My answer is yes. Fatigue will build up if recovery is not considered. Somedays you just don’t have the ability to hit the numbers.
Doesn’t mean to stop, it just means you have to adjust things
1 Like
I think that, while you can overtrain them, it is harder to overtrain shoulders than most things.
1 Like
Hold my beer a second?
1 Like
I mean, you can train them so hard that you get an ouchie, but that is not necessarily over training. You have seen the kind of volume in my logs, I don’t think I have ever managed to truly overtrain strict presses.
Dips, on the other hand, that will do it if I am not careful. But that is a whole lot more weight and reps. I think overtraining shoulders will require more than what you can throw at them with the strict press. But anyway, it is a moot point. If you do a BBB type setup, that will not overtrain it.
1 Like
You certainly can.
Which is an overuse injury most of the time, which is a sign that you overtrained a structure or applied pressure in a wrong way (bad technique) etc. etc.
I’d say the most common “injuries”, niggles etc. I come across in young lifters and gym folks are related to the shoulders
We all know the bro programs that lead them down this road.
In conclusion I’d argue the pressing muscles are actually one of the easier muscles to overtrain.
Now upper back - that’s a though customer!
It’s no problem to train tons of pressing and not run into this issue if you manipulate all variables correctly. As you might have seen in my log, I press 4 times a week and use 5 different exercises for that without overtraining the shoulders
2 Likes
So do you do the old school 5/3/1 sets and then 5x10 in the same workout or do you split them? I might need to find a new approach for my OHP work because hitting heavy triples with DBs sucks. And increasing by 5 lbs per arm sucks.
Keep in mind I’ve been training at home and can’t do an overhead press while standing. Seated DB OHP feels the best (aka doesn’t hurt) on my shoulders.
1 Like
Yeah, same workout. I typically only press once a week, so I do a LOT of pressing on that day.
1 Like
Work for today:
Barbell row: 10 x 10 @ 70kg
Push press: 10 x 10 @ 50kg
Lateral raises: a bunch
Notes:
- This is what happens when you go in with no plan. Silliness. 1/10, would not recommend.
@mr.v3lv3t let’s find out if we can manage it. Do we get group discount at the physical therapists afterwards?
@Cyrrex I’m going to be stubborn and refuse to try BBB again, even though pwn is probably right.
@Frank_C are you planning to do 531 with dumbbells or are you looking to do work around to get back to a barbell?
@Koestrizer that’s one of the two main reasons for the variety of presses in my BBS supplemental. That and boredom. I’ll probably try and find some more to add at some point too.
1 Like
Every bit of my brain says this isn’t enough but I know that you are leaps and bounds ahead of me so I will spend the next weeks trying to accept this.
Probably. If I switch back to dedicated days (i.e. Mondays are shoulder day) then I run the risk of stressing myself out about training. I can’t do standing OHP at home without hauling the weights outside and I’m not doing that. The only option is to paint myself into a corner with certain days that have to be a certain workout or to keep doing things I can only do at home.
I’ve considered trying the Z press or OHP from my knees but haven’t given it a shot yet.
1 Like
I know frequent training is real en vogue these days, but the more I train the more super old school I get with the once a week training approach. Now, the MUSCLES get trained more than once a week, but the press itself doesn’t. I’m still hammering my upper body pressing twice a week with a bench day.
Same with squats. I annihilate my body on my squat day and spend the next 4-6 days limping, but the lower body will get trained again on the deadlift day.
3 Likes
I can get behind that approach for lower body training, but my upper body doesn’t hurt as long so I feel like I need to beat it up more.
If I do my five sets of OHP plus three sets of lat raises to failure (or close) on Monday then I think I should beat up my delts again on Friday because they’re no longer sore.
I’ll probably try your approach. I’m stalling so it’s time for a new stimulus. I can also do some lat raises on my incline bench day if I feel the need. I’m not sure when I’ll implement so don’t judge me if you don’t see it for a few weeks…or I could start Friday. I’m not sure if I need to be doing triples on any pressing movement.
Makes sense, as it’s a small amount of work. Can definitely train that more than once a week.
And no judging at all. I’ll always be doing my own thing, haha.
3 Likes
Well, success leaves clues…
3 Likes
Injury is different than overtrain. Usually the muscles in the shoulders are not strong enough for the average person to “overtrain”, and the nervous system involvement is also minimal. You can injure them easily, but overtraining them is hard. These are two completely different things.
@T3hPwnisher and @Frank_C maybe I am missing something in your discussion, but the BBB template I follow makes me train everything twice a week. The second time, however, is just a repeat of the 5x10 assistance work. It seems to work pretty well, because it is relatively light.
1 Like
What constitutes overtraining a specific area then?
CNS fatigue and a the state of overtraining are something completely different in my book, since they are global and not limited to specific areas.
1 Like
This was going to be my suggestion. Or the seated press, which I like a lot
It is WisdomPigs understanding that there’s an overall systemic fatigue encompassing CNS fatigue from heavy hard lifting especially axial loading of the spine.
Localised fatigue is on a per muscle group/s or movement pattern basis so a little different but also important to consider when managing fatigue. Systemic fatigue will decrease performance across more muscle groups while localised less so.
We want to control both to some degree so we can still perform. If either is overreached or overtrained fatigue has accumulated enough you can’t lift hard enough to get a good stimulus.
Case study smashing yourself with 5 hard sets of squats will be different from smashing yourself with 5 hard sets of hack squat machine. Both are great quad stimulus but back squats will accumulate more systemic fatigue. If u wanna get good at back squatting and reap the benefits of getting good at it you’ll have to take the hit to systemic fatigue
3 Likes
@T3hPwnisher @Frank_C it occurs to me that pwn presses twice the weight that I do. It therefore makes sense to me that his recovery time is likely to be significantly longer because absolute weight is an important factor here.
@Cyrrex that’s not a standard BBB template, although I guess if you swap supplemental exercises, you technically train each group twice a week. It’s only 8 work sets total still though.
1 Like
I agree with everything you said and didn’t argue against any of it.
It’s my understanding that local overtraining (if there is such a thing, if we are being super precise) would present itself through overuse injuries.
I wouldn’t know any other form of a local overtraining.
1 Like
Standard schmandurd. Call it Old Skool. It is the only version of 531 I really know, and the only one I have really trained, and it goes back to some of Wendler’s original material on this site. Whether I got the rep scheme from him or elsewhere, I don’t know, but basically it goes…
Squat Main / Bench Secondary
Press Main / DL Secondary
Bench Main / Squat Secondary
DL Main / Press Secondary
So the main is your 531 main sets PLUS 5x10 assistance of the same movement. And then the Secondary is 5x10 of the other movement. So including warmups, you will literally do 11 sets for you Press on the main day, and then you will do 5 more sets on secondary day. 16 sets total, 13 of them are actual working sets. How hard it is depends on how high you put the % of TM on the 5x10.
Regarding the “overtraining” discussion, it is simple. Smaller muscles, lower weights, less nervous system involvement = more difficult to overtrain. That’s it. Full stop. Your shoulders are probably the muscles you use more than any other in your body when you lift, at least of the major muscle groups. Easier to injure? Sure, but that is not the same thing by my definition.
1 Like