Source: bodybuilding.com
Is it hardcore and beneficial for your muscle building and strength gaining goals to force yourself through a tough workout you don’t feel like doing that day? It is perhaps very common for lifters to have a voice inside their minds associating feelings of negativity with skipping or taking a day easy. Dr. Jacob Wilson at Bodybuilding.com wrote an article discussing studies which address this very question.
A research team had divided subjects into two groups, flexible and nonflexible. Both groups had 3 sessions a week including a heavy day, hypertrophy day and light hypertrophy day. The nonflexible group was required to train on assigned days, the flexible group trained according to feeling (as long as they got in the 3 required sessions per week). The researchers concluded that the flexible group made greater gains, and that a training plan which takes into account how the athlete feels is optimal. The term which has been coined for this is “autoregulatory training”.
“This was absolutely breakthrough research to us. It means that those days where you enter the gym feeling like absolute trash—i.e., below 5—is not the time to be tough and try to up the volume. While I certainly take my hat off to you for having the guts to do that, it would be in your best interests to select a low-volume recovery workout for that day.”
Dr. Wilson’s lab themselves conducted a pair of experiments. The first was to verify validity of a perceived recovery status scale they created. The scale’s purpose was to link how an athlete feels with the degree of performance that could be expected in the gym. The scale also successfully made predictions about changes in performance, testosterone levels and direct measures of muscle damage. The next study used 40 athletes who could squat 2x their weight and bench 1.5x their weight. These athletes went through two weeks of brutal training followed up with two weeks of tapered down training. Strength, muscle damage, cortisol levels and muscle mass were analyzed. Perceived recovery status of the athletes was monitored after the first 2 weeks and the measures mentioned previously were monitored after the second 2 weeks. Those athletes who rated themselves at not less than 7 out of 10 on the recovery scale got bigger, stronger and leaner. Those who rated themselves at 5 or 6 ended the study at baseline levels. Athletes rating themselves less than 5 went backwards and lost gains.
Check out the full article for more tips and recommendations:
Ask The Muscle Prof: Should I Gut Out A Workout When I Feel Awful?