I’ve been applying Dr Darden’s principles of training for quite a while but I guess I might have taken it too far.
I performed an upper body only workout - bench press, chin up, shoulder press, leteral raise, barbell curls and tricep extensions.
I wanted to shock the muscle with 3 sets each - 1 pumping set, one 30-10-30 and a final 10-30. All to failure
By the evening I was so stress that even my legs were shaking. I felt anxious, stressed and couldn’t slept despite feeling very tired. This happened for two days straight, this insomnia.
Is this overtraining? From a single workout? I should I relief this?
You clearly trained over what your body was used to. You couldn’t sleep for 2 nights, it will take a little longer than normal for you to recover from that workout. And if you keep training that way, or rush to lift before you’re feeling normal, you will probably start going backwards.
So I guess I just taxed my CNS. Now I understand why Dr Darden advocates lifting short of failure. Failure or not to failure, that’s the question. I’m in my thirties so I wasn’t expecting this. 10-10-10… 30-10-30… 1 set, 3 sets ( pump/stimulate/flutter ) failure or not to failure I have no idea which protocol suits me best for hypertrophy. But I guess 3 sets of any exercise is just too much and counterproductive. I just don’t understand how heavy volume trainers don’t crash like this.
I’ll try to rest this off.
You do build up a work capacity through exposure. Your sets are also going to look a little different. Like you don’t run your 10k at your 40m pace, nor do a few sessions of starts and 25m repeats build your conditioning for the 10k.
If you’ve got experience training to failure (a few years, not a few months), going 1 rep shy of failure is better.
Otherwise, training to momentary muscle failure is better.
You’re in your 30s, you’re fine bro. Just work on your recovery factors and maybe move to more current HIT methods.
