So you want to train to be able to handle more volume in each session without burning out (or what ever you want to call it), am I right?
I don’t know what determines that capacity, it would probably be something about accumulating fatigue both in the CNS and the peripheral muscles, etc.
If person A and person B do the same high volume high intensity routine, but person A has to rest for 3 days to recovery while person B can go at it again after only 1 day of complete rest (Maybe there even is a person C who has to call it quits before the session is over because he just wants to fall asleep) what’s the difference between the two (three)? Maybe A accumulated more muscle damage during the bout or other fatiguing effects that last for a long time than person B. I think fatigue is one of the most interesting subjects in exercise science, and we know quite a bit about what causes short term fatigue (accumulation of different metabolites like inorganic phosphates, ADP, H+, etc, changes in the membrane potential and so on, but these are all pretty short lasting, a short rest should bring them back to normal), but we don’t know a lot about long term fatigue, what makes you unable to perform again the day or two days after, as far as I know, what we know is muscle damage and glycogen depletion.. something is probably going on in the CNS and PNS, but we don’t know much about it.
Anyway, I think the only way to go about it is to train for it. Specific adaptations to imposed demands. I remember when I started my first routine with the olympic lifts. 3 days a week FBW, all sets were low rep, but there were a lot of sets and exercises. Probably 6-8 every training, all big compound movements like jerks, cleans, power cleans, deadlifts, squats, etc and I usually did something like 8 sets on all of them (sometimes less and some weeks were lighter than others). I’m pretty sure I was about 1 minute of sleep each night away from burning out, but after a while, I adapted. A while later I did another routine like this, but it was 4 days a week FBW with pretty much the same setup. I adapted to that too and 3 days a week like that would have been a breeze. Now this is only my experience, but I’m pretty sure it’s the way to go about it.
