Look, we all love working out, but apparently a major threat to our training is overtraining, right? I believe we’ve all heard it.
WELL…exactly WTF IS overtraining and what happens to us when we DO it?
And what are the signs of overtraining?
Thanks
Trailblazer.
[quote]Trailblazer wrote:
Look, we all love working out, but apparently a major threat to our training is overtraining, right? I believe we’ve all heard it.
WELL…exactly WTF IS overtraining and what happens to us when we DO it?
And what are the signs of overtraining?
Thanks
Trailblazer.[/quote]
I don’t believe “overtraining” is a major threat at all. I think it is used way too much as a cop out for underplanning when it comes to diet and training strategy. There was one thread in one of the other forums where some guy claimed his sex drive had gone down since he started training seriously (as if his diet in relation to training had nothing to do with it). Things like this make me wonder what the hell is going on in people’s heads.
Overtraining, by definition, would imply overuse of the body’s resources producing a level of mental, physical, and/or emotional fatigue. If your eating is sufficient, your training is intelligent, and your rest is regular and compensatory, you should not be overtraining.
Training smart involves understanding your personal body’s limits. You don’t find that out by always playing it safe and cutting back before you reach that point. This is bodybuilding, and that pursuit in itself involves pushing the limits and forcing your body to adapt. Unless you have the worse genetics on the planet, your body should be able to adapt to your training unless you are attempting something retarded like training for 2-3 hours a day, every day, eating once a day and getting 3 hours of sleep a night in between keg parties.
Rest is important. I don’t always take rest days during the week. I usually only train one body part a day (aside from chest with triceps), so I may not take a rest day for 2 or 3 weeks. I also know that my body recovers faster than others so it would make little sense for me to make my routine identical to someone else’s unless we were similar in recovery ability and growth.
Your diet is even more important. I see people on this forum who are clearly eating less than their body needs to grow, yet they act as if they can’t comprehend the need to eat more. Your body is a machine. How the hell can you expect it to grow larger and stronger if you aren’t feeding it more than it takes just to maintain regular function?
What sets many people up for failure is the lack of ability to see immmediate short term goals versus long term goals. You are OBVIOUSLY more likely to overtrain if you are eating as if you are trying to lose weight, yet training as if you are trying to gain weight. The thousands of one time posters who log in and type something like, “Hi, my name is Bud and I would like to know how to gain muscle and lose all of my body fat really really fast in time for prom in two weeks” are prime candidates for overtraining. One of the first rules is if you chase two birds, both are bound to get away.
signs of overtraining include, but are not limited to: not getting stronger, getting weaker, feeling tired all the time during workouts, dreading the idea of working out before walking into the gym, trouble sleeping, feeling sore all the time, and training chest for 2 hours. 
[quote]hueyOT wrote:
dreading the idea of working out before walking into the gym,
[/quote]
The only one I disagree with is this one. Until it becomes a habit and you learn the difference between “I feel a little out of it…but will feel better once I actually get in the gym and under the weight” and “I feel like shit and know I need a day off”, no one should assume that pure desire to train is directly linked to overtraining. However, you could argue that without the desire to train regardless of minor ups and downs you won’t stick with this long anyway…and you would be right.
With all due respect, Professor X, I have to disagree with you somewhat. You are talking about pussyfied overtraining. Any excuse not to workout kinda shit.
Your body has a certain capacity for work. If you exceed that capacity, body systems will suffer. Rest and nutrition can increase that limit, but only to a point. For me, if I work out more than 6 or so total hours in a week, I get flu-like symptoms: sore thoat, congestion, headache, dizziness, light-headedness, hypotension, probably a fever, but I never check. Last time this happened, I missed 2 weeks worth of workouts trying to get better. To me, that was overtraining.
Overtraining is not undereating, as I once believed, here’s an article:
http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do;jsessionid=792FC3EDA3B70E01C47A4AA23F7008F8.titan?id=459318
http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do;jsessionid=792FC3EDA3B70E01C47A4AA23F7008F8.titan?id=459972
[quote]samdiesel wrote:
I have to disagree with you somewhat… Rest and nutrition can increase that limit, but only to a point. For me, if I work out more than 6 or so total hours in a week, I get flu-like symptoms:[/quote]
First, I fail to see how this contradicts what was written before as far as how rest is factored in as one of the variables. It sounds more like your post just agreed with what I wrote. Second, I have a hard time believing that your recovery is so fragile that no matter what the change in the other variables, that your body self destructs once it hits anything past 6 hours of training a week. Are you saying that, regardless of food intake and sleep at night, that if you did 6.5 hours of training one week, you would get the flu?
My training is pretty quick and to the point. I think I finished biceps last night in about 35-40min (if that). I then did cardio for 30min and that was it. On average, I probably do the same now (while trying to drop weight) daily with no rest days unless I get less sleep a couple of nights in a row. Counting the cardio, that would put me beyond your limit and I feel fine. I think I already pointed out that you have to find what works FOR YOU and where YOUR limits are…no one else’s. However, I do have a hard time believing that your body’s immune system is that compromised to fall ill at that level of training regardless of food intake or rest. Maybe other factors were involved the last time you tested this.
6 hours of training at the level of intensity that I like to train at during a week at the level of rest and nutrition I get seem to be my limit. I could do more to increase this limit, but I believe there is a ceiling. At some point you would have done too much even at 11 hours of sleep a day, and nutritional habits that would make Dr. Berardi blush.
[quote]Trailblazer wrote:
Look, we all love working out, but apparently a major threat to our training is overtraining, right? I believe we’ve all heard it.
WELL…exactly WTF IS overtraining and what happens to us when we DO it?
And what are the signs of overtraining?
Thanks
Trailblazer.[/quote]
Read these articles about overtraining for more info:
http://www.johnberardi.com/articles/training/what_you_dont_know_overtraining.htm
http://www.johnberardi.com/articles/training/what_you_dont_know_overtraining_2.htm
http://www.johnberardi.com/articles/training/what_you_dont_know_overtraining_3.htm
The onset of overtraining is highly individualized; it really depends on numerous variables. It?s a big topic. The July 2000 issue of the Journal of Sports Medicine had a huge study and commentary about overexertion (overtraining). Find it and read it.