Why Excessive Volume Prevents Effective Training AKA – Do too much? Achieve too little
When it comes to weight training, the ultimate goal is to stimulate a specific response, be that growth, strength, power, or any other adaptation you are aiming for. However, excessive training can actually inhibit the adaptations you would have gotten from doing less.
Thresholds:
There is a certain threshold of training beyond which you get diminishing returns, and beyond THAT threshold, you can actively inhibit the adaptations you would have gotten from doing less.
These thresholds vary from person to person, depending on genetics, training history, diet, lifestyle, rest, age, sex, drugs, stress levels, and other variables. However, there is a reasonable point beyond which further training is unlikely to provide any additional benefit for most people who aren’t extreme outliers.
Factors:
Fatigue and excessive muscle damage are the factors involved in both thresholds. Damage itself is not likely to be the mechanism by which we get stronger/bigger. Damage is a by-product that will be present after good training, but it is not what makes good training. The actual process of adaptation is something called adaptive neuromuscular mechanotransduction – this sounds very technical, so let’s break it down.
Process of Adaptation: Mechanotransduction is any process where a mechanical stimulus/input is converted into a neural or chemical signal – the one we are probably most familiar with is hearing – vibrations get detected by our ear’s receptors, converted into nerve signals, and translated into sound by the brain. Adaptive neuromuscular mechanotransduction is the version of this that converts exercise into results, and involves the following steps:
A muscle fiber gets mechanically loaded
That loading is detected by a receptor in/adjacent to the fiber
This receptor sends a neuro/chemical signal that says "I have been loaded, I will need to get bigger/stronger/faster/work longer"
After the loading has ceased, the adaptation it “asked for” starts to happen
Adequate loading:
If you only load muscle fibers a small amount and, as a result, only recruit the little low-threshold fibers you use for day-to-day activities, the only signal they ever send is "don't let me atrophy below this point." But if you load them enough, the following happens:
Muscle fiber is loaded to the point of fatigue or by a heavier weight/faster movement
It can't do this by itself, so it recruits its higher-threshold friends to help
They can't do it alone, so they recruit their higher-threshold friends to help
They all get loaded enough that they become fatigued
They all send their big adaptive signals instead of just a small handful of small ones
You get stronger, bigger, etc.
Damage and Resources:
During this process, some damage occurs, but it's not the damage that makes things grow back stronger. The parts that are undamaged get stronger, and if there's not too much damage, so do the damaged parts. But if a large group of fibers become too damaged, the resources for repairing them outstrip the resources for making it stronger. At this point the adaptations you could have had if you had stopped sooner are reduced, and although you will still get stronger, the rate at which it happens will be slower.
Peripheral and Central Fatigue:
Fatigue is similar in how it has benefits until it accumulates to too great a degree - but there are broadly two types of fatigue: peripheral fatigue and central fatigue. Peripheral fatigue is the fatigue of individual muscles, and central fatigue is the fatigue of your nervous system telling those muscles to "do the thing."
Excessive Fatigue:
You need to accumulate enough peripheral fatigue to recruit the higher-threshold motor units/muscle fibers to send that "get stronger/get bigger" signal. However, excessive peripheral fatigue will eventually just mean you're grinding out reps without any better recruitment and no greater amount of adaptive signaling – but you still accumulate muscle damage.
What is an even bigger problem, however, is when you accumulate large amounts of central fatigue. If you spend so much time doing large numbers of exercises that you are centrally fatigued when you move on to the next group of exercises, you will not be able to produce enough initial muscle ouput to accumulate the peripheral fatigue needed to get those muscles to recruit more fibers. As a result, you won't drive as much of an adaptation as you would otherwise. It is like “spinning your wheels without going very far”
Excessive training: If you do train too much, you may do any one, or a combination of the following:
Underload so you are unable to elicit adequate fiber recruitment
Overtrain or overload and cause excessive damage
Train too long/hard and get too fatigued to train with adequate intensity
All of which contribute to either minimal increase in benefit, or actively reducing benefit. It is important to monitor training volume and intensity to ensure that you are not hindering your progress.
In summary:
Effective weight training has a threshold beyond which excessive training can lead to diminished returns and even inhibition of adaptations.
The threshold varies based on individual factors such as genetics, training experience, diet, rest, age, and more – but it is similar for most people.
Adaptive neuromuscular mechanotransduction is the process by which muscles get stronger/bigger/faster after being loaded – not damage.
Adequate loading requires enough load and fatigue to recruit higher threshold motor units/muscle fibers to stimulate neuromuscular mechanotransduction – which does result in damage as a by-product, but is not the goal.
Excessive damage and fatigue can occur from training beyond the threshold, inhibiting muscle fiber recruitment and adaptation.
Excessive training results in underloading, overtraining, and excessive fatigue, all of which contribute to reduced benefit.
How we can help: If you are struggling with an injury that is preventing you getting the effective training you want, with equipment like the Delfi P-BFR system, and a physio designed gym kitted out for rehab, start your injury recovery with the best resources by booking a physiotherapy appointment with us today: