The Law of Diminishing Returns

Photo Credit: Caitlinator

The law of diminishing returns, put simply is an economic law that states if one aspect of production is kicked up a notch while everything else remains static or constant, the returns will eventually decrease after a certain point.  Thus, sometimes doing more work or giving more effort will yield a negative result as opposed to a positive one.

Since I’m not very well versed in economics, that’s about all you’ll be hearing from me on this topic, however if you’re interested in that type of thing, I’d recommend checking out MD’s blog, studenomics.

If there’s anything I see pretty often, especially throughout the wonderful world of forums and very often occurrences at the university gym it’s the guy or gal who’s been putting in the work, week in and week out and not getting anywhere.  Instead of backing off a bit and assessing their situation, they do the opposite.

The skinny guy, who’s infatuated with beefing up, cranks his training sessions up to 5 days per week instead of 3.

Then you have the beautiful girl who’s been training sensibly for once and dropping about .5-1 pound of fat for weeks now.  Instead of being content with the slow but steady fat loss, she decides to drop her kcals below 1000 per day and do HIIT cardio 6 days a week on top of strength training.  She then gets royally pissed off that her fat loss completely halts but it’s no wonder due to the weekend binges triggered by starving herself during the week.

Less Is More

If there’s anything I’ve learned over the years, it’s how and when to take a break.  Sometimes I know it’s time to simply back off the intensity a bit or take a short hiatus altogether.

In the past, if I were stalling on a movement I did what everyone else does.  I simply added more work.  It was either in the form of another set or another 3-4 sets of an entirely different movement.

This is not unheard of.  I find this to be very common with many fitness enthusiasts out there.  Just like many things in life, more is usually better.  This rule of thumb applies to ice cream, vacation days, alcoholic beverages, cotton candy and World of Warcraft.  It does not apply to strength training and/or bodybuilding though.

In fact, the exact opposite is true.  So many folks get into this rut when something isn’t working (or so they think).  They find themselves desperate to make strength or LBM gains and in this dire obsession,  they increase their volume and frequency only to find themselves even more pissed off and invariably weaker in the weeks to come.

So what is happening?  Many things my friends; many bad things.

First of all, training so frequently causes your central nervous system to burn out fairly quickly.  It’s not always the frequency that hurts a person but more so a combination of frequency, volume and mostly intensity.

Recovery at this point is nonexistent.  Your entire CNS is fried from weeks of abuse and the only option you have is to take a break.  The body will usually take care of itself by one of two ways.  You either get sick, or injured, or both.  Then, you have no reason but to rest.

The best thing to do at this point is to drop volume and frequency and get the hell out of the gym for a few days.

This is your first example of the Law of Diminishing Returns

Fat Be Gone!

As I mentioned earlier, many get very impatient when it comes time to diet.  Hell, some even get off on a really solid start only to mess things up terribly.

Since fat loss is hardly linear, one must take caution.  It’s easy to get into the mindset of calculating everything to the tenth degree, ensuring our deficit will yield exactly 1 pound of fat loss per week.  Then we step on the scale a week later only to find that we’ve not lost a pound, or even worse, the scale weight has gone up!

In such a dreadful situation, most folks drop their calories even more and proceed to exercise incessantly.  As in the previous example, they find themselves absolutely miserable in a few weeks time.

However, in reality, if they were truly sticking with their plan and not secretly binge eating at night or what have you, they probably actually lost fat for the week.  It’s just that they chose to have some soy sauce the day before; therefore they’re holding more water than usual.  This is not a true problem but it creates many issues for lots of people.  My friend Martin Berkhan wrote a nice piece about dealing with water retention a little while back.

Putting It All Together

Whether you are strength training, bodybuilding, getting ready for a figure show or preparing to run a marathon, the most important factor to long term success is learning to be a good judge of yourself and your methods.

Make this stuff work in your favor.  Remember that noticeable fat loss happens over a period of weeks and months, not days.

Gains in strength and lean body mass happen when you combine patience, hard work and ample amounts of time.  Major changes happen slowly but are worth the time spent, I promise.  Don’t be another soul taken captive by the Law of Diminishing Returns.

Tagged as: Bodybuilding, Fat Loss, Strength Training