Take some time off. Like a week or so will not kill you. I understand the bug, but if you take some time off you will see more gains and returns for your investment.
Personally I take every 5th or so week off. Or a day or 2 from training. Then I come back with a fury and shock my body. It works.
Thanks. I do at times feel I need that extra several days but when I hit the weights on the Sunday after taking Sat. off I am motivated. I do need the break. I can feel it by Thursday and Friday.
Like HappyDog48 said, the only exercise that really impacts definition is a triceps exercise: Table Push Aways. Getting definition is about restricting your calories.
But on whether your routine is overtraining, there’s only one person who can answer that and that person is you. If you’re starting to show signs of overtraining, then it is; if you’re not showing signs of overtraining, then it isn’t. What is going to overtrain me, may or may not overtrain you and vice versa. See if you start feeling wiped out, start checking your heart rate and temperature when you wake up in the mornings. If your heart rate is elevated and/or your temp starts to go down, you could be overtraining.
When I look at your routine, I’m not getting a real feel for the design idea behind it. I’m not seeing the unifying theme behind the exercise selection and the exercises don’t seem to hang together for me very well. But… I’ve trained using Sheiko so I’m not totally hung up on that sort of thing.
If I were you and doing this routine (which appears to be an attempt at a 3x/week full body routine), I’d make sure not to do more than 2 work sets per exercise and I’d try to distribute the exercises so that every workout was more “complete” and hit more of the body. But that’s just me.
Doesn’t look to be too much to me, but as others said, your body will tell you when it’s too much, you just have to be listening.
If you like that program, try altering it, increase weight & decease reps, increase rest periods - say, 6 x 3 instead of 3 x 6 or 4 x 4 with 2 minute rests.
And the break from training every now and then doesn’t hurt. Use the break to do something different, focus on stretching or just walking, then get back into it and see the results.
Are you absolutely married to running - I mean, do you train for marathons, or just love doing it? In my experience, esp in working with my clientelle, long distance running is the single most destructive exercise based activity one can do to the human body. If you love it, then go for it. It’s better than doing nothing at all, but just barely.
