I've always believed that most guys underestimate the amount of weekly work they are capable of doing recovery wise. I've personally never felt like you have to be 100% recovered to train again, especially if your goals are bb'ing oriented, this is why I think taking a 'dual-factor' approach to recovery is actually useful for BB'ers, even though its most commonly used in the strength world.
Your strength levels in any particular lift are pretty much a skill and the more you do something the better you will get at it, and the faster you will make progress. If you are doing too much volume and are overreaching, you take a deload, you either lower volume or intensity for a little bit, and when you come back, a lot of the fatigue and micro trauma you accumulated during your high volume phase will have dissipated, allowing you to come back stronger. This is basically 'dual factor' training. Single factor has you train, recover, then train again, and recover etc). Like a High Intensity style routine.
Comparing the One-Factor Approach to the 2-Factor Approach
Let's start off by comparing a "one-factor" training approach to a "2-factor" approach. We have 2 four week training schemes. One we'll call "A" and will be the one factor approach. The other we'll call "B" and is the 2-factor approach. Here's what they look like.
A: Here we train according to the traditional supercompensation curve. We train then fully recover, train then fully recover etc. Let's say we train once every 4-5 days and recover completely between workouts for 4-weeks.
B: Here we train hard for the first 3 weeks three times per week so that we never ever are completely recovered from any workouts. Then, on the 4th week we train only once or twice the entire week at a low intensity and low volume. During the 4th week we're allowing fatigue to dissipate so that we can display the fitness we've gained from the previous 3 week's of training. During this low intensity/low frequency week, the physiological indicators we've stimulate the previous 3 weeks "rebound" back up and above where they were before.
Ok. Now if you were to compare those 2 schemes we would find that version B will actually bring about greater gains particularly for intermediate and advanced athletes - That is providing the athletes are in a well rested state prior to initiating the 4 week block of training. Homeostasis is disrupted and prolonged during the 3 week loading period. Although we won't see a whole lot of progress during this 3 week phase itself, when we pull back on the volume during the reduced loading period the functional indicators will then rebound back above baseline. The ultimate "rebound", or performance increase, in scheme B will be greater then the summation of smaller rebounds from scheme A.
So what we're doing is building up fatigue and fitness by over-reaching slightly and then pulling back on the fatigue by under-reaching. Nothing really complicated about it.
You also have to keep in mind, that just because the athlete is not fully recovered, does NOT mean he isn't getting bigger or stronger. I don't use a structured load/deload phase, I simply ease up when I feel I am out training my ability to recovery. Not the most sophisticated method, I know..but I enjoy training
A lot of routines that utilize 2 factor training have a structured loading / deloading schedule (ie 2 weeks on 1 week reduced / maintenance volume). I prefer to go by instinct. I haven't done a real deload since I started lifting. When recovery is really falling behind, I notice I am not able to train as hard. A few sessions with slightly less balls to the wall intensity, and I am back to training hard.
For those of you guys who train with a lot of volume, if you feel like you have been training really hard and your recovery can't catch up, reduce your volume for a little bit. If you were really overreaching you should come back stronger, if not, work harder next time
Source for that quote:
Code:
http://www.higher-faster-sports.com/PlannedOvertraining.html
