Overtraining?

CricketKate

I apologize if this has already been asked. :blushing:

I'm wondering about overtraining. I've been doing the 30 Day Shred. When I moved onto Level 2, I continued with Level 1. I usually do Level 1 first thing in the morning, follow with half an hour on my stepper and half hour of rest. Then I do level 2. Is doing both levels likely to help my progress by doing a double workout or hinder my progress by not getting the muscle confusion or does it make a difference? What about doing a different workout as well, like do Shred in the morning and an ab or butt workout in the evening? Would it do any good or should I focus on one workout at a time?

CricketKate

Anyone? Anyone?:embarassed:

roylawrence87

I highly doubt you are over training. Thats usually a problem for high end athletes. Just make sure you are eating enough.

asallen7

Since those workouts are shorter, I don't see any harm in it. It adds up to be about an hour with your stepper, right?

frenchfri87

If you are using light weights with the 30ds then you probably are not overtraining. If you are upping the weight to the point where your muscles are sore then you do need to give them a break to recover. Make sure you are eating enough to fuel your workouts, good protein and carbs before and after. Keep up the good work :flowerforyou:

sleight119

I thhink I might be over training myself as well I do about an hour at curves then an hour of walking and a hour at night of fast 3 mile walk or aerobics

jeninne

Well, I am certainly no expert, but you can over-train. I dont know enough about your workout to answer intelligently. If your routine involves weights you can easily over-train. Make sure you give yourself enough days of rest.and nutrition matters..sorry couldn't be more help- and I probably over-train sometimes also

Dom_m

[you've got 2 questions here: am I overtraining? and will extra training improve my results?]

Firstly;
I'm not familiar with 30 day shred levels so I don't know how much you're doing from your description but the deal with overtraining as far as I can tell is this:
* You're overtraining if you start resenting having to go to the gym - this is a problem because if you no longer enjoy it, you're not going to keep it up as a lifestyle. Better to ease off and pick a routine you can keep up rather than try to do 20 hours / week and give up after 2 weeks.
* You can injure yourself if you push your limits to quickly - if you increase running distance or speed faster than your body can cope with it you might stress muscles and get sore knees or shin splints in which case you'll need to take time off.
* You're overtraining if it negatively impacts the rest of your life: if your family begin to resent you spending all your time at the gym, you need to ask if that's the best way of achieving your goals. If you aren't performing at work because you rush off to the gym all the time, ask the same question.

There's no magic formula for diagnosing overtraining. Its very personal and depends a lot on your attitude and lifestyle and other commitments. If you're happy with what you're doing then you probably aren't overtraining.

Secondly;
Regarding the extra training impact on your results, if you target a consistant caloric deficit as MFP encourages, then increasing your training load wont speed up weight loss since you should compensate by increasing food consumption. The benefits will be seen in other objectives, such as increased nutrition (due to the extra food consumption, assuming you make healthy food choices), better cardio fitness, improved strength, oxygen capacity, speed, flexibility, coordination, balance etc. (depending on what you do in your fitness routine obviously - just running all the time wont improve your flexibility, and just pilates all the time wont improve your speed). So the extra training targets a lot of important objectives other than body fat %.

Hope that helps a bit.

CricketKate

Thanks, Everyone!