The classic cliche when it comes to training is not wanting to do it… making any excuse to avoid getting up and getting some work done.
There’s another side of that coin though, the ones who love training and want to do it every day. That leads us to the question ‘how much training is too much?’ Is there such a thing? If there is, at what point do we know it, and how can we avoid it in the first place?
Let’s see what the science says…
What Factors Determine Rest and Recovery Requirements?
Training Load…
The first question to answer is one of training load - how much volume are you doing? Not all training demands a lot of your body. For example, you’d struggle to run a marathon every day, but a daily dog walk along a short, flat route isn’t going to take too much out of you.
Training load does place a lot of demand on your body. Even if the intensity isn’t particularly high, the overall load and volume adds up. Many bodybuilders don’t train at a high intensity, opting for volume over weight, which has been linked to hypertrophic gains. Although they may not be lifting to muscular failure, they’re repeating lots of repetitions and that needs recovery time.
Training Intensity…
The same goes for intensity - if you’re going all out doing a high intensity weight lifting workout, training your whole body with a high volume of heavy weight, high intensity lifts you’re going to need to recover for a while. You’re unlikely to be able to lift to your maximum for set after set, day after day.
Powerlifting training rarely has an athlete gasping for breath, but the sheer load of work done by the CNS (central nervous system) can cause a syndrome known as CNS Fatigue, which can take time to recover from depending on the severity of the case.
Training History…
The other factor is training history. Your body adapts to the demands placed upon it and therefore the longer your training history, the more likely you are to cope with higher volume and intensity. Muscle tissue, connective tissue and cardiovascular systems all adapt to training, so the more you do, the more you’ll be able to do.
There’s also a legacy benefit from training as well. The concept of ‘muscle memory’ has been debated for years, but there’s now evidence that suggests historical training benefits do exist, suggesting that if you’ve trained extensively in the past, you’ll be able to adapt to a higher training load quicker than someone without a training history.
How Do You Monitor Training Intensity?
The most accessible way for most people to monitor their training intensity is with a heart rate monitor. Most of them are pretty good, but the Polar heart rate monitor ranges tend to be the best - they usually score highest in accuracy test and are used by athletes, labs and sports scientists the world over. This one is a good multi-use monitor that will look at heart rate, calorie burn, steps, recovery rate etc. It’s a good way of keeping an eye on training intensity.
The other way is intrinsic. You’ll feel when you’re tired and need a break. This one isn’t an exact science, and with that in mind I’d always suggest you go with the heart rate monitor first (and as well), because there’s a tendency to give up before we need to. What I like about the heart rate monitor is that there’s no hiding place - it’ll tell you how hard you’re working, so you’ve got no excuse when it comes to giving up prematurely!
Maximising Recovery
More training means you’ll need better, deeper recovery. There’s a lot of products that will help with recovery, but the biggest impact you can make comes from a couple of things - maximising your sleep and ensuring you’re getting enough protein and carbohydrates to repair and refuel after training. High quality sleep and nutrition are the two bedrocks of recovery, so get these right and everything else will fall into place for you.
Your ability to train depends on your ability to recover, so the answer to the question ‘how much training is too much?’ is purely dependent on how well recovered you are. If you’re recovering well and balancing your training between high and low intensity work, there’s theoretically nothing wrong with training every day. Don’t try to push to a maximum every day, instead put a few ‘active recovery’ days where you still move, but at a low enough intensity to ensure you’re recovered fully.
The problem occurs when your training outstrips your ability to recover.
If you’re looking for personal training in East London, get in touch…
At AdMac Fitness we’re not about fads, fashions and short term fixes. We want you to succeed properly over the long term, so with our help and advice you can get your fitness back on track! If you’d like us to help you, contact us on 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!