The Fine Line Between Too Much and Not Enough

Concussions forced me out of wrestling.

I lost my scholarship. And I lost my identity.

Things got pretty ugly for a while, but I eventually found my way back to the barbell, one of the few activities I could do without further risk of ruining my brain.

The bench press and I became good friends. Real good.

I was repping out 300+ pounds two or three times a week. I loved it. And as a nineteen-year-old full of testosterone, I wanted more.

My workouts grew longer. I started missing classes because I wouldn't dare leave the weight room. People in the gym started taking notice and I was lifting more than anyone else there.

But... all good things come to an end.

My shoulders and chest were killing me. And the more I tried to push through it, the worse it got.

I worked too hard. I lifted too much. I broke my body.

I tried everything. Physio. Stretching. Icing. Massage. But none of it would let me lift as much weight as I wanted as often as I'd like.

I kept pushing through until I just couldn't push any longer. Eventually, I couldn't lift weights at all.

Doing what I loved with too much intensity and too much volume led to me not being able to do what I loved at all.

Wrestling and football were things of the past. Now I couldn't lift weights, either.

Miserable, I started running.

I ran and I ran and I ran until -- this may shock you -- my shins were so messed up I couldn't walk, nevermind run anymore.

What. The. Hell.

Though I was infuriated, this was a lightbulb moment for me. Perhaps I should learn a better way to train...

One thing led to another and -- yadda, yadda, yadda -- I've been running a fitness business for almost a decade now.

How Much is Too Much?

When it comes to training, the biggest struggle is often knowing how much is too much and how much is not enough.

When should we push harder? When should we back off?

Walking this fine line without falling off is something that only comes from experience. Or with the help of a coach.

Most people fall into one of two camps:

Camp 1:

My arm is a little sore. I better cease all exercise until I'm feeling like Superman.

Camp 2:

My humerus is protruding through the skin and I've lost a lot of blood. But I think I can still bench press.

Hi, I'm Riley, Head Counsellor at Camp 2.

The first camp is overly cautious about pushing through discomfort. And they never see good results.

The second camp throws caution to the wind and pushes through it all. And they never see good results.

It's kind of like cooking chicken.

Cook it too much, you might break your jaw.

Don't cook it enough, you might die.

But unlike cooking chicken, we don't have a special thermometer we can jab in our chest to see if we've trained just the right amount today.

It can be tough to know when our training is just right.

There are a lot of tests (heart rate variability), red flags (resting heart rate), and warning signs (loss of appetite or motivation) that suggest we're going too hard.

And there are signals that we aren't training enough... an enlarged waistline, shrunken shoulders, and/or gasping for air after bending down to tie our shoes, for example.

But a well-programmed routine often makes these signs and signals moot. A well-programmed routine includes things like cycles and waving, hard days and easy days, overcompensation and deloads, to prevent issues before they arise

By using these methods, we ensure we're right in that sweet spot of training. We walk the fine line between "not enough" and "too much" with the balance and grace of a circus performer.

It's easy on paper. But this stuff isn't always so simple.

Like Pavel Tsatsouline wrote in Power to the People, "If hard work was all it took to get strong, there would not be such a thing as sports science."

Sayings like "eat less, move more" and "no pain, no gain" are cute, but rarely accurate.

There are levels to all this.

On the surface, Camp 1 and Camp 2 seem like opposites. One works too hard, one doesn't work hard enough.

But this isn't the case.

Whether you're in the first or second camp doesn't matter -- you're training inappropriately and that's why you're not getting the results you want.

You can't do nothing. And you can't just keep pushing.

You need to find that sweet spot.

Because, in the wise words of Miyamoto Musashi, "Too much is the same as not enough."

If you want help walking the fine line between overtraining and undertraining and don't want to go through the pain and misery of learning things the hard way, apply to work with me here.