There is such a thing as too much.

It's counterintuitive.

It makes sense that the more you do, the more you get out of it.

To explain this better, I'll use myself as an example.

I used to train 6x/week and pushed almost every set to failure.

I trained to failure because back then, I wasn't very good at determining RPE or RIR.

If I didn't set the take to failure, was it 1 RIR?

2 RIR?

I wasn't sure.

So I just took every set to failure because failure is failure.

Keep in mind that I still trained 6x/week.

After a few months I ran into the following problem.

I looked at some of my older training videos and noticed I was benching the same weight for the same reps as two months ago.

I was probably stagnated in most of my exercises but bench press stood out because I really wanted to get stronger at benching.

For months, I had trained hard, trained consistently, but I wasn't making progress.

Why?

Essentially, I was doing too much.

I was so fatigued that for two months I did what I like to call "move weight around".

I was still training hard but the training didn't lead to progress because the fatigue was catching up with me.

Or in my case, fatigue was already eating me alive.

And so my muscles were physically not able to progress.

I wanted to push a car to it's limit but the problem was, the gas tank was empty.

I was flooring the gas pedal but nothing happened, the gas tank was dry.

I needed to back of, refuel and come back.

There needs to be a balance between work and rest.

If there's no rest, sooner or later you're too fatigued to produce any productive work.

So here's what I did.

I backed off.

I let the fatigue drop off.

And I started training less.

I was still not a fan RIR and RPE back then so I still decided to push each set to failure. (Which I don't recommend to all people, more on that soon)

But I decreased frequency.

I started training 5x/week. (That resulted in doing around 20 less sets per week)

And I started making progress again.

I found a balance between work and rest.

I exposed my muscles to enough stress to make progress and gave them enough time to recover to continue making progress.

You have to find a key between work and rest/recovery.

If you're like me, you like pushing sets to failure, you don't need as much training volume because each set is already a lot of stimulus due to high effort.

If you're someone who likes to leave 3 reps in the tank, you need more volume to see the same growth as someone who pushes each set to failure.

How do you know how much volume you need?

I'd start off small.

Set up a program with relatively small volumes.

See how you feel.

If after a week you feel like you didn't train at all, didn't get sore at all, muscles didn't feel the least bit disrupted, you can bump the volume up until you find your sweet spot. (Volume you see the best gains from but can still recover from)

How do you know you're doing too much volume?

One of the most reliable signs that you're doing too much is when you stopped getting stronger or even got weaker.

Like me.

I didn't get stronger for two months.

When you stop getting stronger or get weaker, that's when you know you need to back off and consider lowering volume in some way. (In the end, you could still do very high volumes and push very hard but you'd need to back off quite often)

Note: you can feel fatigued and still continue making progress. These days, I fell slightly fatigued each day I train but I'm still getting stronger consistently. Keep in mind that how you feel alone isn't a very reliable metric to determine whether you're doing too much. Also, I'm referring to my body feeling fatigued not the local muscle, I never train a muscle when it's sore or feels weak. Then I'd run into the same issue, I'd just go to the gym and move weight around because I'm too fatigued to produce progress inducing work)

For most people, training 4-5x/week is the sweet spot. You can train 6x/week but you have to keep daily volume in check so it doesn't get too fatiguing.

In conclusion: If you're not getting stronger, chances are you're doing too much. You're not giving your body enough time to recover and produce high quality work. If that's the case, back off and consider lowering volume)