How many hours in the gym per week would you say crosses the line into obsession?
And please spare me the, “Obsession is a word that lazy people use to describe the Dedicated.” BS ok? 
We all want to look better and get stronger, but there has to be a point where enough is enough.
And I’m not even considering the hours spend online discussing training.
So, lets hear it! Or tell me why I’m dead wrong.
I’ll spare you the quote, but I really don’t see anything wrong with spending time in the gym as long as you’re reaching your goals and getting results. Eventually you get reduced returns off your time there, but I can’t tell you what constitutes obsessed.
I spend time shooting pucks and working on my stickhandling a ton in the basement in addition to spending time cooking my meals, grocery shopping, lifting, practice and everything else. It’s more a matter of your definition of what is obsessive rather than a number.
I’ve spent up to 5 hours a day 6 days a week training for wrestling. When you get to a certain point though, everyone is doing that.
You can’t really put a limit on it. A powerlifter may spend 2-3 hours in the gym a day leading up to competition, but a good chunk of that time may be spent sitting on one’s ass.
There are pictures of benni “training” lying on the floor with friends. However, obviously a guy looking to look better naked isn’t going to need this much time.
It’s too much when you are back training a body part that hasn’t recovered from it’s last workout. If you are doing this, not only are you causing more harm than good, you’re well on your way to burnout, which is really not good.
2.345637 hours per day, 5 days a week is obsessive.
180-200 minutes a week…no more, no less.
[quote]MrCritical wrote:
It’s too much when you are back training a body part that hasn’t recovered from it’s last workout. If you are doing this, not only are you causing more harm than good, you’re well on your way to burnout, which is really not good. [/quote]
I don’t necessarily agree. I look at it from the perspective in which the muscles will adapt to a higher frequency of training and will actually heal in a shorter time interval. Isn’t this at least the idea Chad Waterbury has? Of course, giving your body the proper nutrition is a prerequisite for this method to have any chance at success, but I think on this site proper nutrition can be assumed.
My opinion could be biased from the fact that I just love working out as often as possible, but I think HFT definately has its benefits.
The gym hours arent the obsession. The obsession is what drives the gym hours.
The real question then would be what is the obsession driven by?
This, of course, is alot like the “.8 of a bannana thread.”
But, on a more serious note, isn’t an obsession something that adversely affects the quality of your life overall? In other words, it’s only an obsession if it’s problem.
this thread gets 7.8 bannanas.
From my POV, I would say that more than 5 days a week is obsessive. You need at least a weekend off to keep your sanity and live a balanced lifestyle.
Clearly it has to be the steroids…or lowers voice to a whisper the creatine.
I think it depends on who defines it. What we do would be considered by most to be obsessive, yet ask anybody who really has their shit dialed in, I’m thinking the Prof, AA, etc, and they probably think most of us are lazy and undisciplined.
Obsession is purely subjective in my opinion. Which is more important to you: other people thinking you’re obsessive, or reaching your goals? Make your own decision.
I’m slowly getting to the point that I really don’t care what other people think. There is a core group of people I care about, but most people wouldn’t understand why and what I do. I want to get strong. Who cares if they don’t understand that?
I don’t think time is a good means to gauge effort put into or obsession regarding training. I’d wager that the people who are making the most progress and have the most drive are not the ones spending the most hours in the gym.
If all the time you are putting in is giving spectacular results, then fair enough. If like so many people I see up the gym every night for years on end, it leads to no progress, then I would say it is obsessive, for they are just training for the sake of it.
Hours wise, I’m never in the gym for more that 40 minutes tops, normally 30 minutes. I get in, do an exercise, take short rests, don’t talk to anyone, don’t waste 10 minutes strutting around the gym eyeballing everyone, and get out again.
[quote]t3h_Squirr3l wrote:
Clearly it has to be the steroids…or lowers voice to a whisper the creatine.[/quote]
The c-word! Blasphemy!
[quote]hit the gym wrote:
From my POV, I would say that more than 5 days a week is obsessive. You need at least a weekend off to keep your sanity and live a balanced lifestyle.[/quote]
Anyone trying to define for someone just how many gym visits is too much for them is worrying about others too much. Like The Beast wrote, it is based on whether you are reaching your goals. I am often in the gym 6 days a week and many times in the past would train with no days off for a few weeks at a time. Without the proper context of what I am actually doing in the gym, many jump to conclusions. I am also done with my workout very often in less than 40min.
Training more briefly and only training one body part a day is much different than some guy who is in the gym 2-3 hours a day and trying to also go 6 days a week but not giving his body parts enough time to recover.