I never felt I had to take a week off for the first 5 years I trained. It would happen here and there if I got sick, or went on vacation, but I never “had” too.
Only now that I am lifting alot heavier on a regular basis do I deload for a day every now and then. I’m still in the gym though doing something, usually at the intensity most guys train at every day. even after my meet last month I only took one scheduled training day off.
[quote]WeezTheJuice wrote:
For me the easiest way to tell if I’m overtraining starts with keeping track of all other variables. Log every rep and every pound in the gym, and keep track of everything you eat during the day. If I’m hitting it hard and eating big, the lifts go up. If the lifts plateau, my first reaction is to eat more, and so I will, and the lifts usually go up again. If I am going with full intensity in the gym, and eating big, and gaining weight this whole time, but the numbers aren’t going up, that is when I take a week off.
When you get back in the gym it may take a week to be firing on all cylinders, but shortly after the break my lifts will show improvements again. I’m simplifying a lot here but that is the basics of how I monitor myself. If you don’t keep track of your diet and what you do in the gym, then its easy to think you’re overtraining when you plateau, when really you just haven’t addressed one of the basics.[/quote]
Hey Bud-dy,
I’m not sure if your input was a direct response to my post, but if it was then let me assure you that I have not only kept logs but also planned every rep and calorie ahead of time. I have made pretty decent gains in the past, but I just always ended up getting sick after pushing myself, which has continually caused me to lose focus/hope of achieving my goals. For me, food allergies/intolerances limit my muscle gain and overall health. When my gut aint right, my progress will stop dead in its tracks.
Weez on.
[quote]BulletproofTiger wrote:
WeezTheJuice wrote:
For me the easiest way to tell if I’m overtraining starts with keeping track of all other variables. Log every rep and every pound in the gym, and keep track of everything you eat during the day. If I’m hitting it hard and eating big, the lifts go up. If the lifts plateau, my first reaction is to eat more, and so I will, and the lifts usually go up again. If I am going with full intensity in the gym, and eating big, and gaining weight this whole time, but the numbers aren’t going up, that is when I take a week off.
When you get back in the gym it may take a week to be firing on all cylinders, but shortly after the break my lifts will show improvements again. I’m simplifying a lot here but that is the basics of how I monitor myself. If you don’t keep track of your diet and what you do in the gym, then its easy to think you’re overtraining when you plateau, when really you just haven’t addressed one of the basics.
Hey Bud-dy,
I’m not sure if your input was a direct response to my post, but if it was then let me assure you that I have not only kept logs but also planned every rep and calorie ahead of time. I have made pretty decent gains in the past, but I just always ended up getting sick after pushing myself, which has continually caused me to lose focus/hope of achieving my goals. For me, food allergies/intolerances limit my muscle gain and overall health. When my gut aint right, my progress will stop dead in its tracks.
Weez on.[/quote]
My bad, I mistakenly address the reader a lot in my responses with saying things like “you” and “you’re” but that’s not what I mean. I really wasn’t trying to reply to anybody, just trying to shed some personal experience. I haven’t had any issues that I know of concerning food allergies so I can’t offer any advice on your situation. I was moreso trying to point out that when I first started, I didn’t keep a log book and just ate whenever, but for those doing this, I wanted to point out that the simple tasks of keeping track of the two fundamentals, your diet and your progression in the weight room, can point out some of the flaws in one’s approach can be revealed when you just look at what you have there. For me when the food goes up and the mass goes up and the weights don’t, its probably about that time to cruise for a week.
Idk about this. I can FEEL myself getting more fatigued over time, I can also tell when I’m pushing too hard (hard enough?) because I’ll feel like shit and get sick. However when I’m like that as long as I eat like a motherfucker I keep progressing. Also, when I can feel the fatigue, I sleep like a baby, am tired all day, and can maintain/lose bodyfat even when eating really dirty foods all the time.
Sounds like I’m “overtraining” but I force progress. I view it mroe as being run down, not overtrained It doesn’t get too noticable unless I skip my 5/3/1 deload. Which, ironically I did between this and last cycle.
[quote]Westclock wrote:
MODOK wrote:
Westclock wrote:
You have limits, its unlikely that most people will EVER hit those limits due to lack of training intensity, but its certainly possible to hit them without doing anything really crazy.
The first sentence is actually the point we have been trying to get across. Younger trainees see this as a paradigm and take it as the gospel, when they are still benching 135 and squatting 185, when they could be training straight through for a couple of years with absolutely no down time and getting their numbers up. You have to be careful what you say around these noobs…stuff like this screws them UP.
And I would have to say, in speaking to your situation, 12 hours a week of intense weight training AND playing sports would qualify as pretty “crazy”, geared or not. Most folks can’t even handle half that much training volume. So, in your case, yes I’m sure you overtrained. Training 5-6 hours a week though would be a vastly different story, I’m sure you’d agree.
Of course.
Im merely providing an example for them to look at.
I had never experienced “overtraining” before in many years of powerlifting/sports. Even as a natural, I had never encountered these problems, I never took “light days” in the gym, I just lifted as heavy and hard as I could, at everything I could, all the time.
And even with my somewhat moronic program in which I thought I was invincible…it actually took almost 6 weeks at that pace before I started to crash.
So unless the training program is borderline nonsense, its simply diet/sleep related.
It just seems odd that people state the body doesnt have limits, that it cant overtrain. I realize your not stating this, but many people talk in that manner. It just doesnt even sound reasonable when one says it outloud.
There is absoluetly a ceiling, its high as hell, but its there, and it took me years to ever even see it.
[/quote]
Gentleman, what about stimulant use?
I’m thinking someone who takes in 300-500mg of caffeine throughout a non lifting day, and between 500-700mg on a lifting day.
Would this have any significant effect on recovery? If so, good or bad?
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
Westclock wrote:
MODOK wrote:
Westclock wrote:
You have limits, its unlikely that most people will EVER hit those limits due to lack of training intensity, but its certainly possible to hit them without doing anything really crazy.
The first sentence is actually the point we have been trying to get across. Younger trainees see this as a paradigm and take it as the gospel, when they are still benching 135 and squatting 185, when they could be training straight through for a couple of years with absolutely no down time and getting their numbers up. You have to be careful what you say around these noobs…stuff like this screws them UP.
And I would have to say, in speaking to your situation, 12 hours a week of intense weight training AND playing sports would qualify as pretty “crazy”, geared or not. Most folks can’t even handle half that much training volume. So, in your case, yes I’m sure you overtrained. Training 5-6 hours a week though would be a vastly different story, I’m sure you’d agree.
Of course.
Im merely providing an example for them to look at.
I had never experienced “overtraining” before in many years of powerlifting/sports. Even as a natural, I had never encountered these problems, I never took “light days” in the gym, I just lifted as heavy and hard as I could, at everything I could, all the time.
And even with my somewhat moronic program in which I thought I was invincible…it actually took almost 6 weeks at that pace before I started to crash.
So unless the training program is borderline nonsense, its simply diet/sleep related.
It just seems odd that people state the body doesnt have limits, that it cant overtrain. I realize your not stating this, but many people talk in that manner. It just doesnt even sound reasonable when one says it outloud.
There is absoluetly a ceiling, its high as hell, but its there, and it took me years to ever even see it.
Gentleman, what about stimulant use?
I’m thinking someone who takes in 300-500mg of caffeine throughout a non lifting day, and between 500-700mg on a lifting day.
Would this have any significant effect on recovery? If so, good or bad?[/quote]
adrenal fatigue. which plays a role in my situation as well.
So I finally finished reading the thread up to here (actually had some work to do), and so far I’ve read about
Psychological Overtraining
Physiological Overtraining
Normal Plateaus with Training
or some combination of the 3.
Quick dirty take on things…
Psychological Overtraining; no-one said this shit was easy. Everyone has problems in life. I prefer amitriptyline/noritriptyline as a nice generic med, please see Modok for all your dispensing needs (wanna know what he really does all day!! LOL)
Physiological Overtraining; overused term. I always like what a cycling coach taught me years ago, get a baseline resting heart rate when you’re good and healthy, if you’re not feeling right keep an eye on that, if it is elevated over 10bpm you’ve got issues otherwise suck it up and get into it.
Normal Plateaus with Training; happens to everyone. I’d suggest this is when people go for options a) or b) above.
Hence the popularity of the term overreaching. Overtraining implies something bad; overreaching is what we all do to some level for varying phases of our training, and it’s a good thing.
How come none of the guys who got huge seem to think overtraining exists, yet all the puny shits swear it’s why they look like pussies? Hmmmm…
[quote]zephead4747 wrote:
countingbeans wrote:
Westclock wrote:
MODOK wrote:
Westclock wrote:
You have limits, its unlikely that most people will EVER hit those limits due to lack of training intensity, but its certainly possible to hit them without doing anything really crazy.
The first sentence is actually the point we have been trying to get across. Younger trainees see this as a paradigm and take it as the gospel, when they are still benching 135 and squatting 185, when they could be training straight through for a couple of years with absolutely no down time and getting their numbers up. You have to be careful what you say around these noobs…stuff like this screws them UP.
And I would have to say, in speaking to your situation, 12 hours a week of intense weight training AND playing sports would qualify as pretty “crazy”, geared or not. Most folks can’t even handle half that much training volume. So, in your case, yes I’m sure you overtrained. Training 5-6 hours a week though would be a vastly different story, I’m sure you’d agree.
Of course.
Im merely providing an example for them to look at.
I had never experienced “overtraining” before in many years of powerlifting/sports. Even as a natural, I had never encountered these problems, I never took “light days” in the gym, I just lifted as heavy and hard as I could, at everything I could, all the time.
And even with my somewhat moronic program in which I thought I was invincible…it actually took almost 6 weeks at that pace before I started to crash.
So unless the training program is borderline nonsense, its simply diet/sleep related.
It just seems odd that people state the body doesnt have limits, that it cant overtrain. I realize your not stating this, but many people talk in that manner. It just doesnt even sound reasonable when one says it outloud.
There is absoluetly a ceiling, its high as hell, but its there, and it took me years to ever even see it.
Gentleman, what about stimulant use?
I’m thinking someone who takes in 300-500mg of caffeine throughout a non lifting day, and between 500-700mg on a lifting day.
Would this have any significant effect on recovery? If so, good or bad?
adrenal fatigue. which plays a role in my situation as well.
[/quote]
I take 800mg-1g of caffeine before I train and I don’t have any issues.
[quote]Magarhe wrote:
You should NEVER take a break - not even between sets. You should lift weights every minute of the hour, 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week. I am squatting as I type this. THERE IS NO NEED TO EVER STOP LIFTING WEIGHTS!!![/quote]
LMFAO!!!
[quote]Goodfellow wrote:
Professor X wrote:
Goodfellow wrote:
I’m eating over 3500 calories a day at 185lbs. I literally went off force fed myself after the thread the other day (put down 4 big sausages, 12oz potatoes, 3 gatorades, 4 scoops whey and a doughnut) and I still felt like shit today. I don’t see how this isn’t enough.
You are quoting numbers as if that means something. Unless your weight is actually going up slowly, then 3,500 may not be enough. Also, eating more for one day (and no one said anything eating doughnuts) does not erase WEEKS and months of doing the wrong thing.
I’ll make sure to keep the calories up from now on. They’ve only been low for a week or so.
I’m just very impatient and get furious when I don’t get the results I want.[/quote]
Dude – just make sure you’re doing exactly what YOU want to do with YOUR own body.
Considering that you seemed committed to shedding some fat just a week ago – a concept that is neither horrible nor blasphemous – keep the entire focus on your own goals and NOT on seeking the approval of internet strangers, however intelligent and/or well-meaning they may be.
Being a relative noob to weightlifting, one of the best things I’ve picked up from advanced guys on this site and in real life, is to eat and then eat some more.
Something happened this week that really drove that point home.
Monday, training. Eat big as a big day coming up next.
Tuesday, arms pretty fried. At work, we’re pouring a slab on this warehouse and I get stuck with a nice 5-6 hours with the concrete vibrator. One of those you hold and carry. Needless to say it’s agony but you can’t just go, oh guys I’m sore today, sorry. Still hit the gym after work as I just started a split and there’s no way in hell I’m gonna stumble already (had enough of TBT and squating over 9000 times per week) Come home, eat up a storm. Meat, cheese, potatoes, veggies all while sipping a protein shake.
Wednesday. Sore as hell all over. From yesterdays workout, from yesterdays work while being sore. Put down 10 eggs for breakfast (previous best=7) and pack double the food. Also buy a hamburger with the lot in addition. At least it was a very easy day. Evening, hit the gym again. Once the blood starts flowing I realise I can do the workout ok. Again, monster feed after.
Thursday, I wake up pretty ok. Bit sore but nothing horrible. Eat a lot all day. Some minor physical work during the day. Come home, late afternoon. Eat. I’m feeling full of energy and strong, excited to hit the gym in couple hours.
What I’m trying to say is I’m not convinced about the concept of over training.
Of course there is such a thing as overtraining. If any serious lifter instantly doubled their volume and/or frequency they would have symptoms very soon. I’ve had them: insomnia, no appetite, swollen lymph nodes, depression, aching joints, irritability and loss of strength and size. Anyone who believes there is no such thing as overtraining (meaning your body has no limits to recovery) is not being realistic. I say take a week off every two to three months.
[quote]GluteusGigantis wrote:
Physiological Overtraining; overused term. I always like what a cycling coach taught me years ago, get a baseline resting heart rate when you’re good and healthy, if you’re not feeling right keep an eye on that, if it is elevated over 10bpm you’ve got issues otherwise suck it up and get into it.
[/quote]
I’ve never heard of that before, is it a blood pressure thing? Does this happen to endurance athletes alot?
[quote]waylanderxx wrote:
I take 800mg-1g of caffeine before I train and I don’t have any issues.[/quote]
What about the rest of the day?
I also assume you worked your way up to that much?
It doesn’t happen alot, but enough to have a good rule of thumb in place. These guys are often training 5-7 days per week, with sessions a minimum of 2 hours and often 2 sessions per week up to 8 hours duration.
Using heart rate as an indicator of physiological status is nothing new. At rest, it’s supposed to reflect the balance between your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. A higher heart rate indicating higher relative sympathetic activity (or withdrawal of parasymp activity), possibly reflective of increased hormone levels (often cited - cortisol) and therefore indicating “stress”.
Heart rate could also be elevated owing to illness, or a myriad of other issues. So as something specific for what’s wrong - not good. A generic marker, I’ve found it very useful.
Oh, overtraining is real. It’s the female orgasm that’s the myth.
[quote]trav123456 wrote:
GluteusGigantis wrote:
Physiological Overtraining; overused term. I always like what a cycling coach taught me years ago, get a baseline resting heart rate when you’re good and healthy, if you’re not feeling right keep an eye on that, if it is elevated over 10bpm you’ve got issues otherwise suck it up and get into it.
I’ve never heard of that before, is it a blood pressure thing? Does this happen to endurance athletes alot?[/quote]
Did he really just say that anything above 10 beats per minute indicates a problem?
Where are these people getting this amazing medical education?
I just want to add my own experience. I’m not huge, or particularly strong, but I’m not entirely undeveloped or weak. I’ve been lifting for about 2.5 years, and I am a (chubby) 225 lbs. I regularly employ deload weeks; I’ll go in a lift, but I cut volume and intensity.
I don’t think I’d ever actually overtrain if I didn’t, but the back off weeks help keep progress going; and I have no complaints about my progress, it’s been quite steady. I also only lift three days a week. (Gasp!) 
[quote]MytchBucanan wrote:
Of course there is such a thing as overtraining.[/quote]
I don’t think anyone is disagreeing that overtraining is a theoretical possibility.
What we’re saying is that very few people are likely to have such a limited physiology, or to work so incredibly intensely, that they are going to be one of those few overtrained individuals.
If you’re going to err on one side or the other, you’re better off pushing through it like most of the rest of us do. If you are truly overtrained, you will KNOW it, and won’t have to ask about it on a message board.