29/01/2026
It’s important to understand that exercise is subject to the law of diminishing returns.
What that means is, if you’re not doing any exercise at all, doing more will be massively helpful. The benefits you see will be significant.
If you’re doing a bit — but not quite what’s optimal for you — you’ll still get benefit from doing more… but it won’t be as dramatic as when you went from doing nothing to doing something.
And once you reach the optimal level of exercise for you — and this depends on your stress levels, your injury history, and training history — once you hit that point… Doing more is actually detrimental to your goals.
That’s when you start seeing problems that compromise your progress. Some of the telltale signs look like this:
- Your cravings go through the roof.
- You’re hungry all the time.
- You start noticing little niggles — not full-blown injuries, but small aches and pains that chip away at your motivation
- You get that burnt-out tiredness sitting behind your eyes that you just can’t shake.
- That wired, twitchy feeling in your brain.
These are all signs you’re pushing your training too far. You’ve gone past the point of optimisation — and now the law of diminishing returns is kicking in.
Remember, more is not always better.
