Hey all! As usual, I enjoyed the latest podcast. However I was curious about one point in particular, something that felt like a spot where Jordan’s analogy broke down—which may just be a limitation of the analogy, one that the more complex underlying physiology resolves. (Or I just missed a key detail 
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I don’t quite understand why exercise hyperspecialization raises injury risk, or how “overuse injuries” can even be a thing under this model. If anything, it feels like it should be the opposite: if the body truly adapts (something more like “callousing” as opposed to “wearing down”), then shouldn’t the repeated exposure to a single lift have a cumulative protective effect against injuries relating to that lift?
(Assume that load, fatigue etc are all managed intelligently. If someone’s idea of sticking to a single lift means always trying to add weight and grinding that lift to failure, that’s a different story of course. We’re still avoiding “blisters,” to stick within the analogy.)
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The body has a limit to how quickly it can adapt, which is why load management is very important.
With limited variation, the training load is higher on the same areas of the body than if there’s more variation, but the adaptation rate is what it is.
To your point, someone could get away with little variation if they wanted to, albeit at a lower training load. Generally speaking, the lower the training load, the lower the results.
Gotcha! At the risk of overcomplicating the analogy, it sounds like this actually fits pretty neatly into your “banking” framework. Along the lines of how diversification is considered a free lunch in investing, exercise variation may lead to “free gains” in training. Not directly, but in effect, because by spreading stress/fatigue over more tissues/structures, it allows you to perform a similar amount of work with less overall injury risk. Or if you like, more work—and therefore more results—for similar risk. Risk-adjusted gains anyone?
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I love that analogy! Don’t worry, I’ll credit you 
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