Fatigue Management: Take a Rest Day

Training frequently and intensely is essential for progress in fitness-related endeavors, but equally important is managing the fatigue that accompanies this sort of training.

This article fleshes out fatigue management as discussed in Scientific Principles of Hypertrophy Training by Dr. Mike Israetel, Dr. James Hoffmann, Dr. Melissa Davis, and Jared Feather. My main take-aways were the importance of rest days, training structure, and proper form for supporting recovery and managing fatigue. The rest are my notes (some things were copied and pasted without proper citation, my bad, so please attribute all genius to the aforementioned authors). Enjoy!

The Principle of Fatigue Management:

-progressive overload produces both adaptation and fatigue. In order to continue making continued progress in training, planned and autoregulated strategies for alleviating fatigue are required

-non-training measures, such as eating, sleeping, and supplementation can support fatigue management, but if you are training more than you can recover from (MRV, to be discussed in a few paragraphs), growth will still be compromised

-rotating muscle groups and rest days are the best ways to manage fatigue for our purposes

Types of Fatigue

-localized: specific muscle groups (mitigated by split/alternating muscle groups and supported by rest days)

-systemic: central nervous system and body as a whole (this is why rest days are important)

-axial: related to loading the spine (helped by rest days and mitigated by intelligent split)

MEV: Minimum Effective Volume

-the minimum amount of working sets per week necessary to induce muscle growth

-working set = set using a weight that leaves 0-5 reps in reserve, supplies overload (more challenge than encountered in everyday life), and provides adequate challenge

-typically 10-20 sets per week per muscle group for muscle gain, and 5-10 sets per week per muscle group for muscle maintenance

Example:

Workout 1

-squat (quads, glutes, and hamstrings x 3)

-romanian deadlift (hams, glutes, and back x 3)

-seated leg press (quads, glutes, and hams x 3)

-leg curl (hams x 3)

-leg extension (quads x 3)

-crunches (abs x 3)

Workout 2

-bench press (chest, triceps, and shoulders x 3)

-shoulder press (shoulders and triceps x 3)

-cable row (back and biceps x 3)

-biceps curl (biceps x 3)

-triceps extension (triceps x 3)

-reverse crunches (abs x 3)

Workout 3

-bulgarian split squat (glutes, quads, and hams x 3)

-pullups (back and biceps x 3)

-dips (triceps, shoulders, and chest x 3)

-barbell hip thrust (glutes, hamstrings, and quads x 3)

-abduction machine (glutes x 3)

-adductor machine (adductors x 3)

-oblique tilts (abs x 3)

Workout 4

-chest supported row (back and biceps x 3)

-incline dumbbell chest press (chest, shoulders, and triceps)

-chest flies (chest x 3)

-lateral raises (shoulders x 3)

-face pulls (shoulders x 3)

-cable crunches (abs x 3)

MEV

-quads: 3+3+3+3+3 = 15 sets

-hams: 3+3+3+3+3+3 = 18 sets

-glutes: 3+3+3+3+3+3 = 18 sets

-back: 3+3+3+3 = 12

-chest: 3+3+3+3 = 12

-shoulders: 3+3+3+3+3 = 15

-biceps: 3+3+3+3 = 12

-triceps: 3+3+3+3+3 = 15

-adductors: 3 = 3

-abs: 3+3+3+3 = 12

MRV: Maximum Recoverable Volume

-as a mesocycle or training program progresses, volume (number of working sets per week) and/or load (weight, reps, and/or range of motion) need to be incrementally increased in order to see muscle gain and accumulation of strength

-there becomes a point where too much volume or load is added, and the amount of fatigue accumulated alongside strength and muscle gains starts to hurt performance, reduce muscle gains, and/or cause injury because the body struggles to properly recover from the high volume of stimulus

-at the end of a mesocycle, MRV is approached, and fatigue management strategies are applied, typically by reducing volume in a deload week and applying periodization to make changes to exercise selection

-pretty much MRV is your upper limit for training; it is when fatigue, in the form of energy depletion and wear and tear, reaches an unproductively high level, determined by drops in performance, injury, and feeling of low energy and decrease motivation

Stimulus to Fatigue Ratio (SFR)

-Stimulus

• Mind-Muscle Connection: On a scale of 0-3 how much did training challenge target muscles?

• The Pump: On a scale of 0-3 how much pump did you experience in the target muscles?

• Muscle Disruption: On a scale of 0-3 how much did the training disrupt your target muscles?

-Fatigue

• Joint and Connective Tissue Disruption: On a scale of 0-3 how much did the training disrupt your joints and connective tissues?

• Perceived Exertion: On a scale of 0-3 how much perceived effort went into the training?

• Unused Muscle Performance: On a scale of 0-3 how much performance falloff was there in unused muscles?

-SFR

SFR = Hypertrophy Stimulus / Fatigue Generated

• helpful for determining effectiveness of exercise selection, exercise sequence, and overall split

• can be used to decide when to implement rest days and deloads

• useful for assessing recovery rates

Fatigue Prevention + Alleviation

-Prevention

• Train with MEV to stimulate muscles (overload), progress toward MRV to continue muscular stimulation and adaptation (progressive overload), make changes to program every 4-8 weeks (periodization)

• Use safe technique with proper fom, work toward full range of motion on all lifts where possible, control eccentric and concentric movement, focus on mind-muscle connection and working target muscles rather than using momentum or un-related muscles to move more weight

• Decide which muscle group(s) to prioritize, and structure split and individual sessions in ways that support the intended foci

• Ask these questions:

1. Is the current session stimulus enough to cause the best (or nearly the best) gains?

2. Is the current session stimulus so fatiguing that it will cut our planned progression short?

-Alleviation

• Rest Days (at least one day each week without resistance training or high-impact or intensity cardio)

• Recovery Sessions (reserved for illness and injury, and often a sign that a deload is warranted)

• Deloads (a week to reset muscles, joints, and mindset that involves reducing volume and/or load, or even taking time off from training, which would be akin to an active rest phase)

• Active Rest Phases (one or two times per year, great to implement when on vacation, designed to allow for full injury recovery and rehabilitation, and typically involves little to no training with lower volumes and loads or complete rest)

Why Rest Days Are Important

"Taking a day off from training is perhaps the least complicated and most effective option for alleviating accumulated fatigue...Even if you have a home gym, any form of structure and training will be less relaxing than well, just relaxing. A rest day thus effectively reduces psychological fatigue as well as physical.

Even with volume equated, a program with a rest day or rest days will generate less fatigue. For example, 100 total working sets per week will likely build less cumulative fatigue if they are spread across six days with one rest day compared to the identical 100 sets spread across seven days, with shorter workouts, but no days off. Many bodybuilders believe that nothing beats two consecutive days off, so they would recommend putting all 100 sets across five days. Those bodybuilders may be onto something.

Our first recommendation is to take one full day off per week. Our second recommendation is to look over your program and see if you can condense any shorter, easier workouts to free up a second rest day." (pp. 106-107)

Reference

Scientific Principles of Hypertrophy Training by Dr. Mike Israetel, Dr. James Hoffmann, Dr. Melissa Davis, and Jared Feather

https://a.co/d/fBPVF43