How to progress while not exceeding capacity or over reaching too frequently?

Hello Jordan and Austin,

Can you please make a video, or feel free to discuss how we should try to progress without overdoing it?

You’ve adroitly addressed this topic already. Please let me share my understanding of what you’ve said and where I’m still confused.

I think you’d recommend:

  1. Use autoregulation, e.g., RPE.
  2. Most people or clients make the mistake of underestimating their RPE. If anything, most people need to be reminded to reduce their RPE when they’re too frequently going too close to failure.
  3. Use an appropriate dose of stress over time to naturally allow adaptions to occur, as opposed to trying to force adaptations by grinding, or by adding load or volume too quickly.
  4. OTOH, I recall that you once said something to the effect of, “You should try to over train. You might get stronger and bigger.” I don’t want to take your comment out of context. I believe that you were saying that it’s okay to gradually increase your activity level, volume, and the general progression of stress to make small improvements over time. As opposed to catastrophizing by saying, “If you do more than X then your body will be overtrained and break.”

I recently got a power rack after not having one for 8 months. For the first 3 weeks I trained with loads and volumes that were less than I was previously adapted to. I tried to autoregulate each session but I found that at the end of week 3, I’d accumulated so much fatigue that I ended up not doing any weight training for a week.

During that time I think I did a good job of aiding recovery by getting enough sleep, eating enough calories, managing stress, etc.

I assume that I simply over reached my current capacity a bit. Not the end of the world but it makes me question how I should approach my autoregulation and progression.

3 weeks is not a long time. Of course I’m in the process of regaining strength and conditioning and my body will adapt with time. I’m not looking for a magical answer here, but may I ask how you would advise your client if they had a similar experience?

I attached a photo of me at the end of the 3 weeks. I’ve been training on/off for 20+ years but I only resumed “serious” barbell training again in the last few weeks.

Thank you,

Hi there,

Your initial description of your understanding is reasonable.

With respect to your specific scenario/question: although you may have been training with lower loads and volumes than you were previously adapted to, it still sounds like it was more than you were ready for if you felt burned out after just 3 weeks. Additionally, I suspect that this all hit you at once right at the 3 week mark; it’s more likely that you were experiencing the rapid accumulation of fatigue along the way.

I would simply suggest that you take this information as indicative of where you’re at right now, and adjust accordingly for your next training block. Perhaps this means trimming a set or two off of your programmed movements, perhaps it means subtracting 1 point from your RPE targets across the board (or perhaps more selectively on certain movements), perhaps it involves re-arranging your exercises or your training/rest days throughout the week. There are multiple potential strategies here that you can decide among/experiment between; these are the kinds of things that a coach can also help with.