Just enough training

I'm very interested in hormesis.  The definition of hormesis is to get a  generally favorable biological responses to low exposures of stressors.  I first learned about hormesis when reading about food, particularly vegetables.   There are plenty of scientists who have written about how little vegetables you need to sustain a healthy body.  The basic idea is that a small portion of vegetables eaten on a regular basis will give you the same positive result as stuffing yourself with vegetables all day.  There is no value to eating more than this small amount of vegetables.  There are no superfoods and no, eating broccoli will not stop you from getting cancer if you are genetically predisposed and eating a bunch of other crap.   

Applying the idea of hormesis to my training is an exciting idea.  Why should I train one second longer than I have to in order to get the results I am looking for?  It's been my experience this past couple of years that the less time I devote to training the quicker my strength increases. You still need to train regularly for this type of training to work.  As a matter of fact consistency is everything when applying hormesis to our training.

One of my favorite quotes, one that I read almost every day is at the top of Rifs blog, "Consistency trumps intensity; all the time." http://www.rifsblog.blogspot.com/

Blogging about this  because my new puppy Ripley is demanding every second of my free time.  This seems to be the ideal time to apply hormesis to my training and see how little work I can get away with and still get results.

Instead of doing 10 sets of hi-pulls today in 2 rounds of 5 I did 7 sets on-the-minute.   I typically like to do 5 sets with longer rests for strength training and 5 rounds with shorter rests for conditioning.  My right arm is still hurting a little bit, about a 5/10 on the pain scale so I used the 16 kg bell for all 7 sets on my right side and managed to use the 24 kg bell for the last 5 sets. 

I also did 4 kettlebell getups using the 12kg, 18, 24, 24-left, 24+9 bells for a PR on my right side, finished off with another round using the  24.