2. Overcompensation Principle

Calluses build up on your hands as an adaptive response to friction. Muscle fibers grow in size and strength in response to training. Lacerated tissue develops scar tissue. All involve Mother Nature’s law of overcompensation for a stress response. In other words, it is nothing more than a survival mechanism built into the genetic code of the species.

3. Overload Principle

Related to the Overcompensation principle is the principle that states that in order to gain in strength, muscle size or endurance from any training, you must exercise against a resistance greater than that “normally” encountered. If you use the same amount of resistance for the same number of repetitions every workout, there will be no continued improvement beyond the point to which your body has already adapted.

There is a built-in problem with this principle. Your body is wonderfully adaptable to stresses imposed during training. As you get stronger and stronger, the stress levels required to force added adaptation rise to such a height that your recuperative powers simply cannot keep up. The solution? It is very simple. At this point you must go to a split system of training. Then, perhaps later, a double or even triple split. The only other solution will be for your training progress to plateau (or worse, you will enter a state of overtraining), as you are not affording your body ample time for recovery — and further adaptation — to occur. This solution begs the question of how to “periodize” your training.

International Sports Sciences Association (ISSA)