Many people tend to despair after spending a long time training and not seeing any progress, especially if you change your training routine hoping to get better results.
There is currently a lot of debate about what are the factors that influence a good workout. For example: how often you exercise, the correct amount of training volume, and how long to rest between sets of an exercise.
In this case, we can learn much more from strength training if we take into account the reasons why we do not progress, either because we do not increase the number of repetitions with a certain weight or because we are unable to increase the weight of the bar.
Why do n't we always progress when we change our training routine ? We provide you with a series of tips to help you find where your mistake is.
1. Why shouldn't you change your training yet?
There are three reasons why we may feel unable to increase the number of repetitions with a given weight or the amount of weight in a workout.
1.1 Inadequate training stimulus
Previous training was not sufficient to cause a large enough stimulus to high-threshold motor units, with the result that muscle protein synthesis rates did not rise long enough or our ability to recruit motor units did not increase (or both). As a consequence, no adaptations occur, both in the muscle and in the central nervous system, and this results in a lack of strength gain.
1.2 A bad recovery
The training above was good enough to cause a boost that resulted in strength gains, but it also caused a substantial amount of muscle damage. Such damage caused a significant reduction in the ability of the trained muscle to produce force, which lasted until the next exercise was performed (in addition, this muscle damage may or may not have caused central fatigue to be stimulated, which prevents the recruitment of units high threshold motor).
1.3 Inadequate stimulus and poor recovery
The training carried out previously was not able to reach a stimulus large enough for the high threshold motor units, thus not producing an adaptation. However, even so, substantial muscle damage occurred, causing a significant reduction in the trained muscle's ability to exert force that lasted until the next workout.
It is important to carefully observe each of these scenarios, so we can understand how to improve what may be happening within the body when we do not progress by changing our training .
2. Factors why you do not progress in your training
2.1 Inadequate training stimulus
When we do an unsatisfactory workout, which does not produce a large enough stimulus that we cannot advance to our next workout, it will not affect the results of our next workout. Similarly, if we do exactly the same training as last time, it is unlikely that we will get different results.
Simply put, we can continue to do the exact same workout without seeing any gains in strength or muscle size.
2.2 A bad recovery
When doing a workout that is capable of causing a lot of muscle damage, so much so that it affects our ability to produce force, it also clearly affects the results of the next workout (but only if there is central fatigue).
Central fatigue occurs as a consequence of muscle damage caused by strength training , especially when we use a large volume of weight.
Central fatigue means that high-threshold muscle motor units cannot be recruited, even when training to reach the point of muscle failure. As a result, despite having been training hard, we will not see gains in strength or size.
When central fatigue is not present, the ability to produce force is impaired, because individual muscle fibers have been weakened from damage caused by training. Likewise, we can still recruit high-threshold motor units. This allows force to be produced with the highly sensitive muscle fibers, which are controlled by these motor units and therefore cause them to experience the mechanical load necessary to stimulate hypertrophy.
While the total force experienced by some of these muscle fibers may be reduced due to damage, this is not the case for all of them. Consequently, progress can still be made.
2.3 Little stimulus and poor recovery
Sometimes a workout is not capable of producing a large enough stimulus that we do not progress in our next workout, at the same time it is capable of causing a great deal of muscle damage. This sounds like a very unusual scenario, but it is actually quite normal for experienced lifters.
It should be noted that every time we produce core fatigue that lasts until the next workout, we risk causing this scenario. We record a lack of progress and assume that we have not been able to produce an adequate training stimulus. So, we increase our training volume and maybe add some advanced techniques to our training. This causes even more muscle damage, and perpetuates our state of core fatigue.
Conditions that you must meet for a good workout
There are two conditions in which a strength training will produce muscular adaptations: achieving a progressive overload and when a progressive overload is not achieved due to muscle damage without the presence of a central fatigue.
At the same time, there are 3 conditions in which a strength training will not produce adaptations: when progressive overload is not achieved, because the stimulus from the last workout was too small, and when progressive overload is not achieved due to muscle damage in combination with central fatigue.
It is very possible to achieve muscle adaptations in a sustainable way – the easiest way to do this is to ensure that progressive overload occurs. Doing the opposite can be considered risky, as it may or may not bear fruit, and it is impossible to know if it is working until such progressive overload occurs.
References
- Chris, B. Why does progress not always happen from one workout to the next? For Medium [Revised December 2019].
