Know Your Response,
And Cater Your Training To It
The act of strength training, or ‘working out’, does not build
muscle (or increase strength/endurance) – the body responds to the strength
training by building muscle (or increases its ability to generate/maintain
force). Strength training is simply the catalyst which initiates the adaptive
processes, therefore one must first know what physiological/neurological
response it is they wish to achieve in response to their efforts, so their
strength training regimen can be tailored accordingly.
Exercises are nothing more than the ‘tools’ that are used to ‘do
the job’ and trigger the response. The way in which the tools are used, as in
the weight that is used, which determines roughly how many reps can be performed,
the amount of sets, along with the rest between them, should all be based upon
the goal, as they all heavily contribute to the end result.
Because our ability to progress is limited by our ability to
recover, and the body has a limited capacity to positively respond to training,
in terms of how much ‘work’ it can recover from, it’s of paramount importance
to invest the limited amount of time and energy that can be spent training, on
the exercises which provide the greatest return (on investment). It can’t be
expected that more and more work can just be piled on without having some sort
of downstream effect.
Since there’s essentially a limited supply, or maximum amount, of
time and effort that can be invested into training, and there’s a cap on the
amount of work that the body can endure, it’s only logical to invest that time
and effort as wisely as possible – which is done by placing emphasis on making
improvements in the lifts that provide the most benefit and greatest return on
investment. After all, it’s the loading parameters that ultimately determine
how the body will respond to the workout.
