Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2312: Five Steps to Bounce Back From Overtraining

Episode Date: April 11, 2024

Understanding the difference between what’s optimal, what’s tolerable, and what’s beyond that. (1:51) How healing/recovery is different than adapting. (4:15) The importance of consistency over intensity. (7:12) Signs of overtraining. (9:32) Five Steps to Bounce Back from Overtraining #1 - Take a week off. (16:10) #2 - Get good sleep. (19:54) #3 - Bump calories (protein). (22:55) #4 - Come back with half volume. (24:20) #5 - SLOWLY increase volume (setsXrepsXweight). (26:43) Related Links/Products Mentioned Visit Eight Sleep for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump Listeners! ** Get $200 off plus free shipping on the Pod Cover by Eight Sleep. Stay cool this summer with Eight Sleep, now shipping within the USA, Canada, the UK, select countries in the EU, and Australia! ** April Promotion: MAPS Anywhere | MAPS HIIT 50% off! ** Code APRIL50 at checkout ** The Breakdown Recovery Trap, Why You Aren’t Progressing Mind Pump #1142: Nine Signs You Are Overtraining Why Training to Failure and Deloading is the Best Way to Gain Muscle Cabral Concept 2526: Use the 3-2-1 Formula for Best Sleep Results (TT) Muscular Potential Calculator | MAPS Fitness Products Resistance Training Volume Enhances Muscle Hypertrophy but Not Strength in Trained Men Muscle fiber hypertrophy in response to 6 weeks of high-volume resistance training in trained young men is largely attributed to sarcoplasmic hypertrophy Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources  

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump with your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast. This is mind pump, right? Today's episode, five steps to bounce back from over training. Now this episode is brought to you by a sponsor, Eight Sleep. This is the most advanced sleep system you'll find anywhere. It goes over your bed and it controls the temperature of your bed and it uses AI technology to read how you're sleeping and it adjusts it according to

your sleep. It literally adjusts itself to make you sleep better. This is super advanced amazing stuff there's nothing like it anywhere else. Go check it out go to 8sleep.com forward slash mind pump that'd be $200 off and free shipping on the pod cover by 8sleep. Also we have a sale this month on some programs. Maps anywhere in Maps hit both 50% off. You can find them both by going to mapsfitnessproducts.com but you have to use the code April 50 for that discount. Maps anywhere in Maps hit both 50% off you can find them both by going to mapsfitnessproducts.com But you have to use the code April 50 for that discount. All right, here comes the show One of the most frustrating things you can encounter when you're a consistent fitness fanatic is

over training almost everybody who works out Religiously will run into this problem in today's episode. We to talk about the five steps you can take to bounce right back. This is a good one because we've actually been talking a lot I feel like about over training, overreaching and I've personally so I don't know what this prompted this for you but I've been getting a lot of DMs and people asking okay well yeah yeah what do I do there or what are like what are the best things to do if I'm one of these people? And so I think this has been needed to address this.

Yeah, really the understanding around this is, one of the best ways to communicate this, I think, is to kind of understand the difference between what's optimal, what's tolerable, and then what's beyond that, right? So optimal, when it comes to exercise, is the right dose that will produce the best results, okay? And this is different from person to person,

but there is a perfect dose. And the perfect dose will get you the best results, just across the board. There's nothing you can do better with your workout than what is the optimal dose. Now beyond that is when you start to reach something called your tolerable dose, meaning your optimal is here, but there's, I can definitely get away with doing more, but now what I'm doing is I'm

taking away at the progress I can make. I'm actually reducing the results that I can get. So now my body is using more resources for healing than it is for adapting. Now, if I push that too long or go beyond that, then I really go back and I start to go backwards, which is where people start to realize, Oh, I'm doing too much. I think we also have to address the relationship with adaptation and stress too. Right? So we understand that that exercise is a stress.

And so it's a, it's a good stress. And there's a lot of different types of stress that our body is so it's a good stress. And there's a lot of different types of stress that our body is perceiving on a daily basis. And there's a direct relationship with that and the recovery process and the adaptation process. And so it's kind of a moving target. It's not as simple as like, oh, this amount of exercises per day, per week, you know, is what's perfect or optimal for me. It could be that week, and then the next week,

it actually could be different. So understanding that this is kind of a forever moving target, and you want to learn how to be able to read these signs that your body's trying to tell you that, hey, you're overreaching. Now that you know how to read that, okay, now what do I do to correct that? Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, are you just recovering to heal the damage that you inflicted upon yourself from your training? So you hit a neutral point or are you actually recovering to the point where you're adapting and progressing forward? And there's two different, those are two different mentalities and like something you need to like really ask yourself in terms of your programming and your training. Are you moving forward or are you just maintaining based off

of, or even declining if you're doing too much? Yeah, that was the big aha moment for me is when I realized that healing or recovery was different than adapting. There's some crossover there, but healing and recovery is getting you back to where you were before. So if I scrape my skin, my body's going to heal that and replace what was lost. Now, above and beyond that would be adaptation. That's where my skin then develops another layer or two to toughen itself in anticipation of it getting scraped again, right?

So over time, I would develop a cataract skin then develops another layer or two to toughen itself in anticipation of it getting scraped again, right? And so over time I would develop a callus. Now what happens is if I damage or scrape my skin too often or too hard, or basically if I do too much to my body, more than my body can adapt from, all it can do is worry about recovery. It's just going heal heal heal heal And so you end up in this, you know, I used to call us the breakdown recovery trap, right?

Where you go to the gym you get sore Soreness goes away. You go back to the gym. You get sore soreness goes away. Meanwhile, you're not stronger Your body's not progressing you're using the same 20 pound dumbbells the same barbell Everything looks the same and just kind of staying the same. And then eventually if you push this long enough, you start to kind of go backwards. And then what people tend to do is add more volume, more training, thinking more is the answer when it's the exact opposite of what they need to do. I think part of the problem is some of us, the fitness leaders in this space have perpetuated

this message around glorifying failure training and no days off and pushing the intensity lever on people all time and making it with the motivation and the hype and I mean I fell into that as a young teenager who was starting to lift thinking that like I wasn't training what's keeping me from looking like this is I've got to train harder more often and more consistent and that's why he looks this way and I don't look that way. And you just get stuck in that recovery trap that you're talking about where you're constantly just tearing and breaking down while you're simultaneously not recovering or feeding the body properly. And so the body's just

at this hard plateau, yet you're putting in all this work. And I think this happens to some degree to all people in this pursuit. Absolutely. Yeah. Especially if you're consistent, this is what you tend to run into where you just, you're just, you slowly over time surpass what's optimal and you get into tolerable. And meanwhile, you're not progressing at all. And then when you get extra stress from life, from life, all of a sudden you dip into this like negative results.

And then you say to yourself, how's this possible? I was always able to do this workout before. Um, and now all of a sudden I can't do it now all of a sudden, um, uh, this is causing problems. So this is an important thing to understand if you're looking for results. Now, if you just want to go to the gym and work out, then it doesn't matter. But if you're looking for results, then you want to definitely listen up. The other thing too, you mentioned it, our space, the fitness space. When, and I can speak to this because we're in the space, okay, in the sense

that I know fitness influencers. I know people on Instagram with large followers. I know these people that have huge followings because of how amazing they look or how well they perform. And when they post their workouts, okay, they do not post their everyday workouts. They're posting the highlight reel workout. They're posting this workout, I crushed it. PR's.

And that is not what their workouts normally look like. In fact, and we know this, what's crazy is we know this. You look at professional sports, right, the top, top level of physical performance. Athletes have an off season and they have a pre-season. They do not train like at their hardest level all the time. If they did, they would totally break down. They don't train to compete every workout.

You can't. You just can't maintain that. No. As much as your body will revolt. No, and also a workout you toler, this week because you pushed the limit and you're like, wow, I could do a lot. That starts to compound. And so this is why cycling your intensity and your volume, by the way, this doesn't

mean, and this is the similar conversation that we've had in the past about resting in between sets, like it's not because you have to rest. That's what makes strength training, strength training. That's what makes you build muscle. You don't have to cycle down your volume and your training. Cause otherwise you're going to hurt yourself or whatever you will if you keep pushing it. But really if you do this right, it'll perpetuate progress, right? You'll continue to improve.

You won't hit these plateaus until you start to reach that genetic limit, which is, I mean, that, that would take years to, uh, to get to. you'll continue to improve. You won't hit these plateaus until you start to reach that genetic limit, which is, I mean, that, that would take years to, uh, to get to. I can't, I can't stress how much more important consistency is over intensity. And I just don't think that's the messaging. I think the messaging has been about intensity over, over consistency. It's like, you're far better off, you know, reducing the intensity by 50%. Go 50% less hard.

And never miss. But don't miss. And that's going to pay you way more returns than you trying to go as hard as you can, as fast as you can, for as long as you can, because eventually you hit a wall, and you either one get hurt or the progress stalls, and then this is where people get frustrated and throw their arms up.

It's like, man, I'm, I'm killing myself. I'm going so, so hard, so consistently. And then I'm not seeing the results. The key of the best answer to this would be to avoid over training before you get there. Okay. But here's, here's the deal. It's hard to do right.

Our egos get in the way workouts feel good, especially if you love the workout itself, like I do. And so I always cross the line before I realize, Oh, I should have cycled volume down and stuff like that. So we're going to talk about what happened in this episode, what you do when you're already overtrained. But ideally speaking, you should cycle intensity. Like we have a lot of maps programs.

Uh, many of our mass programs, you should not follow over and over and over again. We've designed them so you go from one to the other so that you go through these ebbs and flows of volume and intensity and frequency so that you avoid this. So that's the key. The key is to avoid this in the first place. But now that you're here, some of the signs that you'll probably see that you know relate to over training are obviously stalled progress. So if you were progressing and then all of a sudden it's like the brakes were, were, were hit and it's like, nothing's happening.

I'm not moving forward. In fact, here's a real good one. You actually start to move back a little bit. So it's like, wow, I didn't get stronger. Got weaker. For the last four weeks, I actually lost a rep or two on my lifts. Uh-oh. Like that's a really strong sign of over training. Hot and cold intolerance is another one.

You'll notice that, uh, you just, you need to work in more jackets or you feel more overheated out in the sun. All of a sudden you just start to, your tolerance for, for hot and cold start to become worse. Your sleep is affected. In fact, this is one of the first signs. Restless nights. Yes, this is one of the first signs they find in studies

is that athletes or people who train hard all of a sudden will have trouble sleeping and they'll start to reach for more sleep aids and things that help them sleep. That's a sign typically. A lot of those like joint pain and different like tightness and things like you'll notice. I notice all the time when I go to sleep,

it exaggerates then. Yeah, more inflammation in general is a sign of overtraining. Yeah, or just general fatigue even all day. Just feeling fatigued and wore down all the time. Low libido would be another one. Your normal, whatever your normal libido is, all of a sudden you're just like way lower.

Cravings, cravings is a sign of just over training and over stress in general. And it's just because your body is seeking temporary comfort and cravings are different than hunger. A craving is like, I mean, I think, I think people know this when they hear it, but it's like, man, I'm really craving this specific type of food category, like sugar. Sugar, comfort foods. Yes. Like hyper palatable processed foods,

which we typically crave all the time anyway, they taste good, but all of a sudden your cravings are like ravenous, like what is wrong with me, why am I craving these things? And it's not satisfied with like a healthy meal, it's more like I need this hyper palatable food. That's the cravings I'm talking about. I think the point too of sharing this is not that

that is like this direct correlation always with that. It's that it could be these, some of these signals obviously. You have more than one of these signs. Right. Cause obviously low libido could be testosterone related. Obviously cravings for certain foods can mean you have a deficiency in nutrients. So for all the trainer dorks that are sitting there going, well,

that doesn't necessarily mean that it's not that. I'm glad you said that you were to list these all down and you were to say, and you were to check them off and you notice like three of them or four of them, they were true for you, then you're probably likely overtrade. To me, it's normally paired with stalled progress. All of them that we listed is almost always paired with stalled. Not always, but most always paired with stalled progress. Because this is what sends me down the question of like, or questioning my client, like, Oh, what else are you noticing? And then I start to piece it together. Like that's part of our jobs as guides for, for clients is to be able to gather this data and information that they're feeding you and then come to a conclusion

because you're not in their body. So I have to get their feedback. And if a client's frustrated because they're not seeing results for the last, you know, three weeks in a row or what like that, and they're telling me, I've been following the diet, I'm asking these questions. And if I start noticing like, oh, or this or that. We got to define progress too, by the way, because if your idea of progress is the scale going down, you could very well be over training and be losing things like muscle and weight because you're starving yourself. I like strength because everything else has to be going right. You have to have a lot of things

balanced and in your favor to get strong. You just can't have these factors against you in order to get strong. It's just not going to work. And that's why I say paired with that, right? That's normally the first red flag is that- What else is happening? Yeah, a client will complain to you that progress is stalled, meaning progress in the weight room, not getting any stronger, or I'm potentially going backwards, and they're looking at you, what's going on? And then it's like, okay, let me ask these other questions.

Then I start to compile like, oh wow, maybe we're overreaching right now. It's like your check engine light, that's if the strength is stalled or if it's going down. But I like performance type progress as a gauge for progress and not the scale. Because the scale, a lot of people are so, you know, I've had clients where if the scale goes down, they will ignore all other signs. Oh, I feel fine.

I'm because they're happy. Right. The scale is going down. So the progress I like to measure is performance in the gym. Is it all of a sudden you can't do as many reps, you can't lift as much weight. You're not moving as quickly. It's like, you can't do as many reps, you can't lift as much weight, you're not moving as quickly, it's like you can't get through the workout that you could get through before,

like those are the signs of- This is true, but I do wanna point out that stalled fat loss is also part of this category. Right, because imagine like, for us, in order for us to maintain strength and lose body fat, we oughta have a lot of things really in balance. And if you start to lose or you don't see yourself losing any fat anymore, there's a good chance sometimes

that you could be over training and the body's just, it's trying to defend itself because like, oh my God, they're starving me, they're overstressing me, they're over training me, like, and so it's gonna conserve energy and hold on. And a lot of times that is one of the signs that, oh, wow, we're not seeing the results. Such a good point.

And you're talking pure body fat. It's such a good point because body fat is one of your body's number one insurance mechanisms against the, the, the dangers of the world. Like if right now there was a major calamity and all of a sudden, no, there was no food available, like obese people would outlive people who were super lean because they'd have all this stored energy, right? So that's that high, too much stress on the body, your inability to recover from it and adapt is telling your body, yeah, you're in danger and we don't want to

burn body. And what it'll actually do is it'll actually organize its hormones in a way towards fat storage in order to make that happen. And of course it'll change your behaviors and all that so alright so the first step you should take if this is you and you're like yeah I'm clearly over training this one's not the first step is the hardest one okay but this is the best thing you should do first and that is to take a week off now here's the problem when I tell people this they go okay so go to take a week off. Now here's the problem. When I tell people this, they go, okay, so go easy for a week or, okay, so just kind of go lighter or, you know, do no, no, no, nothing.

Take a week off. Now the reason why I say that is because by the time somebody's here with over training, they've dug such a deep hole that it takes a week of nothing for the body just to start to compensate and start to bring that level back up so then you can move back into adaptation. Simply reducing volume or simply going easier, that can work but it takes a lot longer to work. You end up finding that the person has to do that

for a long time before they start to catch up. Whereas when I had people just take a week off and then we come back and there's some other stuff we need to do. It's a good litmus test to see what happens the following week. You'll come back stronger. That's almost always what happens. You'll take that week off and come back and there's some other stuff we need to do. It's a good litmus test to see what happens the following week. You'll come back stronger. That's almost always what happens.

You'll take that week off and come back. No, I do want to define what that week off looks like. So people, cause I feel like you get to both ends of the spectrum, then you tell people to take a week off and they completely eat like an asshole. Yeah, yeah. It's like, so there is like this, there is like, like it's a week.

Let's define it. Right. There's a, there is a, it's a week off of intense, intense training or training many times at all, because the body is, like you said, trying to recover. You just stay active. Right. I typically would prescribe us to, I would normally move that person if they were in

a caloric deficit, right? Let's say our fat loss is stalled. Oh, we'll get there for sure. Right. So I want to feed them and keep them moving for that week. It's just like just moving, like walking, stretching. I love recovery things. So if they're doing like yoga, meditative stuff, mobility, like, so I like them to still be moving,

but I also want the types of movements and the things that we're doing is to promote recovery. You don't take a week. Yeah. And the diet is a good one. Cause a lot of people pair training with diet in this sense that if they're consistent with their workouts, their diets are on point. When they miss workouts, it's like, well then screw it and the diet goes way off. So you take that week off, still eat healthy. You still want to eat healthy.

Healthy eating is going to help with recovery and repair. And then also be active in the sense that, you know, I remember this as a kid, when I learned about this, I went in the extreme. I thought, oh, that means I should work out and then don't move at all. Right. Not moving at all also sends a negative signal to the body to start to atrophy

muscle. So you take the week off from workouts, but you don't just sit on the couch or lay in bed, unless you're like sick or whatever you go out and you have an hour workout typically at that time of the day. No, I'm going to go do an hour walk. Yeah. I mean, it's some sunlight, get some nature, fresh air. Yeah.

Do something, uh, stimulating that direction. Cause you know, you're going to get a lot of benefit even just from the vitamin D. Yeah. I'm actually starting to incorporate more of this. I recently took four days off in a row on purpose and I came back and I'm stronger and better pumps. I mean, that's, that's what you'll experience after this week off, by the way, that'll tell you pretty clearly. You definitely needed it. That's how I mean, to mean, that's what you'll experience after this week off. By the way, that'll tell you pretty clearly, you definitely needed it.

That's how, I mean, to me, that's how we always, because you're not, I'm not always a hundred percent right as a coach, right? Like I don't always, I think, like I gather all this data and then I determine like what I think is the best approach to what I'm, what are the feedback I'm getting from my client. If I go and I do this, where I give them this week off, make sure they're fed properly, make sure they're doing some recovery movement, but not over training, not eating like

an asshole. If we did it correctly, when they come back, they always love that first workout back. Meaning they're like, oh my God, I felt so good or oh my God, I was stronger than I expected. And in that first week back, we see some sort of strength gain and, or the response from them telling me how amazing they feel That's normally my sign that okay. I was right. That was what we needed to do, right?

Now the next thing to do and you kind of want to do this Simultaneously and then again continue this is to get your sleep in order get really good sleep prioritize Getting at least eight hours of sleep every night. Uh, you know, preparing for bed an hour before bed, meaning you don't eat, you're not in bright lights. You're kind of relaxing, letting the body kind of come down. You're not eating within two hours of sleep. You're making sure everything's optimized in your room just to get really,

really good sleep because nothing will make you over train faster than getting poor sleep. Meaning I can take the most advanced athlete or the most genetically gifted person and I can have them sleep just five hours a night for two weeks. And I don't care what workout you put them through, they'll over train. So this has such a profound effect. In fact, there are times when all I had a client do was get a couple of nights of good sleep and all of a sudden the recovery went through the roof. So this is a big one, and nothing,

nothing will contribute to good or bad recovery like good or bad sleep. This is almost always connected to this too. Somebody who's over training is also, is almost always having a really hard time with getting good sleep. Like this becomes, and this is why I really like the advice too

that Justin gave too about getting out and getting in the sunlight and doing like mobility or doing something so you're still creating movement so that they're not like sedentary. Because sometimes being sedentary all day, especially like if you're in here with artificial light, like we are, it's hard for me to get into my sleep routine. So getting out and seeing, getting sunlight early on the day,

doing some sort of movement activity. So I don't feel like my body hasn't been used or worked all day long. And then making sure that I apply the same attention to detail as I do for my morning routine that I now do for my evening routine, as far as getting ready to go to bed. Well, and to a lot of the, a lot of cases like this of people that I've dealt with that are masking a lot of the symptoms by compensating with caffeine and pre-workouts

and all these things. So if you can sort of cycle that out, drink a lot of water, especially if you're really focused on sleep, maybe this is the time to really dwindle that down for that week and then see if that also was covering up some of the other symptoms. What a great point.

I'm so glad you said that too because we didn't list that in this and that is actually up there too because that much caffeine could be overstimulating you, right? And so then it's just another- Adds more stress. Yeah, it's another thing that's adding more stress

and so reducing that while also doing that could be a huge red flag to you. It's actually the best week to do it because a lot of fitness fanatics connect their caffeine intake to the workouts. Either it's a pre-workout or coffee before. So now's a good time to kind of lower that, which also contributes to good sleep. And then you say going outside, getting sunlight earlier in the day helps with

your circadian rhythm at night. And then if you're going to invest in any recovery tool, which we're not covering this episode, but I will say this, recovery tools that improve your sleep are the ones that are going to make the biggest impact. So if you're going to go with a recovery tool, go with the ones that help you sleep better. The next one is to bump your calories, especially protein intake. So protein is, these are the building blocks of tissue in the body. Okay.

You need to have protein in order to repair and in order to adapt. And you need more calories to also do this. If you under eat, you can almost under eat yourself into over training state, regardless of what your workout looks like. Now there's an old saying, there's no such thing as over training. There's only under eating. That's not entirely true, but there is some truth in it. Now power lifters and strength athletes notice that if they bump their calories,

they can handle way more volume and way more intensity. That's where that phrase came from. There's a recovery element there. It's not a hundred percent true because you could over-train regardless of how much you eat, but there is some truth to it. So at this point, whatever your calories were at, start to bump them up a little bit, especially if you're in a deficit, if you're in a deficit, then bring yourself out of that deficit so you could repair your body and get out of

over training. Again, I'm going to keep hammering the whole stress thing. You have to understand too, if that you are in a caloric deficit, it's another stressor that you're adding. And if we are, if the overtraining is what we think is going on here, we're trying to look at all like the low-hanging fruit stressors that you're already causing on the body. Being in a caloric deficit, especially for an extended period of time, is another one of those. So simply by giving your body what it needs or even a slight surplus

in that is optimal for you to get out of this slump. It is. Now people are like, okay what do I do when I come back? Do I just jump back in to my workout? No, because you will quickly go back to where you were before. When you come back, come back with half the volume. So take your total volume and just cut it in half. Whether that be the sets or the exercise or whatever, just cut it in half and start there. Now this is again not because you got to go backwards or we need to reduce you know we're gonna slow down our progress. Remember the reason why you're here is because you stopped progressing to begin with. You're not going to go

backwards by doing this. In fact, like clockwork, okay, I'll say nine out of 10 times, 90% of the time this come back with half volume ends up giving my clients or myself either close to or new PRs in their lifts. It's like, boom, they start to blow up in terms of the progress. Part of the reason why you constantly hear me say this on the podcast, that the goal is to do as little as possible to elicit the most amount of change is part of that is me talking to myself, right? I know it's like, I continually say that because I know what a challenge that is. Like I'm just as guilty as everybody else is of falling out of like my routine,

not training for a couple weeks and then coming back or taking a week off like this and then coming back and thinking that I need to do all these things and being wrong every time, going and getting done with that workout and then feeling myself like crippling sore the next day. And it's just this consistent reminder of like, I didn't need to do that. And I always know like, like I'm doing it and there's always this moment in the workout when I'm lifting consistent reminder of like, I didn't need to do that. And I always know, like I'm doing it and there's always this moment in the workout when I'm lifting and I'm like, ah, I could probably cut it off right here,

but I feel so good, let me do another set. And that's why I can relate to our clientele because I know that goes through everybody else's head when they're training and they feel so good and I could easily do one more set, but it's not about that I could go do another set. It's that what's optimal for myself. I haven't been training for the last week

or potentially longer if somebody's falling off. It's not about that. 100%, and there's a belief that extra volume, so long as you can tolerate it, is innocuous. In other words, well, what's the big deal? I like to work out a lot. Even if I get the same results, I'd rather work out more than less to get the same

results because I love spending time in the gym. It doesn't work that way. More than optimal means you get less results. So it doesn't, it's not like, oh, I can just get away with doing more and it's the same as doing less. Now I get to spend more time in the gym. You're literally going to give yourself worse results by doing more than what is optimal.

It's important to understand that. Lastly, so you've come back with half volume. All right, what's the plan? After a week or two, do I jump back to what I did before? Again, the answer is no. Now this was an absolute game changer for me so late in my own workout career that I'm frustrated that I didn't understand this earlier. The way that I used to increase volume when I understood over training and I take a week off and I do all these things, then I come back

with half volume is I just would say to myself like, oh cool, I did have volume. I feel good. Let me do some more. And I'd work out and I'd be like, yeah, I feel good. Let me add another couple of steps. I would, I would not incrementally increase volume. It very quickly jumped back to what I was doing before. There is a formula for you to be able to figure out what your total volume is.

Now the way I messed up before was I only looked at sets. I only looked at total sets. If I did 20 sets versus 15 sets versus whatever, then that was my total volume. It's not true. It's actually sets times reps times weight that was lifted. So in other words, 20 reps with in a squat with 300 pounds for three sets is going to be more volume than six sets with 500 pounds for two reps. Even though I did six sets with the 500 pounds,

the total volume with the 20 rep sets of squats is way more damaging on the body. Now I use those extremes cause I think everybody can imagine what it would feel like to do three sets of 20 hard reps versus just six sets of two reps, right? It feels very different, but it's important to understand this because when you take this, now what you do is every week you go up just a little bit in volume, not all very incrementally. Now you can, regardless if you're low rep, and this by the way allows you to adjust your sets based off of your reps and your weight. So if I all of a sudden bump the weight up and go

low rep, I can figure out my volume and I can say, oh I need to do this many more sets to equal the volume of last week or whatever. It allows you to calculate, well that's not perfect, but within the realm of what's reasonable, this is a great way to track. I still apply the least amount possible for the most amount of change, right? No matter what. You still apply that philosophy here,

and sometimes the least is nothing. I think that's a part that some people need to learn to accept and it's okay. You don't have to, week over week, always add weight, add sets, add reps. If you're seeing, in fact, I don't wanna mess with it. My goal is to just not go backwards in volume. If I'm seeing progress, if I'm seeing, in fact, I don't want to mess with it. My goal is to just not go backwards in volume. If I'm seeing progress, if I'm chasing aesthetics because that's my competition or if

it's strength, I'm going that route, whatever I'm pursuing, if I feel like my body is making progress in that direction, even if it's incremental and small, I'm just not going, I just don't want to reduce volume or anything. I'm going gonna leave it until I start to see that progress slow down and then I'm gonna barely move it up and I'm gonna keep playing that game of doing as little as possible, letting myself stay there with that much volume, okay, it looks like I've gotten the most from that volume, let's go a little bit more

volume and then just incrementally moving it up over time. So you're constantly seeing this nice progress. This is maturity and it's really difficult. Like this is a whole nother discipline on its own to be able to taper off and realize what is my best dose for my body? Where am I actually progressing and adapting? Because yes, initially it's a really big discipline

to be able to handle intensity and to be able to handle volume and to get to the gym. And there's different challenges I think in everybody's journey as they mature discipline to be able to handle intensity and to be able to handle volume and to get to the gym. And, you know, there's different challenges, I think, in everybody's journey as they mature with lifting weights. And this is like black belt status almost for some people where it's like you get so addicted, not addicted is the word, but like very motivated and you get into the gym and

you want to do your routine, you want want to crush but it's not benefiting you anymore You know I know this analogy sucks if you if you're not familiar with the sport and you've never tried to play it But it's just there's so many parallels to to this this game as a golf swing to me Like if all the sports that I've ever played in my life try harder Yeah, like like learning to swing a golf club probably the closest is the hardest fucking thing I've ever done. It's the most frustrating and yet can be most rewarding when you hit it just right. The sweet spot.

But it's like, that's how like that's it. And it's so there's so many moving parts in the golf swing. You literally are activated from your neck all the way down to your toes. And everything has to be in this beautiful uniform like for it to just- There's an optimal amount of- There is just the right amount. And a little too much, and it makes it- And it goes off course. Way off course.

And sometimes going a lot easier and being consistent with the swing will send that ball way further than your hardest gripping and swing. And so it reminds me so much of mastering the swing of a club and that learning curve that you go through that process of like, you can't just muscle your way to- More is not better. No, and it's not that simple to that. You could just, just because you know how to do it now,

or you know some things about it, like you figured it all out, it's like, it's kind of always changing a little bit. There's always other little variables and it's like, that's what golf reminds me of, why it's so frustrating and yet rewarding at the same time. Look, if you want better results, if you want more muscle, more fat loss, better performance, then listen to what we're saying. That's the point. And just to cap this off, there's lots of studies on this.

This isn't just based on our cumulative, I don't know how many years, combined almost 70 years of experience. You've got a lot of anecdotes, for sure. But there's data, like, there was, I mean, one of the best studies was the one that compared the two groups of men, one group worked out for three weeks, took a week off, three weeks, a week off, three weeks, a week off.

The other group worked out every single week. At the end of the 18 weeks, I think it was 18 or 16 or 18 week study, they built the same muscle. They built the same muscle. And one group had a cumulative of a month, like a month off. 25% less, they literally worked out 75% of the time the other group did, they built the same muscle.

Then there's other more intricate and more specific studies on strength athletes where their deload week, so a deload week is what strength athletes would consider like, oh, this is how I'm going to prevent over training. This is my recovery week. They look at strength gains and muscle building. The deload week is where most of it happens, not during the most intense week. So if you want the best results, then you need to contend with this problem.

Look, if you love the show, head over to mindpumpfree.com and check out some of our free fitness guides. We have a lot of fitness guides and they can help you with your health and fitness goals. You can also find us on Instagram. Justin is at Mind Pump. Justin, I'm at Mind Pump. DeStefano and Adam is at Mind Pump.

Adam. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Super Bundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Super Bundle includes maps anabolic, maps performance, and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam, and Justin

to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Super Bundle is like having Sal, Adam, and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Super Bundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com.

If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a 5-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing MindPump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time, this is MindPump.