Last week, I had two patients to whom I had to explain this. They were the most compliant and motivated patients. They did everything that was asked of them…and then some.

The first patient had a hip pain for nearly six months. It turns out that she had actually been trying to train through a torn hamstring. Once we determined what the real problem was (the torn hamstring), together we set up a good routine for her. She was determined to get better and was faithful with her exercises.

After two weeks though, she felt like she had plateaued. She had made good progress to that point, but then she felt like the hamstring was getting weaker instead of stronger with each passing day. And worse yet, she was having more pain that was limiting her, even more than the weakness.

We worked together through her exercises and studied form closely. Everything she was doing was correct. No problems there. So what gives?

Then we talked about how frequently she was doing her exercises. When she started her exercise routine, she was quite limited by both pain and weakness. So we started with very light resistance, but frequently…twice a day.

Twice daily for exercises is a great way to get the muscles re-educated as to what they are to do. Think about it like acquiring a new skill.

For any new skill you would like to develop, you need to apply hours of practice. The practice helps you to gain better coordination, endurance, and easier access to the patterns of the new skill.

Contrary to the old adage, practice does not make perfect.

Practice makes automatic.

The more you practice something, the more automatic that action becomes. You no longer have to think about how to do something, it just happens when you want it to. Think about writing a note to a friend. You don’t have to think about how to hold the pen or how to form the letters on the page. You just think of what you want to say, and your hand automatically moves to write on the page.

It takes time to practice that handwriting. Remember third grade when you had to write lines of letters across a page to practice handwriting? (I know that I’m dating myself now, since we don’t emphasize handwriting these days…everyone types, right?)

And what if your practice is sloppy? What does your handwriting look like? Sloppy…automatically.

But I digress a bit.

So this patient had reacquired the skill of recruiting the hamstring, and she had much better control. So much so that she could tolerate a much greater load on the muscle. That was where the problem arose.

The second patient I spoke of earlier had a similar story of improvement. His pain was in his right hip and prevented him from running, stair climbing, and limited his ability to walk uphill.

He, too, saw great changes initially, performing his exercises twice daily. He, too, hit a plateau about 2-weeks into his recovery. Same problem, same time frame.

When I asked him about how frequently he was doing his exercises, he said he had increased his frequency to three times a day. After all, if twice is good, than three times has to be better. Surely it would get him to his goals more quickly.

He had improved his skill of recruiting the hip muscles. He was also able to handle a much greater load on the muscles. Again, that was where the problem had arisen.

Both of these patients had the same issue.

Too much of a good thing.

Their exercises were exactly the right thing to do. They were making the progress in addressing the underlying problems. So why didn’t more of the same exercises make them better, faster?

They had both reached beyond the re-education phase of getting the muscles to work, and now were back to muscle building.

The simple fix for each of them…reduce the frequency of the exercises to allow more recovery time for the muscles between sessions.

Because each had gotten stronger, the exercises seemed easier, so they each had advanced the resistance they were using. Now the muscles needed more time to rebuild.

Have you ever had that same feeling with your exercises? Have you ever been like me and done “too much, too soon” to keep up with some one else in the gym? Have you reached a plateau with your exercises, so you increased the frequency of your exercise to get past that plateau?