Base Building Excerpt - Training too light vs too heavy

When your training is so light that it doesn’t reflect how your body is forced to move under heavier loads, the fact is you’re not really practicing that “thing”. Even if you think you’re putting

“700 pounds of force into 300 pounds” It is just not the same. I don’t care what any guru or strength coach tells you about that. There has to be an appreciable amount of weight on the bar to both allow for proper force transfer into the bar in relation to how you actually move heavier weights.

In other words, when the weight is too light, your body will not actually mimic the technique you use when bar gets heavier. If the S.A.I.D. principle is violated, then there is no carry over. If you give a basketball player a lighter than usual basketball, or smaller than usual basketball, eventually he will adjust his motor skills to be able to shoot baskets with that ball.

It doesn’t help his shooting with the official sized ball. The same holds true if you give him a heavier ball. It doesn’t improve the mechanics he uses to shoot the official sized ball. He simply gets better at shooting the heavier/lighter ball. “But he will get stronger and thus have more power with the other ball.” This might or might not be true. The skill portion is negated, and then must be relearned. Any transfer of strength is also negated. Training TOO light is no different.

The “skill” practiced does not reflect that of the skill used to move heavier loads. The bar needs to be heavy enough that there is carry over into the big weights. This only happens if there is enough "likeness" to how you’re moving the weight in relation to those heavy weights. 

On the slip side, the bar doesn't need to constantly be so heavy that one finds themselves in the constant state of fatigue debt. There has to be a balance of “heavy enough” to impose demands to get stronger and light enough not to cause chronic fatigue in training.

This is not to say training should not be hard. It should be. Training with CAT is going to be very hard, and reducing the rest time between sets is also going to increase training difficulty. This is not about “not training hard” because sub-max intensities are used. It is about making those sub-max and intermediate intensity levels hard work through other means. Base building is not about avoiding hard work. It is not about “going light”. It is about “going optimal”.

Too light - no carryover

Too heavy too often - fatigue debt can become an issue (essentially overtraining)