Someone posted this on another board, i thought it was very interesting. I'd like to hear discussion on this.
What you are about to read or glance at and say **** reading that-I do not take credit for cause I didnt write it-Drunkhatter did
Causality is defined by Webster as:
1.) The agency of a cause; the action or power of a cause, in producing its effect.
2.) The faculty of tracing effects to their causes.
If you never grasp how causality affects the endeavor that you are trying to succeed at then you will never reach your potential.
The above graph and below writing are my best attempts to display how a muscle/body recovers from weight training. The graph is not to scale and is only useful for getting a better understanding of the stages of muscle recovery and super compensation. All of this is also based on the assumption that there is a proper level of calories and the macronutrient ratios are arranged in a manner that would allow all of the needs of the adaptive mechanism to be met.
Explanation of the Graph:
The vertical axis – represents that amount of weight a muscle can move for 10 reps. I choose ten as a random number and assigned 100lbs to the middle just to make it a little easier to understand.
The horizontal axis – represents the passage of time. The units of measure at the bottom do not represent a specific amount of time. Their only purpose is to show that time is passing.
Curved Line AB (The red and green line) = the amount of work a muscle can perform at a given time.
Line R = how muscle strength would look if it remained constant, not being affected by time or atrophy (This of course never happens in the real world but is necessary to see when the muscle has recovered)
Line M = How muscle strength actually declines when the muscle is not acted on by any outside force i.e. weight training.
Point 1 = the intersection of curved line AB and line M
Points 2-3 = the intersection of the line AB and line R
Point A = the point at which the adaptive mechanism has been triggered into action and the muscle is at its weakest.
Point B = the point where super compensation has fully occurred. This point may continue for a brief period of time before strength begins to decline but strength will never increase past this point until the whole process is started again.
From time 0 to event 1 nothing has happened. At point 1 our example trainee begins 1 set of 10 reps with 100lbs, while attempting to do his 11th rep he fails and can no longer perform any work with that amount of weight (within the confines of proper form). That event is represented by point A on the graph. A is defined as the point where the adaptive mechanism is triggered.
Now this doesn’t necessarily have to be triggered by a single set to failure. There are obviously people who are on high volume low intensity routines who never hit failure that are experiencing a great amount of adaptation by their body. Whether or not you can get by on high volume low intensity can only be properly judged in retrospect. For the majority of people I don’t believe that it will be the shortest path to their apex. But experiment and find out what works for you.
Regardless of your training philosophy something DOES have to be triggered for the body to want to adapt. Again causality, if we don’t provide our bodies with a reason to change they won’t. If this wasn’t the case we could all just sit around in front of the tv and watch the muscle pile up, unfortunately reality doesn't work this way. The art/religion/science of weightlifting arose out of a necessity for a means to trigger the adaptive mechanism into action. We either want an increase in CNS or
lean muscle mass or a combination of the two to be able to cope with a greater stress in the future.
So at point A something has been triggered and changed in the body. The body now needs to adapt. The adaptation occurs between point A and event 2. The body has now fully recovered from the imposed stress and is ready to perform the same weight for the same reps again. It is not stronger at this point, it is has only compensated. To better prepare for future stress your body now adds more muscle or increases its CNS efficiency or a combination. From Event 2 until Point B is where the super compensation happens and the completion of the super compensation phase is defined by Point B. At point B you have fully recovered and super compensated you are now ready to lift more weight or complete more reps or both.
Point B is the maximum amount you will adapt from the first stress. At this time you are ready to repeat the entire process using more weight and causing a greater adaptive response. (Just for clarification the space between Events 2 and 3 doesn’t necessarily represent a bigger muscle it only represents that the muscle has a greater capacity to move weight in the same amount of time. This could be brought on by an increase in CNS efficiency or muscle growth or through another means that I am not away of. But for whatever reason the muscle will be stronger)
Once you start this chain of events again you will be able to put a greater amount of stress on your muscle in the same amount of time. This will cause a greater amount of damage and your body will then need more time to recover. The additional amount of time needed to recover may be only several more minutes or might be upwards of several days. But if everything else in the equation is staying the same (sleep, hormones, stress etc.) then it MUST take longer to recover from a workout in which an
increased weight was used to bring the adaptive mechanism into play.
Many people will train the muscle again somewhere between Event 2 and Point B. They will be stronger than before but not as strong as they could have been if they had only waited longer. This is why logging your workouts is so important. Play around with the time between your workouts and try to get as close to Point B as possible. Your body will not recover at exactly the same rate as anyone else’s. Do what works for you.
Another function of the above model is for trouble shooting problems in training routines: Only one of the following can be the reason for your lack of strength increase, again assuming:
1. That everything else in your life / body is staying about the same (Sleep, stress levels, hormones, etc)
2. There is a proper level of calories and the macronutrient ratios are arranged in a manner that would allow all of the needs of the adaptive mechanism to be met.
Troubleshooting:
1.) Your previous gym effort failed to trigger the adaptive response.
2.) You trained somewhere between Events 1 and 2
3.) You trained after event 3
4.) You are at your genetic limit
Linear Mode
