Overtraining

thatsmyspot

Hey everyone. I have read a lot of articles / responses. what I have found is there is a very fine line between not training enough and overtraining. some people swear by training your muscles once a week. and then there are some who swear by 3 plus times a week for each muscle. so anyone have any ideas where this fine line should be?

ndj1979

in my opinion you need at least one, one hundred percent rest day each week and make sure that you get adequate rest between working muscle groups...

auddii

I don't know much about overtraining, but I did see that Layne Norton posted this on FB a few days ago:

Many people use the word 'overtraining' as a catch all for ineffective programming. What do YOU think it means? And what is the difference between overtraining and overreaching... And yes there is a difference. If you cannot answer this question accurately, you need to stop using this term. Tag a bro-scientist who uses this term and has no idea what it really means?

Overreaching: a period of time during a training block with the accumulation of volume and fatigue cause an athlete's performance to temporarily decrease. It is often accompanied by decreased drive to train, and increased soreness. It is easily rectified by a short tapering of volume by 1-2 weeks during which time performance should go back to normal and in many cases above normal via supercompensation of recovery

Overtraining: think of overreaching gone too far but now you start to get perturbations in measurable physiological outcomes like disrupted hormone levels, decreased immune function, changes in heart rate, etc.

What overtraining is NOT: Feeling bad. Tired. Sore. etc. Also, many people have the notion of overtraining that it is catabolic to muscle... that you can train a muscle so much that it actually becomes catabolic. Let me be very clear, this is simply untrue. Period. There is ZERO scientific data to support this. Also most athletes that ACTUALLY get overtrained are endurance athletes or those who do competitions like ironman because they do such an enormous volume of work. Work = Force X Distance. So even though they have low force, they have enormous distance and thus huge work volume. Do you REALLY think that you lifting weights 1-2 hours per day is going to cause you to overtrain compared to someone who does a HARD manual labor job for 10 hours a day? Of course not. So why don't hard labor workers whittle away to nothing? Because their body adapts and accommodates the stressor.

As you can see overreaching can be a useful tool when implemented correctly, but overtraining is something to be avoided. But short term decrements in performance are normal and at times essential in weight training in order to make progress.

Hopefully now you have all learned something and those of you who've used the term incorrectly will now understand it.

He doesn't specifically talk about rest days, but seems to be more base on performance and how you feel at which point you should dial back volume.

Personally, I have 2 active rest days a week where I'll go walk for a few miles; nothing strenuous, so I still consider it a rest.

thatsmyspot

great article! that makes me feel a bit better. I never really get that tired or sore anymore so I will up the workload for a few weeks and see what happens

JimFsfitnesspal

thatsmyspot wrote: »

Hey everyone. I have read a lot of articles / responses. what I have found is there is a very fine line between not training enough and overtraining. some people swear by training your muscles once a week. and then there are some who swear by 3 plus times a week for each muscle. so anyone have any ideas where this fine line should be?

Overtraining is easier for someone my age. I have had to include alot of extra rest days. Right now I am doing heavy lifting (push legs pull) to failure (pyramids or dropsets). I do push, cardio, legs, cardio, pull, cardio. Im sure I should but I do not take a rest day or on the odd occasion that I do, I will do alot of stretching, yoga, and / or punching bag.

I have recently started to do punching bag for cardio on the days after my legs lifting. This gives them an extra break.

You could also do a whole body workout more often, but I like working out daily.

monty619

the more you exercise the more volume your body can adapt to.. so people who have been training for years, their workouts should be far more intense and at a higher volume because their body has adapted to training.

some signs of overtraining are irregular sleeping patterns, get physically ill, low sex drive... my opinion you cant really over train just under recover (under eating or under sleeping).. the thing that should worry you the most about actually be "overtrained" is your central nervous system. so if you are heavy deadlifting every single day for singles or triples its going to take a hit on your body..

but if you are mainly doing general bodybuilding routines with higher volume you can honestly workout every day if you wanted to, body will adapt quick enough just eat food and get rest.