we hear alot about the threat of overtraning. the human body, though, is a highly adaptable system, capable of altering itself to meet new stresses. so, my question is, wouldn’t a stress like overtraining which goes beyond what the body is accoustumed to only highten the body’s need to adapt? wouldnt ur body’s work capacity begin to go up as well, and your physique follow accordingly?
also, is soreness a good measure of when you can train a body part again? in other words, once soreness goes away, can you train the body part again, or is there some other way your body will “tell” you it is prepared for another session?
thanks ppl
You can increase your work capacity over time. However, to do this you have to slowly increase the amount of work being done. If you jump it up too quickly your body will be unable to recover from the workload, in the short term this leads to over-reaching which when used properly is a great thing. In the long term it leads to over-training. Look at it this way, if the furthest you’ve ever run is 2km and suddenly you try and run a marathon you’ll be damn lucky to make it. On the other hand if you work slowly up to it you should be able to handle it easily.
Soreness is irrelevant, unless it’s abnormally bad. Train when you’re sore, train when you’re not. Don’t seek DOMS because it’s an absurd way to measure your workload. Heck one set of a new exercise might cause days worth of doms but not be enough to stimulate a training response.
Hope that helps a little.
STU
Overtraining is the lazy mans excuse.
Sturat you summed that up pretty well. Their was an artilce in T-mag recently that actually said it’s a proven fact that like you said soreness is not an indicator of whether training should resume, in fact it saild that hypertrophy could still be stimulated while a muscle is sore, granted that rest and nutrition are on point. Furthermore, I think it was Ian King also stated that as advance in your training experiance (#yrs) the optimal number of repetitions to illicit hypertrophy becomes less because you are now drawing a larger amount of your reserves.
I think the word “overtraining” is overused. Yes, I am sure if you decided to lift weights for 10hrs a day for months on end with no rest breaks longer than 5 minutes while following a strict diet of tofu and water, you would be in prime condition to overtrain. I do not believe that overtraining is just waiting around the corner after every workout and that I should be very, very afraid of it. Working out by itself is a stress that your body must adapt to. That is what happens to be going on when it grows larger muscles and gets stronger. Of course there are limits to what your body can handle before the stress overwhelms the entire system, however, that would be extremely individual and would be harder to achieve the more trained an individual is. That means the answer is yes, your body does adapt to higher stress levels, especially if that increased stress is progressive and the body is allowed enough time to recover and adapt. Soreness is not the measuring stick you should use as far as muscle recovery. It is also not the goal in training. Your primary measuring stick should be increased strength levels over time and the attainment of the physique goals you are after. I generally will not train a muscle group if it is still sore from the last workout…however, just because it isn’t hurting right now doesn’t mean it has actually had enough time to recover and adapt by growing. If you are getting progressively stronger and are growing, you are not overtraining.
I believe overtraining is possible, also much easier to achieve if you are too low on calories. Depends on your conditioning too, and what supps you take and your genetics. For me going low on calories, no supps and working out daily was a recipe for overtraining. Wasn’t making any noticeable strength gains after doing that for months, and was constantly sore.
As for soreness I agree, work through it. Actually i’ve found it seems to go away better if you lift through it than if you rest it, of course depending on how sore.
I noticed a good amount of soreness the first time I did overhead squats, probably cause i was low on calories and also did a ton of front and back squats after those overhead ones.
I was still quite sore 3 days later but did back squats anyway and after that workout the soreness was just about gone.
thanks for all the replies. soreness is not a good measure, so what would be? is just feeling like hitting the gym a sufficient sighn? i personally liketo workout hard almost everyday, it helps keep me mellow. if it were up to me, i’d probally skip rest days altogether. am i setting myself up for disaster here?
Havanas, try it and see.
Workout hard every day and see if you are making gains that way. If so, keep doing it if you choose.
The amount of workout a person can do varies upon many things like we’ve noted. Maybe you are capable of doing it, maybe not. Only one way to find out.
I just wouldnt recommend hitting the weights hard every day and being hypocaloric at same time, not without using supps at least. Not unless you want to lose muscle…
The threat of overtraining is very real.
Goldberg:“The threat of overtraining is very real.”
There is no doubt that it exists, however, when newbies or people who haven’t trained very long start worrying about overtraining when the problem is usually coming from the fact that they don’t eat enough or decide to train chest 6 days a week, I find it hard to blame. I train, on average, 6 days a week…some days going without taking a rest day at all during the week because I only train one body part a day. I am not overtraining because I am growing and getting stronger. There are too many variables involved with the progress an individual might be seeing or not seeing to only blame it on training most of the time. Generally, the problem I see it that it comes from lack of attention to diet.
I don’t believe the average person would have much success with training 6 days a week. The body cannot handle such a repeated stress.
I don’t understand the problem here. Overtraining is real. The Soviets documented the effects of overtraining quite thoroughly. Soviet sports science was very thorough and innovative.
All you people who are saying overtraining is a myth have obviously never walked the line.
I suppose it’s most important if you are, like Goldberg and myself, competitive strength athletes. I know when I am in danger of overtraining, because the gains are just coming fast. Sadly, it seems a period of gaining is often followed by injury or regression. You always have to weigh the dangers or benefits of deloading vs. the dangers or benefits of continuing on. For PLs, OLs, Strongmen, throwers, etc, overtraining is quickly seen by a decrease in performance. In a person training for appearance or hypertrophy, you might not be aware that overtraining has set in until you actually start losing weight from it.
Jeff - what do you mean by “repeated stress”? Are you talking about to a muscle group or to the system as a whole? Just trying to clarify.
I was referring to the system as a whole.
You can, of course, also train a muscle too often.
While overtraining is real, it is also variable. It can be affected by your diet, work capacity (which can be altered), sleep, active rest, and lifestyle. This may be why some are hesitant to say that overtraining is someone’s problem, when the overtraining is being caused by one of the factors that I listed above.
Jeff Rage:"I don’t believe the average person would have much success with training 6 days a week. The body cannot handle such a repeated stress. "
I wasn’t claiming that they would. I think most people should begin working on a schedule that has them in the gym about 4 days a week and change things from there. I recover fast and grow pretty fast, at least faster than some I see at the gym. I train in a way that works for me, not for anyone else.
Shaf:" For PLs, OLs, Strongmen, throwers, etc, overtraining is quickly seen by a decrease in performance. In a person training for appearance or hypertrophy, you might not be aware that overtraining has set in until you actually start losing weight from it.
I train mostly for hypertrophy, however, I enjoy strength training. I train to see increases in strength (as a main goal) as well as size and I would think that many are in the same boat. I am not one who would like to have a 53" chest yet only be able to press 225lbs. With that in mind, I can tell when I have taken it too far and need a rest day. In school, it was easy to start feeling fatigued so I started taking more rest days as needed. I think overtraining exists because I have experienced it. However, I think most people who claim they are trying to avoid it, unless they are experienced trainers, usually have a problem with their entire training split and their diets. Most people who have made training a big part of their lives should be able to tell when they have hit their limit. What I have found though is that this limit isn’t just waiting after every workout. The person who started this thread didn’t come across as someone who had been training for years and knew offhand where their limit is. Personally, if my diet is right and my overall stress level is low, I can train 7 days a week and make progress. I don’t think I am average though.
I haven’t posted to any training threads, because I’m just getting started, but I kind of wanted to chime in on this one.
After years of gluttony and inactivity, I recently set about to rebuild the temple. Of course, I’m all amped up to work out everyday. As a compromise, I just stretched my split further. First step was to break leg day into two days (quad dominant/posterier chain). When I still wanted more, I decided to treat my weakest area to it’s own day for a while (for me it’s shoulders, rear/side head to be exact). My training sessions are shorter and more intense, and each individual body part actually has more time to recuperate.
That being said, it does seem that experienced trainees do have very different recovery needs than us newbies.
I was joking because the original guy made it sound like AIDS or something.
Goldberg, you’ll have to excuse me…my sense of humor is on lay-away. Give me a week.
I used to define overtraining as:
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working out for more than 2 days in a row
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working out more than 4 days in one week
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working out for more than an hour
However, it seems I may have been mislead, as many people seem to be getting great results doing more than what I listed above.
Any thoughts?