Prior to this I never really believed my training affected me even though it was. I always did and still do very high volume and intensity. I used to lift everyday and always do cardio back when I had no idea what i was doing. The over exhaustion and bad nutrition killed me and brought on a lot of problems. Nowadays this is how I do things: day back, shoulder, abs=aprox 7 excersises day 2 chest aprox 7 exercises day 3 arms aprox 5 excersises. Day off or active recovery after that then repeat until week is over.
On some days like yesterday I couldn’t lift for shit because of this high volume so today Ill do active recovery by 20 min on the elliptical and try to correct yesterdays failed workout by doing some preacher curls and thats it. I also try to overcompensate with my nutrition i.e. eating more just to recover faster. Im also not gaining weight which really sucks.
Have any of you been in this place and corrected it somehow? I wanna still hit each muscle group 2x per week of course. Should i do day 1 day 2 then rest than day 3? I think I might do that.
Could you give a better explanation of your programming?
It sounds like you are under recovering rather than over training. You can improve workout capacity/recovery time to an extent but at some point we all have to accept that we cannot cheat time and there will be a limit to balancing the volume/intensity/recovery equation…
Here’s what I do:
Monday - legs
Tuesday - rest
Wednesday - back/biceps
Thursday - chest/shoulders/triceps
Friday - legs
Saturday - back/biceps
Sunday - chest/shoulders
That hits everything twice a week. For the main lift that day I will usually work up to a heavy set and then back down and do volume of either 5x5, 5x7, 7x5, 10x3, or 4x9.
I don’t do as much accessory work on legs, but for the rest I will usually do around 6 other lifts after the big one for 3-4 sets of 10-15 reps.
That sounds more or less like what you want to do. I’ve never noticed anything approaching overtraining or problems with recovery. You should be fine to work into something like that. Just take your time and increase your volume and frequency little by little. As your body adapts, before you know it you’ll have no problem hitting everything twice a week with good volume. Work capacity is just something you have to train like you would train anything else.
[quote]gshoty40 wrote:
I always did and still do very high volume and intensity.
…
I wanna still hit each muscle group 2x per week of course.[/quote]
High volume and high intensity and high frequency can be the road to legit overtraining, especially if you’re not properly conditioned to handle it all and/or you’re not giving yourself proper nutrition (as was mentioned).
[quote]Headache wrote:
Height/Weight?
What is your diet like?[/quote]
And general fat level? (not a percentage, just a description - chunky, kinda lean, average, etc.)
[quote]Ecchastang wrote:
No leg day?[/quote]
Answers to all of these will give us a chance to offer much better advice. But the short answer is: Get on a better training plan (do you really need 7 exercises to train chest?) and follow a better diet and things should correct themselves right-quick.
Also, silly little question, but what’s your goal, exactly?