"More is better"? Well forget it! It doesn't apply to building muscle.
So what happens when we break down muscle tissue in the gym?
You are absolutely correct if you answered something to the effect of "the muscles get bigger and stronger" By battling against resistance beyond the muscle's present capacity we have posed a potential threat to the musculature. The body recognizes this as potentially harmful and as a natural adaptive response the muscles will hypertrophy (increase in size) to protect the body against this threat. As we systematically increase the resistance the body will adapt accordingly and the muscle tissue will continue to swell.
How Do We Grow Muscle Then?
Muscles do not grow in the gym. Once they are stimulated, they need adequate time to rest, recover and grow stronger. Training the muscle again during this recovery and overcompensation phase will only interfere with the body's recuperative process and thus lead to diminishing gains. training less will provide faster results. If you are in a rut at the moment, give it a go. Just make sure to give your body plenty of rest and food in between workouts.
So can you see why training in high frequency a week doesn't work? Problem is many believe that this isn't working because they aren't training enough. So they might increase it to 5-6 times a week! This only leads to overtraining, lack of recovery and a decrease in gains. You must realise that gains in size and strength are dependent on your recovery between sessions. Sufficient recovery is vital if you are to receive optimal gains from your training. That is, the adequate recovery of both the physical and psychological stresses that comes from training.
More is definitely not better. Nor is less. PRECISE is just right.
The goal should be to train with the minimum amount of volume needed to yield an adaptive response. Once we have pushed our muscles beyond their present capacity and have triggered our thousand year old evolutionary alarm system, we have done our job. Any further stress to the body will simply increase our recovery time, weaken the immune system and send our body into catabolic overdrive. Once a muscle is stimulated it needs a recovery period to simply recover and regain the condition and strength you had before completing the workout. Another couple of days of rest are required to allow the muscle to over-compensate and grow stronger.
Muscles need time for recovery. If you are in a rut at the moment, give it a go by increasing your recovery time. Just make sure to give your body plenty of rest and food in between workouts.