heavy lifting and over training

jacksonpt

I'm hoping to keep this conversation fairly focused, which I know can be hard in these forums.... my question is specifically about heavy lifting and over training as it relates to new muscle tissue growth... cardio and "cardio lifters" need not apply.

My current routine is full body compound lifts 4 days per week... I do workout A Monday and Thursday, and workout B Tuesday and Friday.

I'm starting week 3 of this routine, and so far it's a lot, but I'm getting through it pretty well.

I know that the bulk of muscle gain happens during rest, and I know that most people advocate doing compound lifts on non consecutive days.

Does anyone reasonably think I am hurting myself in the long run? Maybe hurting is the wrong word... But is this less effective or less efficient than a more common 3 day week full body routine?

I am eating a surplus to go along with the lifting.

Determinednoob

What is the actual routine? Lifts, sets, reps, % of 1RM or xRM where x is the actual number of reps per set you are doing.

Shadowsan

What is the actual routine? Lifts, sets, reps, % of 1RM or xRM where x is the actual number of reps per set you are doing.

^^ What he said.

Past a certain point, if you're pushing your percentages you'll eventually hit a wall where strength gains and muscle gains will just about stop.

Cycling your program will help with this, and throwing in the odd deloading session or two in a row will help a lot to combat this and give your body some chance to do some active recovery.

lauren3382

bumping to read responses later...interested hearing what others have to say.

Acg67

http://www.youtube.com/v/8K1GStV46Ck?fs=1&autoplay=1

taylor5877

are there certain days you can workout?

From days gone by I used to do a full body workout similar to stronglifts that I did every 3 days (lift, and then 2 days total rest).

CallMeCupcakeDammit

bumping for later

ArroganceInStep

Bumping, won't be able to respond until tomorrow, but more specifics on your routine would be helpful. Also how much are you eating in comparison to your TDEE and how much sleep are you getting on average?

tobnrn

It depends. What is workout A & B

Lift_hard_eat_big

Sleep is critical. If you can get adequate sleep, you can train any muscle group up to three times a week.

Going4Lean

for later

jacksonpt

Sorry for the delay getting back to this thread...

Workout A (Monday and Thursday)
5x5 bench press
5x5 weighted pull-ups
5x5 squats
5x5 incline dumbbell press
5x5 standing upright rows

Workout B (Tuesday and Friday)
5x5 deadlifts
5x5 overhead dumbbell press
5x5 t-bar rows
5x5 weighted dips

I don't know what my 1RM is on any of these, but weight is enough so, at the very least I'm struggling to get through all 5 sets, and in most cases I'm struggling to get through each set.

Cals are ~400 over TDEE.

Sleep is harder to guage... Try for > 8 hours, but I'm not a good/steady sleeper, so depending on how often I wake up and how long I'm up, could be anywhere from 5 hours on a bad night to 8-9 on a good night.

Determinednoob

Sorry for the delay getting back to this thread...

Workout A (Monday and Thursday)
5x5 bench press
5x5 weighted pull-ups
5x5 squats
5x5 incline dumbbell press
5x5 standing upright rows

Workout B (Tuesday and Friday)
5x5 deadlifts
5x5 overhead dumbbell press
5x5 t-bar rows
5x5 weighted dips

I don't know what my 1RM is on any of these, but weight is enough so, at the very least I'm struggling to get through all 5 sets, and in most cases I'm struggling to get through each set.

Cals are ~400 over TDEE.

Sleep is harder to guage... Try for > 8 hours, but I'm not a good/steady sleeper, so depending on how often I wake up and how long I'm up, could be anywhere from 5 hours on a bad night to 8-9 on a good night.

This is too much for anyone (natty) really except maybe a teenage male beyond puberty. Even those 3 days per week would be too much. Aside from too many exercises, deadlifts should be one work set, not 5 or even 3. Why not run Stronglifts with the addition of pull ups and dips and call it a day?

A
Squat
Bench
Deadlift
Pullups

B
Squat
OHP
Rows
Dips

Alternate 3 non consecutive days per week. If the weight is getting heavy, drop to 3x5 work sets instead of 5x5.

jacksonpt

Why do you think its too much?

Shadowsan

Sorry for the delay getting back to this thread...

Workout A (Monday and Thursday)
5x5 bench press
5x5 weighted pull-ups
5x5 squats
5x5 incline dumbbell press
5x5 standing upright rows

Workout B (Tuesday and Friday)
5x5 deadlifts
5x5 overhead dumbbell press
5x5 t-bar rows
5x5 weighted dips

I don't know what my 1RM is on any of these, but weight is enough so, at the very least I'm struggling to get through all 5 sets, and in most cases I'm struggling to get through each set.

Cals are ~400 over TDEE.

Sleep is harder to guage... Try for > 8 hours, but I'm not a good/steady sleeper, so depending on how often I wake up and how long I'm up, could be anywhere from 5 hours on a bad night to 8-9 on a good night.

Personally, I reckon what you're doing is working too high a percentage to your 1RM for your lifts which is burning you out a bit.

If you don't know your 1RM, try this calculator to check:

http://www.exrx.net/Calculators/OneRepMax.html

If you're following a 5x5 program (I started out with madcows and modified it a little) then you want to be getting your percentages right and ramping up the weight on each set - that last set should be nearly failure. Also, you want every so often (I use 8 weeks but most people use every 4-6) to do a week of de-loading to give yourself chance to recover.

You can do a week of power exercises which should be lighter and more enjoyable, whilst at the same time helping you develop power for a week. At that point, you should re-assess where you're at strength-wise and start again, hopefully further up the ladder.

Rinse and repeat.

Or at least, that's my opinion on it - i'm sure others will vary.

Determinednoob

Why do you think its too much?

Research\anecdotal evidence\the fact that it is more lifts and more days that any beginner strength routine I have seen. Most are something to the tune of squat, upper push, upper pull on three nonconsecutive days per week. Look at stronglifts, starting strength, reg park's beginner routine, etc.

Doing that many lifts that heavy with that many sets that many days per week is eventually going to burn out a grown man not using gear. CNS and joint fatigue are likely. Also it may be harder to progress at the standard beginner linear rate adding 5lbs to every lift every workout with this much frequency disallowing recovery. In the end though, only you can judge if\when this is happening. If you start to feel run down, joints aching etc, then you are there and will need to deload and then decrease the volume of your routine. If you don't you will actually progress slower than if you worked out less.

gshoemaker06

Lots of good info here. Tagging for later. Thanks

Topsking2010

Bump

robin52077

Sorry for the delay getting back to this thread...

Workout A (Monday and Thursday)
5x5 bench press
5x5 weighted pull-ups
5x5 squats
5x5 incline dumbbell press
5x5 standing upright rows

Workout B (Tuesday and Friday)
5x5 deadlifts
5x5 overhead dumbbell press
5x5 t-bar rows
5x5 weighted dips

I don't know what my 1RM is on any of these, but weight is enough so, at the very least I'm struggling to get through all 5 sets, and in most cases I'm struggling to get through each set.

Cals are ~400 over TDEE.

Sleep is harder to guage... Try for > 8 hours, but I'm not a good/steady sleeper, so depending on how often I wake up and how long I'm up, could be anywhere from 5 hours on a bad night to 8-9 on a good night.

This is too much for anyone (natty) really except maybe a teenage male beyond puberty. Even those 3 days per week would be too much. Aside from too many exercises, deadlifts should be one work set, not 5 or even 3. Why not run Stronglifts with the addition of pull ups and dips and call it a day?

A
Squat
Bench
Deadlift
Pullups

B
Squat
OHP
Rows
Dips

Alternate 3 non consecutive days per week. If the weight is getting heavy, drop to 3x5 work sets instead of 5x5.

I was gonna say this. Thanks for saving me the time.

Stronglifts is awesome.
(just one thing: the original program has squat, bench, and pendlay rows on workout 1...and squat, overhead press, and deadlifts on workout 2)
It doesn't matter if you switch it though.
and yes, deads are ONE working set. with lighter warmup sets of course, do that with ALL the exercises before doing your work weight...

I agree with the addition of the pullups and dips also...

Reinventing_Me

Very interesting. Bumping for later.

Blunderguff

Bump

erickirb

I would say two things that jump out at me;
i. The volume/workout, seems like too much. If you want to do than many exercises/day I would suggest 3x5 for each.
ii. The other thing that jumps out is the lack of recovery for each body part prior to working it out again (squats one day, next day deads, one day pull-ups, next day row, etc. you need more recovery as the muscle groups are the same even though you are working them from a different angle.

If you want to lift 4 days/week I would suggest splitting the workout and hitting each body part twice/week. I do a 4 day split with the same days as you my A workout is Chest, Shoulders, Triceps, my B workout is Legs, Back, Biceps (for tries and bis I just throw in 1 isolation exercise, 2 sets at the end of the workout).

If those are the exercises you like I would suggest setting it up this way:
Workout A (Monday and Thursday)
5x5 bench press
3x5 overhead dumbbell press
3x5 incline dumbbell press
3x5 standing upright rows
3x5 weighted dips

Workout B (Tuesday and Friday)
5x5 squats
5x5 t-bar rows
3x5 weighted pull-ups
3x5 deadlifts

MonkRocker

bizzump.

TinaDay1114

bump bump

jacksonpt

Why do you think its too much?

Research\anecdotal evidence\the fact that it is more lifts and more days that any beginner strength routine I have seen. Most are something to the tune of squat, upper push, upper pull on three nonconsecutive days per week. Look at stronglifts, starting strength, reg park's beginner routine, etc.

Doing that many lifts that heavy with that many sets that many days per week is eventually going to burn out a grown man not using gear. CNS and joint fatigue are likely. Also it may be harder to progress at the standard beginner linear rate adding 5lbs to every lift every workout with this much frequency disallowing recovery. In the end though, only you can judge if\when this is happening. If you start to feel run down, joints aching etc, then you are there and will need to deload and then decrease the volume of your routine. If you don't you will actually progress slower than if you worked out less.

Thanks. I started last year with stronglifts and have tweaked/progressed to this point. Stronglifts never felt like enough work for me. Though, admittedly, I probably wasn't doing the weight/intensity last year that I should have been.

Oh, and let me just say this so hopefully this thread remains informative and beneficial - I'm probably going to, at some point, sound stubborn and argumentative. I don't mean to. I'm simply trying to challenge the conventional thought around over training and recovery.

I've done a little reading that suggests people "overreact" to needing rest/recovery and was hoping some people would have some meaningful/supported info in that area. I'll see if I can find some of the links (I really gotta start bookmarking stuff more often).

EvgeniZyntx

ker---bump, good info.

jacksonpt

I would say two things that jump out at me;
i. The volume/workout, seems like too much. If you want to do than many exercises/day I would suggest 3x5 for each.
ii. The other thing that jumps out is the lack of recovery for each body part prior to working it out again (squats one day, next day deads, one day pull-ups, next day row, etc. you need more recovery as the muscle groups are the same even though you are working them from a different angle.

If you want to lift 4 days/week I would suggest splitting the workout and hitting each body part twice/week. I do a 4 day split with the same days as you my A workout is Chest, Shoulders, Triceps, my B workout is Legs, Back, Biceps (for tries and bis I just throw in 1 isolation exercise, 2 sets at the end of the workout).

If those are the exercises you like I would suggest setting it up this way:
Workout A (Monday and Thursday)
5x5 bench press
3x5 overhead dumbbell press
3x5 incline dumbbell press
3x5 standing upright rows
3x5 weighted dips

Workout B (Tuesday and Friday)
5x5 squats
5x5 t-bar rows
3x5 weighted pull-ups
3x5 deadlifts

I've tried similar push/pull splits in the past and the problem I always run into is that I can't get through more than 2 heavy sets before "secondary" muscles fail. For example... I could never get through workout A as my triceps would fail before my chest/shoulder muscles got their fill. I realize that's part of the deal with compound lifts, but I really want the bigger muscle groups to be the focus.

That being said, would it make more sense to use stronglifts program as a base, but add in some more iso lifts to target certain muscle groups, rather than more compound lifts? Dumbbell flys rather than incline press, for example?

ninerbuff

Everyone is different so how you recover will help to dictate it. If you aren't seeing any changes in your physique after a few weeks of this, or if you're fatigued all the time, then chances are you're overtraining.
I've seen pro bodybuilders that do workouts like this consistently, but of course they have some "help". And there isn't a lot of hypertrophy going on even with the volume of sets since the rep count is a little low. You can build strength (up to a point without surplus and muscle gain) on this though.
Sometimes you have to go with how you feel. I personally trained each body part 2 times a week till I hit 37. Then I cut back to once a week per body part and have done that ever since and it feel great to get a weeks rest between the next workout. But I bomb that body part each week.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

alanrosez

Bump

Determinednoob

I would say two things that jump out at me;
i. The volume/workout, seems like too much. If you want to do than many exercises/day I would suggest 3x5 for each.
ii. The other thing that jumps out is the lack of recovery for each body part prior to working it out again (squats one day, next day deads, one day pull-ups, next day row, etc. you need more recovery as the muscle groups are the same even though you are working them from a different angle.

If you want to lift 4 days/week I would suggest splitting the workout and hitting each body part twice/week. I do a 4 day split with the same days as you my A workout is Chest, Shoulders, Triceps, my B workout is Legs, Back, Biceps (for tries and bis I just throw in 1 isolation exercise, 2 sets at the end of the workout).

If those are the exercises you like I would suggest setting it up this way:
Workout A (Monday and Thursday)
5x5 bench press
3x5 overhead dumbbell press
3x5 incline dumbbell press
3x5 standing upright rows
3x5 weighted dips

Workout B (Tuesday and Friday)
5x5 squats
5x5 t-bar rows
3x5 weighted pull-ups
3x5 deadlifts

I've tried similar push/pull splits in the past and the problem I always run into is that I can't get through more than 2 heavy sets before "secondary" muscles fail. For example... I could never get through workout A as my triceps would fail before my chest/shoulder muscles got their fill. I realize that's part of the deal with compound lifts, but I really want the bigger muscle groups to be the focus.

That being said, would it make more sense to use stronglifts program as a base, but add in some more iso lifts to target certain muscle groups, rather than more compound lifts? Dumbbell flys rather than incline press, for example?

What makes the most sense is to follow a beginner routine properly until you can't make gains on it anymore after doing proper deloads\resets of lifts when you stall. Normally this is going to be somewhere in the neighbor hood of 1rms being bench 1.2xBW, Squat 2xBW, deadlift 2.5xBW Beginner routine workouts can often "feel like too little work" in the beginning, but when you are benching 200+ squatting 250+ and deadlifting 315+ for work sets, it will feel like plenty. Once you are at the end of linear progression you can start looking into intermediate routines such as Madcow's, 5/3/1, Texas Method, Lyles Generic Bulking Routine, etc. depending on goals. I personally plan on moving from Starting Strength to 5/3/1 Boring But Big template for a better mix of strength and size vs pure strength.

rybo

That seems like a lot, but if you can handle it keep at it.

In my days of heavy lifting and when I made my best gains, I really didnt lift that often. 3x a week, and really only hitting each general muscle group once.