In this quick blog post, I want to talk about how important it is to know what your body can handle and why it's key to have a balanced workout routine to really see progress and hit your fitness goals.
You know how it is at the gym – everyone's talking about their workouts, techniques, and what they're eating. But a lot of guys are scratching their heads, wondering why they're not seeing the results they want. They ask trainers, buddies, and Dr. Google for advice and start trying to bust through plateaus with all these intense methods like supersets and dropsets. But still, nothing seems to change.
Instead of just thinking they're not working hard enough, maybe we should look at it differently. What if their bodies are just struggling to keep up with all that crazy intensity? Even if they're getting enough rest, their bodies might not have the chance to fully bounce back and actually get stronger – you know, to go beyond the point of recovery, what they call "supercompensation."
As you know, when you lift weights, you burn energy and break down the protein in your muscles. For me, recovering just means getting my body back to where it was before I worked out – getting that energy back and fixing those micro tears in my muscle fibers.
And if I start every workout with my body in the exact same shape as before, I'm just gonna keep getting the same results and won't get any better.
To actually make progress, my body needs to get stronger, to go beyond just recovering after a workout. That means building more muscle and storing more energy than it did before each training session. That's supercompensation.
Athletes can only progress by achieving supercompensation(link to Wikipedia).
You gotta give your body the time it needs to recover and supercompensate after those tough workouts. If you're eating right and training hard but still not seeing improvements, it could be that your body hasn't had enough time to recover from all that stress.
Try easing up for at least a week by doing fewer exercises and not pushing yourself as hard. For example, instead of doing 4 sets per exercise, just do 1, and don't go all-out to muscle failure. This gives your body a chance to fully recover and finish the process of building new muscle tissue that your previous hard workouts started.
By doing this, you're creating the perfect conditions for your muscles to get bigger and stronger, which will help you reach your fitness goals way more effectively.
Just remember, it's not always about pushing harder and harder. Sometimes, the key to progress and success is actually letting your body recover and adapt.