You're Probably Undertrained
Like any other athletic activity, lifting weights is a skill. If you want to be any good at it, you have to practice, and you have to specifically practice the skills that you want to improve. It’s such a simple concept, and I’m not sure why it isn’t translated to the weight room from other sports. In high school, you don’t just practice football once per week, you practice multiple times per DAY.
In many training programs, there’s a lot emphasis placed on recovery and not doing too much, often to the detriment of skill development. Have you ever heard statements like “don’t deadlift more than once per week” or “don’t squat heavy except once per month?” These recommendations usually come from a fear of injury or overtraining.
For some people, that may be all they need to get better. I wish I was that person, but I’m not, and you probably aren’t either.
Everyone is different. Some (a minority) of people are “high responders” to training. They learn skills quickly and their bodies adapt and grow with a minimal amount of stimulus. They can get massively strong and well-conditioned with comparatively little training. Using our previous example, deadlifting once per week (or even less) will improve their deadlift.
Others, like me, and probably you too, are lower responders. It takes a lot of work to improve. My deadlift would go DOWN if I only deadlifted once per week or every other week. By training infrequently, we’re reducing our stimulus to improve. Often this is done in fear of overtraining, especially as we get stronger and weights get heavier. But in reality, we’re UNDERTRAINING.
Everyone goes through changes in their response to training throughout their life and training career. When you first start trying to master a new task, you’re a high responder. Think about the first time you went to the gym. It didn’t take much at all to make you horribly sore. Your body responded to minimal stimulus and you got better.
Now, that beginner workout is probably not even a warmup for you. You respond less to the same training now, so you can handle more. You MUST do more to improve, and that doesn’t just mean lift more weight. You need more skill practice too, which means more sets and probably more frequent training.
Another example - I went several years without running much. I lifted 3-4 times per week during that time, and very rarely got sore. The first time I ran again, I was sore for days, and my times improved even running just once per week. I was adapted to lifting, but running was a newer stimulus. Now, after running for months, it doesn’t make me sore any more. If I want to continue to improve my running, I’ll have to gradually increase the training stress to get the same adaptation.
Training is a balancing act between doing too little and doing too much. Here are a few tips to figure out where you are:
Are you constantly sore, or never sore?
What’s your motivation to train on most days?
Is every workout a 10/10 effort, or can you do the workouts in your sleep? Are you somewhere in the middle?
And the most important question….are you improving the things you want to improve?
Use these answers to manipulate your training to get the improvements you want. If you aren’t improving and aren’t beat up and stressed out, you need more training. On the flip side, if you’re constantly beat down and hating training, you need less. Make small changes and monitor your results. A series of small tweaks may improve your rate of progress more than you think.
The longer you wait to start moving toward your goals, the less likely you are to succeed. If you’re looking for a fitness trainer in the Mt Juliet/Hermitage/Nashville TN area, online fitness training, or just need some advice to get your fitness program started, contact me