Natural resistance trainers are at a recovery disadvantage compared to anabolically enhanced resistance trainers. The natural generally takes longer to recover, is easier to fatigue, and the symptoms of under recovery can be very severe. I myself have experienced overtraining (insomnia, constant fatigue, changes in mood, and more). This post is not going to go into how to recover from over training but more how to avoid it happening in the first place.
The Resistance Training Volume Equation
Fitness enthusiasts may already know how to calculate volume but for those who do not know:
V = Sets * Reps * Weight.
5 sets of 10 reps x 100lbs = 5000lbs of volume.
When V is increased over time muscle hypertrophy takes place in correlation. These adaptations must take place in order for the body to handle the increased volume in the first place. This means if you can do more volume you have gained muscle. Progressive overload is the principle which allows you to continuously challenge the ecosystem of the body to enable muscle protein synthesis to be constantly activated. The workout is merely a means of challenging the body in order to activate muscle protein synthesis.
The Problem of Too Much Volume
Too much of a good thing is a bad thing. Volume is like turning a knob to turn the signal up. Just like with sound if you turn the sound up too loud you can damage your hearing. Volume if it's too much will simply damage your body beyond it's ability to adapt and recover. So it is important to think of the volume as nothing more than a necessarily stimulus designed to provoke the body into a genetically determined response.
How much your body can recover from is individualized. How much volume your body requires to grow is individualized also. Beginners simply don't need a lot of volume to grow and advanced athletes may need a lot of volume. The minimum effective volume is the target volume to aim for and that is essentially the minimum amount of volume necessary to produce growth in your body. Expert sports scientist Dr. Mike Israetel identified and labeled the concept minimum effective volume which is very similar to minimum effective dose in medicine. Dr. Mike Israetel also labels the concept of maximum recoverable volume, and somewhere in between is the maximum adaptive volume which is the sweet spot for growth.
It has also been identified in studies that doing too much volume per session or too many sets on a body part can hinder recovery as shown by Amirthalingam & Mavros et al. (2017).
The High Frequency Approach
Dankel, S.J., Mattocks, K.T., Jessee, M.B. et al, offer a different approach to the 3 days a week routine. The high frequency approach is based on the current understanding that muscle protein synthesis is elevated for 28-36 hours on average from an actual workout which would imply that for the natural a higher frequency lower volume routine may have some benefit. A natural cannot recover as quickly from massive volume loads but at the same time if volume is kept close to the minimum effective and also the frequency is increased to 6 days a week there does seem to be evidence showing that this may lead to greater hypertrophy with lower risk of under recovery.
Lessons learned
- Greater than 10 sets on a body part in a day is likely going to just be junk volume.
- Higher training frequency seems to keep muscle protein synthesis elevated for longer overall.
- The minimum effective volume is all that is necessary for growth and this can be as low as 2 sets per workout session (enough to activate muscle protein synthesis).
- Managing systemic fatigue is key to avoiding over training and this means no unnecessary volume (just enough to activate muscle protein synthesis and no more).
References
Dankel, S. J., Mattocks, K. T., Jessee, M. B., Buckner, S. L., Mouser, J. G., Counts, B. R., ... & Loenneke, J. P. (2017). Frequency: the overlooked resistance training variable for inducing muscle hypertrophy?. Sports Medicine, 47(5), 799-805.