use of their Gym for free. I look forward to utilizing the squat / bench / deadlift pause technique.
Thanks,
Mason
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