Back in college at the University of Delaware, I was fortunate enough to have Dr. Jose Antonio as a professor. Dr. Antonio sits on the board of the NSCA and is the president of the International Society of Sports Nutrition. To say that he is an expert in exercise physiology would be an understatement. I learned a lot from Dr. Antonio that year (goes to show that you can actually pay attention if the speaker and topic are interesting).
The reason I’ve been thinking back to those days is because of my athletes and clients. I work with quite a few high school athletes as well as bodybuilders and regular clientele. A number of them have been asking if they should train more days per week or use more volume in their programs. The typical mindset is that more is better, but that isn’t always the case.
Dr. Antonio used to discuss dose and duration. This can really be applied to anything, but for now, we’re talking about resistance training. If you’re an athlete or if you train athletes who are novices or intermediates (which most are regardless of how much weight they can lift), the programs can start out as linear programs. Many things will work with unaccustomed, fresh bodies. There isn’t any reason to have your athletes or clients use the glamorous stuff or more advanced programs until what they’re currently using has stopped working. For example, many basketball coaches where I’m from ask about depth jumping for their kids, which is absolutely crazy. Just because “Trainer X” talked about it in his book as something he did with his NBA clients doesn’t mean a high school basketball player should be doing it. A young, high school basketball player should work on jumping technique as well as strengthening his posterior chain and core to transfer power to the limbs.
If I was sick and my doctor prescribed 100 mg a day of such and such antibiotic for one week and it worked, why would I need to increase the dose or duration? Because more is better? I don’t think so. The only thing that would happen is that I would need more and more each subsequent time until it didn’t work at all anymore. Equate this with your exercise program or the ones you prescribe. When the time calls for something stronger, you want to have it available. Don’t jump right to the most advanced thing out there in large doses or for long periods of time (even when you do become more advanced). Doctors who take this shotgun approach are on the borderline of malpractice.
The next time you make a change in your program or in your athletes’ programs, ask yourself:
- Is the current program still working?
- Have we had any unloading weeks?
- What is the simplest change I can make to the program to continue progress?
These simple questions have helped me and have held me back from prescribing too much too fast. Hopefully, they can help you as well.