It's easy to get caught up in the idea that doing some form of hardcore training will get you the best results. The truth is, in certain cases it's true but from a certain point of view. Going completely nuts in a training session whether it's for 20 minutes or an hour, has its perks but only if you understand the awareness of what needs to be done after and how you apply the recovery process so you can build muscle.
There's also the polar opposite of this in the sense where if you have a fear of going hardcore and all you do is "soft" stuff that doesn't do much for you, your progress is going to be unsuccessful in that regard. What can you do about this? You learn to find a balance, a Ying & Yang so do speak. It's the understanding of doing something crazy but being aware that you can have sessions as well that benefit your body's ability to recover and adapt from the breakdowns.
It's a learned flow state of being able to charge into battle in your training but knowing you don't need to do it all the time. If you do one or the other too frequently, it's going to bite you in the ass and by that I mean, you're either going to get injured more often or your body and mind just won't have the juice needed to test yourself. I've done enough sessions that were rough as hell yet other sessions that looks like something out of Tai Chi or something to know that it becomes a balance game and only you can figure out how your body responds to the "trauma" along with being "passive" in your journey.
I train every single day for many reasons but in the last couple years, I've been relearning how to balance myself with testing my capabilities and going into a state that seem like I don't get anything done but getting more than what the eye sees. Often I train multiple times a day doing little things or multiple workouts that last 30 minutes or more that keep me going. Training to control your movements not from a forced aspect but an entity of effortlessness even though it's not easily done by any stretch. You can go into a gym and do some insane stuff for a period, in the same day do something that is less intense but keeps you moving. It's the blending with intent that keeps you into that flow state.
Now, not everyone is capable to go so hard they can't do anything else the rest of the day, not because they're not trained that way but why? What's the purpose of training so hard you can't move almost at all but think you can go another set of rounds just as crazy? That's geared for more of those in the pros or world-class level for specific purposes. In reality, very few can withstand what it takes to be world-class. If you took a well trained sprinter who has been trained to take trauma and the type of training that pits him at the Olympic level and put a guy who's never trained in his life let alone done a sprint and put him on the same type of regimen....That guy would be injured severely within a week or even the first day or worse and you expect him to keep showing up? That's where some people's minds go, they believe they can keep up with routines that are found in magazines and on youtube and find out the hard way that your ego could get you killed just out of sheer stupidity. There's no balance or progressive steps.
This isn't about learning one thing or another, it's learning how to use both sides of the coin effectively and with mindful awareness that your body is a very powerful tool and can do extraordinary things but not at the expense of doing things that can either easily put you in the hospital or have no ambition and just go through the motions without any real intent or purpose. There are some people who will tell you that going hard everyday is the true key and they can be very convincing because they have mastered that level of manipulating into thinking that you either go hard no matter what or die trying. This is a dangerous and inhumane mentality in the sense where you're telling people without deliberately saying it to purposely injure themselves or torture themselves into pain. It's that "No pain, no gain" level of stupidity that hinders progress more than doing something that will have you gaining. Not to mention it comes from those who believe losing 132 lbs in less than 8 weeks is healthy when here on earth, that could be a death sentence.
Find your balance and be in a flow that channels your energy regardless if you train like a maniac or utilize recovery training. It's a process but when you can flip that switch so do speak and go through life outside of training, things will have a clearer form of what is useful and what isn't. There are ways to learn this, it's a practice not many have figured out yet and some can pick up on it right away, others it can take a little time but it's beyond worth the effort that you can make progress at a much faster rate instead of looking at one thing or another and keeping them separate.
Be amazingly awesome and flow with purpose.
