Lets Assume Overtraining Doesn't Exist

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
1

A few things have got me thinking lately.

I recently heard someone quote that “there is no such thing as overtraining, it is just under-recovering” and sometimes people say “it is just under-eating”. I think they are both trying to say the same thing, but the “under-recovering” makes more sense to me, because regardless of whether you are eating 500g of protein and 5,000 calories a day, you are not going to recover if you get 1 hour of sleep per night.

Another thing that got my curiosity going was Professor Xs post about how gains are usually made in spurts. Ive suspected this in the past as it has occured with me, but it never really caught on for me.

So ive been thinking about these two topics and how they relate. Here is where some of my thoughts are headed at the moment.

  1. If gains are not linear, then why train with a linear attitude–

The old addage of try to consistenly add small amounts each workout, and aim for .5 lbs of muscle gain a week sound great in theory, but things never work out this way. Your much more likely to pack on 10 lbs in 4 weeks, and then maintain, then you are to pack on .5lbs a week for 20 weeks (both on the bar, and on yourself)

  1. There is a theoretical set maximum recovery that cannot be determined, but can be guesstimated by altering different factors affecting recovery.

When it comes to recovery, the big factors are

Energy/nutrient intake
Sleep/rest
outside stresses
Time between workouts
Other factors - (like supplements)

Now i think with all of these factors, you are going to experience diminishing returns. There is a theoretical minimum requirement for each one, and after that you just dont get much back for what you put in.

For example: a 200lb recreational lifter might require 3000 calories to recover from one workout to the next and be able to gradually add weight to the bar, and gain muscle at a very slow rate. If he bumps the calories up to 3500, he may see large improvements in strength as well as a substantial increase in muscle each week. But heres the thing, the next 500 calories he adds to reach 4000 per day will not have as much of an affect as the first 500. Not only will the diminishing returns be a problem, but as the possative returns diminish, the negative returns increase (ex fat gain) So in theory, if this lifter were to keep all other variables the same, but start taking in 5000 calories a day, he likely would not benefit much, and instead would get pretty fat. (BUT THAT IS ALL OTHER FACTORS BEING THE SAME)

Before we move on, lets have another example. Lets take a very similar situation, but have a 200lb elite level athlete, who is 200lbs and 8% bf. This person trains for 30+ hours per week, and currently takes in 5000 calories a day to just maintain. The same phenomenon will occur in which increased calories will likely lead to greater improvements, but will have a diminishing possative effect, and increasing negative effect as you further increase them.

What is the difference between these two people though, because one is taking in twice as many calories? The big difference is the other factors that we were keeping constant. The elite athlete is in far better shape, and requires a greater calorie intake to recover.

Now the important thing here to notice, is that if the recreational lifter is going to either eat or train like the elite athlete then he needs to BOTH eat AND train like the elite athlete. If he just does one or the other, then the possative effects will not be optimized and the negative effects minimized, and it will be disastrous.

This same reasoning could be applied to any factors affecting recovery. While 8 hours of sleep might be better than 6 for an individual, and 10 might be better than 8. The difference between 6 and 8 is far greater than the difference between 8 and 10. And negative factors will become more prevalent as you increase beyone adequate.

So all of this either sound like a lot to you, or a bunch of theoretical mumbo jumbo. But let me continue and try to get my point across.

2

I’ll continue with a few thoughts on “overtraining”

I wont argue that overtraining doesn’t exist, because we all know it does. And I think there needs to be a distinction between different types of overtraining.

There is basically acute (shor term) and chronic (long term) overtraining. I think this is where the definitions get all out of whack.

By acute, I mean that you are acutely applying a stress, and your body immediately or in the short term gives in. This is what happens when that newbie lifter with horrible squat form trys to squat (good morning) 400lbs and hurts there back. THERE IS NO ARGUING THAT THIS HAPPENS, AND IT HAS LITTLE IF NOTHING TO DO WITH RECOVERY. INSTEAD ITS LACK OF PREPAREDNESS.

Chronic overtraining would be something that build up over a series of “overreaches” and the cumulative overreaching eventually leads to overtraining. This is hard to define as some might say when you start to lose strength you are overtraining, while others might say that overtraining results in some injury or illness, but that is besides the point.

THE POINT HERE, IS THAT CHRONIC OVERTRAINING IS THE RESULT OF LACK OF PREPAREDNESS, BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY LACK OF RECOVERY.

If I decide to squat 3x per week while doing a low carb cutting diet and after 4 weeks i get the flu and continue to train and hurt my back, was that because I tried squatting too much. Maybe. But maybe I was actually using less weight than I started with. WHAT HAPPENED HERE, IS THE LACK OF RECOVERY LED TO A DECREASE IN PREPAREDNESS.

So what used to not cause overtraining now was too much. All of this could be avoided if I were to say eat more, squat 2x per week instead of 3, or use less volume, etc. etc.

So there are the defintions of overtraining, and the whole “there is no overtraining, just under-recovering” notion is purely dealing with CHRONIC overtraining.

3

So let me sum this up (at least for now)

In my experience, and my observations and speculations of others, acute overtraining is the result of someone either being over-ambitious, or careless. If my current max deadlift was 300lbs, and I decided this time I was going to shoot for 400, that would be definately over-ambitious.

If ive been training hard, and can deadlift 300 for mutliple sets of 10, but get careless with my form and hurt my back, then this is likely due to me being careless.

So as far as acute overtraining goes, if you know your limits, but how to overcome them and pay attention to your form even when highly fatigued, then you shouldn’t have to worry much about acute overtraining.

So on to chronic overtraining.

As for chronic overtraining, we already cleared up the fact that it isn’t going to happen in one workout. So you work hard, and you work frequently and you are progressing (THIS IS THE KEY, IF YOU AREN’T PROGRESSING, THEN WHY ARE YOU DOING IT) you will hit a point where you need to back off, supercompensate, and then repeat.

This is HIGHLY individual and also depends greatly on your use of all the factors affecting recovery. The main point is, if you are able to progress in some way, whether it be more weight, more reps, more sets, etc. etc. then you are doing good, and should continue to progress. If you are not progressing, then you need to change something.

It may be extra calories, an extra days rest between workouts, one less set, less weight, etc. etc. The point here is that recovery is entirely individual and this might take some trial and error to figure out.

I see all these peopl arguing about which program is best (high volume/low frequency, high intensity/low volume, etc.) And people argue on both sides which is best. The fact is there is no one best (at least not for everyone) but a little trial and error should lead to the best, at the moment.

Here is a very simplified example. Lets assume im going to shoot for a burst in growth and a rapid increase in my bench pressing ability. Im not looking for slow and steady, and im not scared of overtraining.

I’ll start with benching 5 days a week. (Thats right 5 days)

Now there are many different ways to begin, but lest just say i’ll start with what I think is optimal for all my recovery variables. I’ll be eating 5000 calories a day, sleeping 8 hours a day, etc.

So day one comes. I decide to do 5x5 in a ramping fashion, and am only really concerned with my final working set. Lets assume I did 200 for five on the last set.

The next day comes, and I do the same exact thing, but on the final set, I do more in some way. (205, or 6 reps) Heck I could even do 5, then rest-pause and do one more. Then the following day, rest pause and do 2 more. It doesnt matter.

Eventually i’ll hit a point where I know im not going to be able to progress. At this point I make a decision. I can back off and try my same cycle decreasing the load or volume a bit and building back up, or I can back off, change a variable or two and continue to progress. Maybe I bump my calories up to 6000 per day, and sleep up to 10 hours per day.

I’ll continue to try to progress, and if I do, then good, if not thats good also. I’ll then know that with this frequency/volume/intensity, ive already exhausted my maximal recovery, and am experiencing too much diminishing returns to continue. So then I change the training variables, and maybe lower the frequency and maybe do 2 on 1 off, 2 on 1 off. I should start seeing progress again to a point, and then i’ll have to make some changes again.

And so on, and so on.

And eventually if I keep progressing this way, i may end up with something along the lines of a typical “advanced routine” where I need lower volumes and less frequency as well as greater calorie intake. But the point is, at that time it will be close to optimal for me, but when I was just starting out it probably wasn’t.

Thats all for now, im hoping some agree, and some disagree with what ive said.

but i’ll close with this conclusion.

“There shouldn’t be this mass hysterical fear of overtraining, instead lets start fearing underreaching”

4

That’s quite the formidable wall of text you have constructed. Perhaps I’ll attempt to conquer it later.

5

i didn’t read all of it, but simply put

train hard, eat enough, sleep enough = growth.

I think your overthinking big time bud…

its always nice to come up with theories and try new things, and try and figure the body out…but to be honest 99% of people start over complicating stuff that doesn’t need to be because they are trying to make things easier.

Just put in a lot of hard work in all areas (training, food, rest, supplementation, etc) and it will pay off maybe not immediately but eventually.

DG

6

You can not calculate a way to predict how the body will respond. It is a constant state of trying to balance every hormonal influence in the entire body. Not increasing in strength for a couple of weeks means NOTHING.

The op is overthinking an issue that you can not control. All you can do is try to eat enough to grow when your body is ready and lift heavy enough to force the body to respond.

7

Yes. It’s nice to think about all of this theory and stuff, but I’m going to agree with the above posters - it sounds like a lot of overthinking for a stupidly simple concept.

Not enough rest and food = Not enough recovery.

8

Them Spike shooters sometimes make me too wordy as well.

9

[quote]chillain wrote:
Them Spike shooters sometimes make me too wordy as well.[/quote]

Yeah, me too.

I get this false feeling of power, like I could raise Cicero from the dead, out-orate him, then kill him again.

I try not to post under the influence.

10

I’ve been stuck at the same weight on the bench press for about 3 months (my first real plateau).

I caught strep throat and that shut down weight trainig and eating properly for about 2 weeks.

When I got back to health, I was quite a bit weaker, I’ve struggled these last 2 1/2 months, altering my diet by bumping calories up, trying to go to failure, isolating my triceps.

Well, I finally made some good progress and I think I’ve got everything back on track.

Now that’s a complicated way of saying, I ate more and lifted harder and smarter.

11

I agree with everything everyone has said. Was just spouting out some of the things ive been thinking about lately.

I know everything could be simplified to eat more, and progress in all the major lifts, but some of this sparked my interest.

The big thing that im thinking of trying is trying to see if I can overtrain myself. I’ll eat a ton, rest a ton, and work out as much as I can. (within reason)

I did something similar to this in high school. All I would do was power cleans and bench press. I would mix things up with the weight and grips, but if I remember correctly I was doing both lifts 3-5 times per week, and working out M-F. I never overtrained, and I got decently strong.

I was 16 years old, 5’10" 150lb skinny ectomorph, but I could bench and clean 225. Not great but decent. I couldn’t gain much weight then, but my chest blew up and to this day it is still large in proportion to everything else.

I know nobody likes to here all of these theories, so maybe if I spend more time overtraining, i’ll have less time to sit and home and ponder these things.

Last thing for now. People mention things like, just eat and lift heavy and you’ll grow, and this is true to a point. And there is no possible way of ever coming up with this Optimal plan, but I still think its important to try different things.

If you aren’t gaining weight, then sure its because you aren’t taking in enough calories, but you also might not be working hard enough. It sounds counterproductive, but extra work, will likely equal extra hunger, and if you get the right mindset going, extra work, plus eating everything in site, may be the equation for greater growth.

And most importantly, if you are eating a lot, gaining weight, and your lifts are going up significantly, then you are growing.

12

tl;dr

13

True. However, in my experience, if I work myself to the point of pure exhaustion, I lose hunger and have a complete lack of interest in eating. Maybe I am wierd, but I don’t think so.

When I was wrestling… after practice… my friends and I… we never ate… we just got so hungry we weren’t hungry anymore. Eating made us feel sick so it was just easier not to eat.

And ever since I cut down on my training volume I have grown hungrier. Like I said, I could be wierd though.

14

[quote]dankid wrote:

The big thing that im thinking of trying is trying to see if I can overtrain myself. I’ll eat a ton, rest a ton, and work out as much as I can. (within reason)
[/quote]

Gotta throw out the “within reason” if you are trying to overtrain.

15

[quote]Tex Ag wrote:
dankid wrote:

The big thing that im thinking of trying is trying to see if I can overtrain myself. I’ll eat a ton, rest a ton, and work out as much as I can. (within reason)

Gotta throw out the “within reason” if you are trying to overtrain.[/quote]

Agreed, but it could be a neat experiment.

I know every once in a while we see threads about 7 days on/0 off type of training. Shit, go for it for like three months. Look at what Bauer did. Try something like 5 day a week/twice per day with like 10,000 calories… if you’re up for it. Could see some interesting results.

16

Dankid,

The reason that nobody will ever come up with an optimal plan for muscle growth is that there are too many variables to take into account (most of which you listed in your original post). For example, there is no way to predict when and where a growth spurt will occur.

The best way to prepare for it is to constantly push for that growth and eat constantly to support it. That way, you will be prepared for when it happens.

A beginner doesn’t need to train with an advanced routine because their body will respond to a much lower volume and frequency.

If they did try to use a routine beyond their current level of training experience, they would be unlikely to gain significantly more muscle (although most think that they will!) - they would more likely burn themselves out.

So to compare an elite level athlete with a recreational lifter is a bit futile. The athlete will have developed a level of work capacity far above that of the recreational lifter (and taken years to do it), so not only is the athlete going to be able to tolerate a lot more stress, but they are going to expend more energy due to their level of activity.

There are so many reasons as to why this isn’t a fair comparison.

As a sixteen year old, did you really need to hammer power cleans and bench presses 3-5 times a week? Could you have gotten better results with a different approach? Possibly. Could you have eaten a better diet? Maybe.
But there is no point in debating that, because the same approach may not work for you now. No point in concentrating on the “what ifs”. It’s far better to concentrate on the “what haves”.

That’s like saying you could have done better in the third grade if only you had gotten a high school level education. It may work for a few gifted individuals, but it won’t work for the majority.

Also, a beginner or intermediate lifter doesn’t necessarily have to eat thousands of calories to support growth: they eat what they need to in order to grow, nothing more.

A guy who has spent most of his life sitting on his ass in front of the TV snacking on Doritos may only need to eat adequate amounts of protein in support him at whatever level of training he happens to be at, at that point in time.

Training, diet, recovery ability: It’s all relative to where your starting point is. It can’t really be condensed into a formula.

The human body is a complex machine that follows very simple rules: building muscle is a biological process, after all. There is no need to obsess over relatively small details if there is no guarantee that they’ll lead to significant progress.

All that matters is results. If somebody pulled you aside after your 10th year of bodybuilding, and told you that you could have gained an extra pound of muscle if you had only followed program A) instead of program B), would it really matter?

17

because strength comes with muscle many times people overlook the differences in training for growth and training for strength as well as the hormones and muscle building process involved in natural and roided up lifting.

Even more important if your natural, just because your not overtrained doesn’t mean you want to continue to tear your muscle up while training. If your goal is MAXIMUM muscle size you want to hit it hard enough to grow,so that you can add on more muscle. Look at overtraining as taking 1 step forward and 2 steps back. Now assuming overtrainiing is impossible, you can still go back to zero by damaging the muscle as much as possible. You just won’t have a negative.

This is not under recovering, your body will get stronger, may even gain all the muscle back and a little bigger but it won’t be as big as someone who got bigger plus retained more muscle. If you continue to tear the muscle past the point you will just get stronger and fatter, and say your bulking.

18

[quote]roybot wrote:
Dankid,

The reason that nobody will ever come up with an optimal plan for muscle growth is that there are too many variables to take into account (most of which you listed in your original post). For example, there is no way to predict when and where a growth spurt will occur.

The best way to prepare for it is to constantly push for that growth and eat constantly to support it. That way, you will be prepared for when it happens.

A beginner doesn’t need to train with an advanced routine because their body will respond to a much lower volume and frequency. If they did try to use a routine beyond their current level of training experience, they would be unlikely to gain significantly more muscle (although most think that they will!) - they would more likely burn themselves out.

So to compare an elite level athlete with a recreational lifter is a bit futile.

The athlete will have developed a level of work capacity far above that of the recreational lifter (and taken years to do it), so not only is the athlete going to be able to tolerate a lot more stress, but they are going to expend more energy due to their level of activity. There are so many reasons as to why this isn’t a fair comparison.

As a sixteen year old, did you really need to hammer power cleans and bench presses 3-5 times a week? Could you have gotten better results with a different approach? Possibly. Could you have eaten a better diet? Maybe.

But there is no point in debating that, because the same approach may not work for you now. No point in concentrating on the “what ifs”. It’s far better to concentrate on the “what haves”.

That’s like saying you could have done better in the third grade if only you had gotten a high school level education. It may work for a few gifted individuals, but it won’t work for the majority.

Also, a beginner or intermediate lifter doesn’t necessarily have to eat thousands of calories to support growth: they eat what they need to in order to grow, nothing more.

A guy who has spent most of his life sitting on his ass in front of the TV snacking on Doritos may only need to eat adequate amounts of protein in support him at whatever level of training he happens to be at, at that point in time.

Training, diet, recovery ability: It’s all relative to where your starting point is. It can’t really be condensed into a formula.

The human body is a complex machine that follows very simple rules: building muscle is a biological process, after all. There is no need to obsess over relatively small details if there is no guarantee that they’ll lead to significant progress.

All that matters is results. If somebody pulled you aside after your 10th year of bodybuilding, and told you that you could have gained an extra pound of muscle if you had only followed program A) instead of program B), would it really matter?

[/quote]

Im not sure if you are aggreeing or disagreeing with me. I wasnt trying to come up with a magical formula for the optimal plan. Instead, I was just suggesting a possible method of approaching what might be optimal, or at least good for an individaul, at an individual moment of time.

Yes, what I did back then might not work now, but as I stated, I try it, and if my lifts progress, then it works, if they dont, then it doesn’t.

I think the real problem here, is that people try to look at the human body as a controlled system. They try to hold all variables constant and look at the effects of just changing one. The problem is that the body is so complex that this does not work. That is why trial and error always wins over theory. BUT… understanding the variables is highly important for trial and error.

Hitting a muscle 1x per week might be optimal with 20 sets, but hitting it 2x per week might be optimal with 10 sets. The only way to know is to try.

And on a side note, blindly following other programs, regardless of how well they have worked for others is not the best idea. Sure you can say that they worked for a bunch of people therefore you should just follow it, but there are other things to consider. If 1,000 people are on a forum talking about how HFT worked so well for them, you might think this program is guaranteed to work.

But there is the possibility that 10,000 people tried it, and it only worked well for 10% of them. Or maybe some of those people that it worked for didnt follow it exactly, but instead made little changes. Maybe they were the ones that after everything was done, went and hit and extra 10 sets for biceps, even though the program didn’t prescribe any direct arm work.

There are sooooooo many explanations as to why anything works, but everything doesn’t work. Im just trying to keep an open mind and see what happens.

19

[quote]Tex Ag wrote:
dankid wrote:

The big thing that im thinking of trying is trying to see if I can overtrain myself. I’ll eat a ton, rest a ton, and work out as much as I can. (within reason)

Gotta throw out the “within reason” if you are trying to overtrain.[/quote]

Im sure you’d all like to see me do that. Im assuming overtraining doesn’t exist, but within reason means i’ll be trying to match my work to my recovery. I could overtrain if I didn’t, but then would that really be overtraining, or would it just be under-recovering?

(Think 20 rep sets of eccentric squats, done 3x per week, on a 1500 calorie diet) Overtraining, or under-recovering?

I seem to remember Poliquin having a program somewhat like what im thinking about. I think it was called supercompensation or something. I’ll probably look over that program and do my experiment based off of it.

20

[quote]dankid wrote:

Im not sure if you are aggreeing or disagreeing with me. I wasnt trying to come up with a magical formula for the optimal plan. Instead, I was just suggesting a possible method of approaching what might be optimal, or at least good for an individaul, at an individual moment of time.

Yes, what I did back then might not work now, but as I stated, I try it, and if my lifts progress, then it works, if they dont, then it doesn’t.

I think the real problem here, is that people try to look at the human body as a controlled system. They try to hold all variables constant and look at the effects of just changing one. The problem is that the body is so complex that this does not work.

That is why trial and error always wins over theory. BUT… understanding the variables is highly important for trial and error. Hitting a muscle 1x per week might be optimal with 20 sets, but hitting it 2x per week might be optimal with 10 sets. The only way to know is to try.

And on a side note, blindly following other programs, regardless of how well they have worked for others is not the best idea. Sure you can say that they worked for a bunch of people therefore you should just follow it, but there are other things to consider.

If 1,000 people are on a forum talking about how HFT worked so well for them, you might think this program is guaranteed to work. But there is the possibility that 10,000 people tried it, and it only worked well for 10% of them.

Or maybe some of those people that it worked for didnt follow it exactly, but instead made little changes. Maybe they were the ones that after everything was done, went and hit and extra 10 sets for biceps, even though the program didn’t prescribe any direct arm work.

There are sooooooo many explanations as to why anything works, but everything doesn’t work. Im just trying to keep an open mind and see what happens.
[/quote]

Well I agree to a certain extent with what you’re saying, but its not entirely clear what your standpoint is. I agree that an individual needs to experiment to find what works for them, but at the same time you need to ensure that you are still making progression while figuring things out.

That, in my opinion, depends on learning from other people who have gained significant mass and not deviating too far from the tried and trusted methods of building muscle. I don’t mean blindly following somebody else’s program rep for rep, but looking at the basic training methods that have produced the best results.

Pretty much everything that you discussed in your initial post has been addressed in DC training. Everything Dante says is geared towards streamlining the process of building muscle, not overcomplicating or over-analyzing things.

Overtraining, undereating, etc: these factors should only become a serious consideration when they start to impede your progress. There is absolutely no need to worry about them before that. I don’t see why an individual would need to gauge how far they need to go before they overtrain if they are already making satisfactory progress. It is totally unnecessary.