经济学可能不是您与健身联系在一起的事情。但是，ECON有一个概念也可能适用于您的锻炼，并且可以帮助您确保您进行锻炼的每一秒都在帮助您实现目标，而不是浪费时间。
If you didn’t sleep through Economics 101, you may recall the law of diminishing returns. Whether or not you recognize this term, the gist is: If you increase one factor of production (say number of workers) but not others (time, machines, etc.), the resulting profits, benefits or other positive outcomes slowly decrease.
In layman’s terms: You put in more effort for less results.
当您从锻炼方面考虑这个概念时，没有人有时间来。幸运的是，有一些方法可以避免健身方面的回报降低。
回报降低的健身定律如何适用
鉴于HIIT课程如何占领健身行业，我们想在最短的时间内建立最大的肌肉并燃烧最大的脂肪。事实证明，您的锻炼可能太长了。
例如，下蹲，在Cressey运动表演。“从理论上讲，您的第一位代表将是您最好的代表。您是新鲜的，您的中枢神经系统不会疲倦或征税。”他说。“但是，如果您反复进行练习，以REP 100进行练习，您的表格不会那么好，您将非常慢，您需要观察上背部和联合完整性。”
Poor form, of course, means you’re not targeting the muscles you want to, which means you won’t get the results you’re aiming for. Plus you risk injuring yourself.
更糟糕的是，如果您努力太久了，您可能会损坏肌肉。锻炼肌肉是锻炼的重点，但您可以在锻炼后修复肌肉时建立肌肉。如果您的运动继续前进，您的肌肉将没有机会恢复。
“这就是为什么跑步者和运动员使用运动饮料的原因。”乔纳森·罗斯（Jonathan Ross），美国运动理事会的发言人和“ ABS揭示”的作者。“碳水化合物是您快速，爆炸性运动或活动的主要燃料。如果您在90分钟或两个小时后不补充这些碳水化合物，则您的身体可以进入最后的模式，将肌肉分解为碳水化合物的碳水化合物。”
Keep overdoing it without giving your body time to recover, and in about two to four weeks you can see an elevated risk of increased heart rate, disrupted sleep patterns, repetitive motion injuries and, in women, disruption of the menstrual cycle, Ross adds.
THE IDEAL WORKOUT LENGTH
那么多长时间？罗斯说，就像生活中的大多数事情一样，这取决于许多因素，包括您的健身水平，营养，伤害病史和睡眠。
However, there is some science to guide the length of a strength workout. “You have peak hormones at about an hour or an hour and 20 minutes of lifting weights. These hormones help your body adapt faster,” Aragoncillo explains. “So if you’re peaking around that time, what’s the purpose of doing a three-hour workout? Your results drop after that.”
研究还表明，在经过一定数量的集合之后，随着您继续做更多的工作，您从锻炼中获得的好处会慢慢降低。根据2009年对14项研究的元分析，与单套件相比，您可以从2-3套练习中获得46％的实力收益。但是，如果您进行4-6套，几乎没有其他好处。
罗斯说：“有时人们会想，‘我必须节省能源’当他们进行四盘或更多套件时，因此他们在前几组比赛中不会像努力一样努力。”“最好只做两套，但要真正追随它 - 这也不需要那么长的时间。”
WHAT ABOUT PLANKS? CAN YOU HOLD A PLANK FOR TOO LONG?
Plank-offs have become the new arm wrestling, a way to prove you’re tougher than the other guy or gal. But if you’re working to beat毛魏登专家说，他拥有8小时1分钟的吉尼斯记录，不打扰。
“如果您观看视频，第一分钟看起来很酷，” Aragoncillo说。“但是最后他看起来很糟糕 - 他只是举起自己，那不是木板。”
他建议在60秒内将您的木板封盖，而Ross建议30-60秒。
“The hardest part of a plank is a good takeoff and landing. Staying up and turning on all those muscles together,” Ross says. “Planks beyond 60 seconds is waste of time. Planks are great for core strength, but we have to do movement to develop fit bodies. Plus, for many people, isometric exercises maximize pain but minimize benefit. They burn the least calories because you’re not moving muscle. That also causes pain, because it limits blood flow, and blood carries away waste products of muscle contraction.”
HOW TO AVOID DIMINISHING FITNESS RETURNS
No matter what type of exercise you do, there are far better ways to make it more effective without working out for hours. “There are variables you can introduce to challenge yourself without diminishing returns,” Aragoncillo says. “Rather than thinking, ‘Can I go longer?’ think ‘Can I make this more difficult?’”
Try increasing your weight, changing your set/rep pattern, doing exercises at a different pace or holding a weight with only one hand to challenge your balance while strength training. For cardio, do intervals, increase the resistance on a machine or tackle hilly terrain if you’re outside.
至于（不太受欢迎的木板），有很多可能性：
- lift one arm or leg
- shift your weight from side to side or front to back
- 从侧面到另一侧或前后的“步行”木板
- place an exercise band around your arms above your elbows so you have to push them apart
- 用前臂木板在稳定球上（为了增加挑战，将球朝每个方向滚动）
- plank with your feet on a medicine ball
No matter how you choose to up your game, don’t forget to recover. “You make progress when you recover,” Ross says. “Your body needs time to rebuild from the stimulus of your workout. Otherwise you’ll get an overuse injury, hurt and quit.” And that’s the ultimate diminished return.
