Balancing Volume And Recovery

A

a.s.arghmatey

Member
I'm trying to develop my understanding of the relationship between volume and recovery. Tell me if the following is true:

Gaining weight without enough volume = getting fat

Gaining weight without enough recovery (or too much volume) = getting fat

Are these both true statements?
 
Old and Grey said:
Gaining fat is simply a matter of too many calories in versus too little calories out.
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Not exactly. Calorie surplus leads to weight gain. We train so that our ratio of fat gain vs. muscle gain is optimal. Obviously, a calorie surplus without enough training volume will lead to mostly fat gain. My understating is that insufficient recovery negatively impacts musclu gain, which would lead me to believe that a calorie surplus with too high of a volume/insufficient recovery will also lead to mostly fat gain.
 
You may be right but I have never reached that point of insufficient recovery. Most problems occur because of insufficient volume, not too much volume or too little rest. You eat your way out of those situations. In fact, as you progress, you can eventually reach a point where protein synthesis occurs within a few hours of working out. Perhaps this can be a problem with beginners...I don't know.
 
Honestly I find recovery better defined as how you perform going into your next workout and how long you can grow in a volume block. However you can't really over recover unless you have started to decondition. Under recovery comes in a lot of forms, lack of sleep, underfed, still fatigued or overly inflamed etc.

So if you feel your body composition is getting away from your comfort level you have a couple of options; increase volume or decrease calories. If it isn't those two factors then reduce inflammation and/or bloating which may appear as fat by considering your diet (for me drinking too much or wheat). Also I find not getting adequate sleep results in decreased body composition but it usually bounces back once I get back to a good sleep schedule.
 
Alternatively you could use science to determine recovery etc, just purchase the Bluetooth Polar H7 chest strap, download the Elite HRV app and then adjust frequency of training / volume per session based on your heart rate variability
 
I only really care about long term muscle gain. My tendency is to try to always do more, but I've started to worry that this may actually hurt my results.
 
a.s.arghmatey said:
So if weights are going down, but I'm gaining weight, does that mean I'm gaining fat and losing muscle, or am I still gaining muscle, but just too exhausted to make effective use of them?
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AFAIK if you are in an over-trained state your hormones are no longer 'normal', T levels drop and cortisol levels increase which leads to catabolism and increases insulin resistance and fat deposition, so in summary (if the aforementioned is correct) when you overtrain you do lose muscle and gain fat.
 
I agree with Mick but hasten to add that being over trained is a very rare and difficult position to attain. However, should you reach it, I would suggest taking a full two weeks off and starting back with more reasonable volume after your body heals itself. And, cut back on calories. Crash bulking is not a healthy idea. Just a couple hundred calories over maintenance is all you really need. Just that can add up to 20 pounds of mostly muscle over a one year time period.
 
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