We’re 2 weeks into Q4 meaning Christmas is just around the corner.
If you’ve been waiting til the new year to get started with making changes, don’t. Think about how much better you’ll feel when it’s Jan 1 and you’ve already ingrained multiple habits and everything is rolling smoothly.
Get a jump on 2023! If you want a free consult with no strings attached, head over to ColinDragon.chat and let’s get started.
The Window
A big reason I never made progress in the gym in my early 20s was that I didn’t understand how to manipulate volume and intensity. I would pick a workout that some bodybuilder wrote (shoutout Bodybuilding.com) and do it with maximal intensity until I got hurt.
I’d throw that workout away out of frustration, find a new workout and repeat the process.
It wasn’t until years later, when I read this article from Bret Contreras that it all clicked for me. I assumed getting into shape was about pushing your body to the brink. That way it would adapt and the brink would keep getting pushed further and further.
No. The goal is to get in, send a stimulus to your muscles to grow by doing as little as possible (while still getting the maximal stimulus you can recover from), and get out. Rest and recover so you’re 100% for your next workout. The chart below illustrates this perfectly.
The stimulus in the gym breaks down the muscle. You go home and allow your muscles time to recover, but also to grow. This is where a lot of people miss the mark. Recovering back to baseline = spinning your wheels. You need to allow your body enough time to recover AND adapt. Otherwise…
This is where you feel burnt out and/or get injured. Doing too much.
But how much is too much? That’s a really difficult question to answer. Bret does an amazing job in the article I linked above. (I joke that I learned more from that blog post than my entire PT cert!)
It turns out there’s a window for volume and intensity. It’s the goldilocks problem. If you don’t do enough in the gym, nothing is going to happen. But the same is true if you do too much.
Too little stimulus won’t lead to any growth. Too much of a stimulus will do too much damage and your body won’t be able to recover in time for your next workout. This generally causes a vicious cycle where you spin your wheels until you get hurt.
Homeostasis Is Where The Heart Is
The reason that this is so hard to figure out though is that the window moves. Your body is a dynamic system so fucking with it will of course produce a response.
(And yes, lifting weights in order to add muscle, lose fat, or change your body composition absolutely falls under the umbrella of “fucking with it”.)
Finding the goldilocks amount of volume and intensity will result in muscular growth and strength gains.
When you start out the window is wide open. Pretty much anything you do will result in gains. You can show up and do goofy shit and your body is going to adapt. It’ll grow and progress.
It’s because in the beginning, your central nervous system handles the growth and adaptation. It’s freaking the fuck out and throwing resources at the problem of all the muscle damage trying to fix it and make sure it doesn’t happen again.
But after a while it becomes the new normal and your CNS doesn’t feel like it’s in danger anymore so it chills out and your progress slows down.
As your body adapts and you get stronger, you need to continue progressing the weight. And sometimes you have to increase your volume and or intensity as well to stay within that window. If you have ever plateau’d in your progress, this is what happened.
You squeezed what you could out of that particular window. If you want to continue progressing, you have to adjust. This can be difficult though because you can’t really progress indefinitely.
As you get stronger or add muscle to your body, you get closer and closer to your genetic potential. As you get closer, it gets harder. Just like in a video game. The closer you get to the end, the more difficult it gets.
You have to learn new moves and techniques to continue to advance. What got you here, won’t take you to the next level.
Learn What Your Body Responds To
There’s a million ways to manipulate volume and intensity. Don’t get caught in the more weight, more reps, no days off mentality. You don’t need to go from 3 days a week to 4 days a week to progress.
I’ll write a post about that another time. I’ve found that my body does not respond well to additional volume. There’s a set amount I can recover from each week and reader it is not much lol. Ya boy does not have elite weightlifting genetics.
But my body responds FAST to increased intensity. What your body needs to push through the plateau is probably what you haven’t been doing much of. If you’ve been lifting heavy with long rest periods for months or years, switch it up. Increase the reps, throw some supersets or conditioning in there.
Consistency is the key to success, but complacency kills progress. Don’t confuse the two.
I Laughed
I’m catching up on season 3 of Atlanta. The first episode was super weird and I was disappointed and I’m a dumb dumb so I let that derail me from watching the rest and omg was I wrong.
Episode 7 of this season was one of my fav episodes of TV in a long time. They do this thing with 1 off episodes where none of the main characters are involved. There’s usually 1-2 per season and they’re the perfect mix of confusing, surreal, and absurd. But it’s always a cultural critique on racism and my god is it good. Even when they beat you over the head with it it doesn’t feel heavy handed. It’s wild.
I’m not gonna belabor the point but if you haven’t watched Atlanta yet, you’re seriously missing out.
Let me tell you, I am not on the side of the French, but I’m here for this.
I think Natalie wrote this tweet lol. Except she would have turned around and watched intently.
Hahahaha “make believe groceries” sent me.
Lol so much European humor in the tweets today. It’s because I’m very cosmopolitan.
That’s all for this week!
Hope you have an amazing start to your Monday and a bang-up week full of productivity and success or lounging and relaxation! Whatever is on your schedule.
Interesting! I wonder what other kinds of improvement you could apply this to?