Understanding Overload & Fatigue Management
I frequently encounter people who tell me about their failed attempts at completing a novice strength program like Starting Strength, StrongLifts, or my Beginner’s Strength Block. They were expecting to make progress for 4-6 months but instead hit a plateau within 4-8 weeks of training. In this post, I will explain why that is and offer some advice on how you can adjust your programming to make more sustained progress on a novice strength program.
What is Strength?
Let’s begin by defining strength. Strength is our ability to apply force against some external object. This ability is governed by two variables: muscle mass and neuromuscular efficiency. The first of these will seem quite intuitive; we expect that someone with greater muscle mass will be stronger than someone with less muscle mass.
However, this is not always true, and the reason for this is that people differ in their ability to recruit what muscle mass they have. This means that two people can have the same amount of muscle on their frames, but one might be able to recruit a greater amount of that muscle than another.
Moreover, while muscle mass can stay fairly stable from day to day, our neuromuscular efficiency varies greatly. If you’ve ever tried lifting while in a fasted state or after a poor night of sleep, you have probably witnessed first-hand how these impaired states impact your ability to successfully lift weights that you may have lifted just 24 hours earlier.
On the flip side, this is also why an elite powerlifter might be able to deadlift 1,000 lb. during competition, but not one week later. Part of his training is to ensure that his nervous system is primed to recruit as much muscle mass as possible on competition day.
The reason I mention all of this is to help you understand that strength training is taxing on both the body and the nervous system and that we have to be cautious of overtaxing either of these systems. We want to stress the body enough to drive adaptations but not to the point of overtraining. Programming, then, is the art of determining the perfect amount of stress to apply. It is the art of balancing progressive overload and fatigue management.
Progressive Overload
Progressive overload refers to the practice of progressively increasing the amount of weight lifted or the number of repetitions performed. Every successful program employs some strategy of overloading because it is necessary to drive adaptation. In most novice strength programs the overloading is linear, which means that the weight on the bar is increased by something like 5 lb. every workout. As you can imagine, this can get very taxing after three to four weeks, and so it is imperative that one of the following fatigue management strategies are employed to sustain progress.
Caloric Surplus
The simplest, though by no means easiest, way to sustain progress on a linear novice program is to eat more. The increasing stress of the weight on the bar is buffered by the increased muscle mass on your frame and results in less fatigue. If you choose to employ this strategy, make sure that you’re optimizing muscle gain over fat gain by
consuming enough protein to support muscle growth (at least 1g per lb. of bodyweight) and
gaining no more than 1-1.5 lb. each week.
While this is the simplest strategy to manage fatigue, I only recommend it to trainees who are already lean (i.e. males < 18% body fat and females < 24%) and can afford to gain a little bit of fat while they put on some muscle. If you don’t fall in this category, you will need to consider one of the other strategies I detail below.
(Finally, even trainees who are not looking to gain weight, should ensure that they are consuming enough protein. For more on this, see To Bulk or Not to Bulk.)
Light Days
Once workouts get difficult enough to where you feel like you can no longer continue to add 5 lb. each work out, incorporate light days into your training. If the program has you squatting three days/week, then add 5 lb. each Monday, but only lift 85-90% of that weight on Wednesday and Friday. So if you squatted 200 lb. on Monday, squat 180 lb. on Wednesday and Friday.
Back-Off Sets
Incorporating light days should help you make progress for a few more weeks, but when the fatigue starts building again, you will need to incorporate back-off sets. This means that rather than performing all of your sets on Monday with the same weight, you will perform a top set that is 5 lb. heavier than the weight you lifted the previous week, followed by back-off sets at 85-90% of that weight. So if your top set on Monday was 220 lb., your back off sets will be at 190-200 lb. Your Wednesday and Friday work sets will also be at 190-200 lb.
Reducing Volume
Once fatigue starts building again, you will need to reduce the volume of your training. If you were squatting three days each week, consider switching to two days. If you were performing 5 sets of 5 (5 x 5), consider switching to 3 sets of 5 (3 x 5). If you were performing 3 x 5, consider switching to 3 x 3. Once you plateau at 3 x 3, you will have successfully completed your first training cycle and are ready for intermediate programming! Congratulations!
Conclusion
While eating more is certainly one way to run a successful novice program, it is not the only way nor the best way, especially for trainees who already carry significant body fat. For such trainees, it becomes necessary to manage fatigue in other ways, such as by incorporating light days and back-off sets and eventually reducing training volume. If used judiciously, these trainees can also run a 4-6 month progression and make exponential strength gains during their first training cycle.
