I’m in an interesting place from where I was sort-of casually training 3 days a week, to now training everyday. For the past 7-8 years fitness was a minor hobby, but now it’s taking over my life (not complaining). It just sort of evolved over time, and I never made a conscious decision that I was going to get super serious. At this point I’m in a 3 day cycle as follows:
Chest and triceps, plus light cardio.
Back and biceps, plus light cardio.
Moderate to heavy cardio in the form of elliptical.
Now I really have to stress I’m only taking a rest day like once every 2 weeks, but the muscles I’m working are not sore when it’s their day. I’m eating 1 gram of protein for every lb and all that. I also cycle on and off creatine, and take some herbs to help recovery (turmeric, garlic).
So here’s my question, is this too much for my upper body? I’m activating my upper body literally every day I train (because I use the elliptical on cardio days). I feel like it’s working for me, but I’m second guessing it.
P.S. I know I didn’t mention a “leg day.” I’m not doing one because I’ve always had really muscular legs for some reason. Maybe someday I’ll be at a place where my upper body is getting off-balance compared to lower. I’m not there right now though.
Total volume may be more telling than your split. Some people train the same muscle everyday but control the daily volume so that fatigue per body part and overall isn’t mismanaged. If you are doing 10x10 everyday then you are probably gonna run into issues soon.
If you are doing nothing too crazy then you may be under-recovering a bit. Ur diet sounds not bad. Sleep lots and see if gains start up again. Stress management too like if you’re juggling crippling depression at the same time things won’t go well.
It’s not just a background feeling of being tired and unable to recover. Your workouts are a fucking mess. You’re not hitting your targets weights or reps and you’re quitting sessions early. You feel sluggish and heavy, and it takes longer to recover hard efforts.
Stalled progress
The relationship between workload and recovery is total shit and your workout performance is diminished. You’re in quicksand.
Emotional volatility
You find yourself moody and find yourself overreacting to daily stress….
Reduced sex drive
Self-explanatory
High perceived exertion
Noticing it takes more effort just to get through a training session.
Lethargy/Low motivation
You may be overtrained when you get to the point where every day it’s a struggle to get motivated and hit the gym, you find more excuses to delay , you’re bored with training, and you just don’t want to do it anymore. Again, this can happen every once in a while during normal training, but prolonged feelings of lethargy and low motivation are indicative of a problem.
Trouble sleeping
Overtraining can lead to insomnia, disrupted sleep, or just less restful sleep.
Illness/Injury
Your immune system and your body are taking too much of a beating and not getting enough time or support to recover. An athlete who is overtrained may experience frequent illnesses and illnesses that take longer than normal to go away. You may also be more susceptible to both overuse and acute injuries and are more likely to start getting a series of nagging injuries.
For clarification… what makes you feel that you could be Overtraining?
What does your actual training look like more in depth?
I am going on the limb by saying this… but my gut is telling me overtraining isnt a issue in this case. Not until I get more information regarding the OP.
I don’t actually know what the issue is, as the OP hasn’t stated. The only reason he’s given for thinking he’s overtraining is that he’s “second guessing himself”
I have every single on of these symptoms (minus gym progression) regardless of if I train or not. Sucks mane.
Is it possible to overtrain if you are consuming enough calories and getting 8-10 hours of sleep every night? Purely hypothetical question. Just curious.
Yes, but it tends to be incredibly difficult to accomplish. Instead, most folks confuse “under-recover” with “overtrain”. Often, the solution is “up the dose”, and though drugs are the obvious answer there, it can also mean food and sleep. Othertimes, the trainee just has such lacking physical abilities that it takes little to run them into the ground.
But otherwise, if you take a decently fit trainee and they’re eating and sleeping well, you have to make a lot of consistent bad decisions to reach the point of overtraining.
That, and patience. If someone has been “training” what ever alphabet soup style program for any period of time then jump to an entirely different style- they’re going to feel like crap at some point in their new plan.
Then it’s over training or what’s wrong with me, this program is too hard, can I sub out this for that.
No. Just stay the course. Recovery only takes days. Adaptation takes time.
I went for a bike ride with my one cousin. He has been riding a couple times a week for 15 years. I got done, rested and recovered. If I did that same thing for another 4 weeks though I’d feel like dirt, because I’m only just recovering session to session, not fully adapted. He has cardiac, vascular, pulmonary and muscular development that takes years to create, not weeks.
OP, I can only answer this from my own experience.
I’m on my 40s, have a 9 year old, 11 month old and one on the way.
I average around 4 hours a night sleep right now.
I also teach fitness classes, usually at the crack of dawn. I partake in these classes (Spin).
I get to the gym around 3/4 times a week where I usually lift to failure.
It’s these gym sessions which provide sanctuary from my hectic life. They’re the only time I get to spend time alone which for a man, is fucking bliss.
At no point has ‘overtraining’ ever entered my mind.
I’m not writing all this to say ‘man up’ or ‘woooo look at me’
It’s more to get across the point that for the average trainer, it all comes down to mindset which in your case seems to be the issue from what I’m reading.
Maybe it’s ‘overthinking’?
99% of lifters done even get anywhere fucking near ‘overtraining’. They quite simply don’t train hard enough.
Overtraining is only relative to how fucked up your recovery is.
If your mind is weak you’ll easily “overtrain”
If your nutrition sucks, if your bed sucks, if your friends and family and girlfriend and job and general stress are all going nuts… you’ll easily “overtrain”
It’s not about how much you do to destroy yourself, it’s about how much you do to repair yourself.
Quick FYI no drug or magic pill will fix your shit. TRT can do wonders, but most secondary hypogonadals are being crushed by their poor lifestyle decisions / poor handlings of their demons. Been there done that.
So there again, no such thing as over training, but under recovery is DAMN COMMON
