This might be relevant for muscles. But it's not relevant for skill training, which in this case we're training for the strength adaptation. Muscles will come after the body adapts to strength adaptation, which is mostly tendon and ligament strength and neural (your brain) adaptations to allow you to release more seratonin. Also the changes in your testosterone and cortisol and other adrenal hormone levels.
When reading things, it's best to look at two extremes of thought and find somewhere in the mdidle. So I'll give you the Olympic lifting coach John Broz's take on it.
http://www.averagebroz.com/ABG/Q_%26_A/ ... ystem.html
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A large part of how strong we are is the ability to create and deal with a higher concentration of these neurotransmitters. The nerves develop more receptor sites to connect with them, and the glands learn to make more of the neurotransmitters themselves. Only then do you get a stronger impulse.
When you start placing demands on the brain to lift maximum weights every day, it says "oh crap I need to learn how to make and use these chemicals or he’s going to kill us. So it goes through an adaptive period where it shuts down some functions and tries to upgrade. These are the "dark times".
The main chemical in muscle contraction is SEROTONIN. It actually regulates how HARD the muscle contracts, which is why only the heaviest weights seem to effect our mood, the reason why people shy away from maximal lifting and cower from the imaginary symptoms of overtraining.
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Guys who are afraid of this response are guys who are lifting because they like the way it makes them feel. If you do lighter workouts, this serotonin is raised, but there is no signal to adapt. You feel high. Basically lifting weights becomes like a drug. People feel better doing light useless workouts, just like they feel better taking a hit of crack. I think this is why no one wants to try lifting the Bulgarian way. They are addicts.
Now, John Broz I don't agree entirely with him as he's had 2 lifters popped for steroids and numerous people quit because how hard he works his athletes. But it does "work." So somewhere in the middle between "doing light useless workouts once a week" and "go train so hard you hate your life and don't wanna wake up in the morning" is where you should be.
Quote:
If you got a job as a garbage man and had to pick up heavy cans all day long, the first day would probably be very difficult, possibly almost impossible for some to complete. So what do you do, take three days off and possibly lose your job?
No, you'd take your sore, beaten self to work the next day. You'd mope around and be fatigued, much less energetic than the previous day, but you'd make yourself get through it. Then you'd get home, soak in the tub, take aspirin, etc. The next day would be even worse.
But eventually you'd be running down the street tossing cans around and joking with your coworkers. How did this happen? You forced your body to adapt to the job at hand! If you can't' squat and lift heavy every day you're not overtrained, you're undertrained! Could a random person off the street come to the gym with you and do your exact workout? Probably not, because they're undertrained. Same goes with most lifters when compared to elite athletes.
– John Broz 2002
This is the mentality you must look at training like. Obviously, you cannot let your training affect your daily life or other sport you're training for (if lifting for a sport) too much, but the point is to push the body to adapt and overcome things with the goal of completing a task. Like for example, I used to not know how to make pizza from scratch. Now I do. Why? Because I practiced it like hell, messed up a bunch of times, but through it all, I've learned to make pizza. It's the same with your physical body.
28 Jan 2013, 2:35 pm
