You Are NOT Overtraining

Training
61

[quote]solidkhalid wrote:

I’ve been to plenty of gyms all around the country and can honestly say (and I’m repeating myself here) that at least 90% of people I’ve seen in these gyms and half assing it on a regular basis.
[/quote]

See that’s the problem that I have grasping - that “people are not training as hard as you”. It’s an assumption people make a little too often IMO. The irony of it all is that SOME of these ones looking for answers (e.g. MANY logging on here and wanting advice to progress because it’s non-existent) are told to do something OPPOSITE of what they should be doing for their body. These are ones who DO take it seriously (to the point of obsession) and end up feeling despair because no-one seems to understand.

True, I think that this thread is ideal for the average genetic newbies who’ve been reading too much, and for those who aren’t experienced enough to realise what hard work is…but for that 10-20% (whatever fraction it is) who responds best to low volume routines, this thread is suicide for them!

And these are the one’s that are being lumped together in the whole “you are being a pussy” crowd! These are the ones who’ll literally drive themselves into the ground, making themselves ill trying to keep up with ‘normal’ routines.

I’m speaking from personal experience here; I was told that I needed to “man up” etc when I first came here. Instead of being told to listen to my own body, and repeat over and over…I was told to train just like them because in their narrow minds that’s all they knew.

Funny how very experienced coaches understand that not everyone responds to the same type of training, yet everyone and their dog who hasn’t trained anyone seems to think that they know best (based on their OWN limited experience).

After realising the diversity of training on here, I realised from an early point that my training is not suitable for everyone, not even half the people out there. If I told people to train like me, most would get fat, stronger but not much bigger…whereas, SOME would respond greatly. And vice versa (if people like me followed THEIR routines, we’d get bored/weak/fat etc).

62

[quote]Lonnie123 wrote:
I’m seeing a ton of new posts about being Over Trained in the BB Forum, and around the site in general, lately. Guys… Its not happening.

How do I know?

  • Oly Lifters have 12-18 training sessions EVERY week, lifting with near maximal poundages frequently

  • People who play sports not only perform at a high level, but also train at a high level… Its basically their JOB to workout with intensity all week long.

  • Competitive body builders train their asses off 5 days a week, do 7-14 cardio sessions a week, and drop calories to BASEMENT levels in order to strip every last ounce of fat of their body. And how many of them do you hear talking about being over trained, even on competition week?

  • There are MANY jobs that require the use certain muscles more than once a week, and those guys don’t seem to be worried about over training.

  • Symptoms of over training include:

    Persistent muscle soreness
    Persistent fatigue
    Elevated resting heart rate
    Reduced heart rate variability
    Increased susceptibility to infections
    Increased incidence of injuries
    Irritability
    Depression
    Mental breakdown

Think a HUGE, sustained drop in performce (20-30%), AND feeling like you have Mono. When you start developing skin sores, a rapid heart rate at rest, and cant bench 135, NOW you can start crying over training. These are not symptoms that last for a day, or even a few days. These symptoms can persist for WEEKS, a month, or longer.

Overtraining is a SERIOUS problem, it does NOT occer with a 5 day body part split. It does NOT occur benching 185x3 twice a week. It does not occur with a back day AND a bicep day…

Guys, Seriously… Over training exists, but unless you are working out so much even the gym rats tell you that you have a problem, it probably doesnt pertain to you.

Lift some weights, eat some food, get some sleep.
[/quote]

hmmm, I have been down with flu for almost a week, made a PR on the squat though…

63

[quote]tveddy wrote:
People over think, rather than over train. [/quote]

This needs to be on a t-shirt!

64

Somehow this thread turned into “Over training doesn’t exist” - That wasn’t the point of my post.

It was more of a tongue in cheek write up of how your body can handle much more than you think… And can be trained to handle VERY impressive workloads and overall volume.

Also, its fine to train a body part twice in one week… Maybe even 3, 4, or 5 times if you know what you are doing. I’ve seen it done to great success.

65

[quote]Lonnie123 wrote:
Somehow this thread turned into “Over training doesn’t exist” - That wasn’t the point of my post.

It was more of a tongue in cheek write up of how your body can handle much more than you think… And can be trained to handle VERY impressive workloads and overall volume.

Also, its fine to train a body part twice in one week… Maybe even 3, 4, or 5 times if you know what you are doing. I’ve seen it done to great success.[/quote]

I’m glad you acknowledge that overtraining exists. To think it doesn’t just isn’t right. Overtraining is not a myth, period.

66

[quote]2020Wellness wrote:

[quote]Lonnie123 wrote:
Somehow this thread turned into “Over training doesn’t exist” - That wasn’t the point of my post.

It was more of a tongue in cheek write up of how your body can handle much more than you think… And can be trained to handle VERY impressive workloads and overall volume.

Also, its fine to train a body part twice in one week… Maybe even 3, 4, or 5 times if you know what you are doing. I’ve seen it done to great success.[/quote]

I’m glad you acknowledge that overtraining exists. To think it doesn’t just isn’t right. Overtraining is not a myth, period.[/quote]

I’m sure you’ve been told this before on these forums, but your posts often make you come across as a pretentious ass.

67

Actually, over-training is very common. I see it every day i go to the gym. Teenagers and dumbasses who bench 2-3 times a week with 6+ sets of forced reps on every set and they wonder why they cant bench more than 170lbs lol

68

I feel like some people don’t know the difference between “overtraining” and stupid training

69

[quote]2020Wellness wrote:

I’m glad you acknowledge that overtraining exists. To think it doesn’t just isn’t right. Overtraining is not a myth, period.[/quote]

Please point me to the post where I said it doesn’t. While you’re looking for it, you may want to take time to read the VERY FIRST POST I made in the thread:

[quote]…Overtraining is a SERIOUS problem, it does NOT occer with a 5 day body part split. It does NOT occur benching 185x3 twice a week. It does not occur with a back day AND a bicep day…

Guys, Seriously… Over training exists, but unless you are working out so much even the gym rats tell you that you have a problem, it probably doesnt pertain to you.[/quote]

How about from Page 2:

[quote]
My point was that its VERY hard to be legitimately over trained…[/quote]

70

[quote]Jeffrey of Troy wrote:

[quote]Lonnie123 wrote:

I think the larger issue here is that people feel tired on Thursday and Friday, their arms are sore, and start thinking they are over trained, when in reality it takes a phenomenal effort to get over trained.

[/quote]

Hafta disagree, in a way. Most Americans pretend they don’t need sleep, and so are in an overtrained state BEFORE beginning a progressive weight-lifitng program.

Even if only marginally meeting sleep needs, especially if working M-F, then “catching up on sleep” on the weekend. Someone doing that will absolutely be entering the overtrained state on Th or F, just like you described.

Some will say “That’s obv.” But it’s obviously not obvious to many, many people.
[/quote]

This.

I train agressivley. 4x weekly strength program (5/3/1).

I’m 43.

I’ve been a competitive athlete (mostly cardio) most of my life.

I work a full-time technical job, and there’s a lot of keeping up with the latest and greatest involved.

I find I need 8-9 hours of sleep a night, and more if I can get it.

This past week I was up early a couple of mornings due to a conference, as well as trying to get my ass into the office earlier. And up late a couple of nights to get chores done. Plus some kick-ass workouts.

By Friday I was starting to feel a tickle in my throat, definitely sore and tired Sat & Sun. Taking the day off today, though self-treating, mostly with steam inhalation, chicken soup, pineapple vit C, and sleep, seems to have helped immensely.

Your Oly lifters are mostly in their teens / early 20s. Bodybuilders need to look strong, but needn’t actually be strong, on stage, and they and fitness/figure athletes and models are notorious for being in crap shape when in show/shoot condition (not all, but many). And there are certain substances known to aid with recovery.

Give a natural guy in his late 30s or more a job, household/family responsibilities, sleep deprivation, commute, stress, and training. Yes, I’d watch the overall stress levels.

I push hard when I’m at the gym. I take it easy outside.

71

[quote]Lonnie123 wrote:

[quote]2020Wellness wrote:

I’m glad you acknowledge that overtraining exists. To think it doesn’t just isn’t right. Overtraining is not a myth, period.[/quote]

Please point me to the post where I said it doesn’t. While you’re looking for it, you may want to take time to read the VERY FIRST POST I made in the thread:
[/quote]

Hey Lonnie,

I did read your entire first post, and I know that you were saying it does exist. I’m just glad you mentioned it again, that’s all. I think your first post is excellent man.

72

[quote]2020Wellness wrote:

Hey Lonnie,

I did read your entire first post, and I know that you were saying it does exist. I’m just glad you mentioned it again, that’s all. I think your first post is excellent man.[/quote]

Fair enough… and looking back it doesn’t actually read that you said I never said it. I guess I just went off a little fast. We can still be bros I hope.

73

[quote]Lonnie123 wrote:

[quote]2020Wellness wrote:

Hey Lonnie,

I did read your entire first post, and I know that you were saying it does exist. I’m just glad you mentioned it again, that’s all. I think your first post is excellent man.[/quote]

Fair enough… and looking back it doesn’t actually read that you said I never said it. I guess I just went off a little fast. We can still be bros I hope.

[/quote]

No biggie man. Based on your post and your avatar pic, it’s clear that you have a passion for training/nutrition and a bunch of experience as well. We’ve got those things in common, so I don’t know why we wouldn’t get along, ya know?

I look forward to future conversations as I build up my presence on these forums.

Ryan

74

These boards are cool when you need some insight into something but some posts are unnecessarily long in my opinion. Honestly, if the topic or the argument in your post isn’t that important or complicated why make the discussion longer than it needs to be?

75

[quote]IronClaws wrote:
The only time I’ve ever truly felt “over-trained” was the first time I used a sledge hammer for over 8 hours with a 20pound vest. I felt fine when I went to sleep, but I woke up in the middle of the night and felt so messed up I ended up puking a couple times, but the next time I tried it I felt fine. aha.

Awesome post there’s very little a human can’t adapt too.[/quote]

Ever work on a building site? No vest though :wink:

Again, good post.

76

It’s clearer now what this thread was intended for.

One thing which has been touched upon is outside influences (not just gym stress); they do play a large part so IMO no-one can truly condemn someone who feels that their training a certain amount was making them feel burned out/progress stalling (despite weight gain), especially if their training is centred around high intensity/maximal effort (e.g. non structured…just balls to the wall).

^ That’s my stand point, so sorry for going on a rant at all the “there no such thing as over-training” type comments :slight_smile:

77

How would one go about attempting to greatly increase their work capacity? I’ve read some westside articles where some of the benchers train the bench like 4 times a week, with back work like every workout.

The guy on this thread accomplished similar and it really worked for him (sorry I don’t remember your username right now), and Thibaudeau’s recent stuff is really high volume.

Obviously at high volume you dont really train to failure (from what I’ve seen), but how would you ideally build up to this kind of conditioning level? Its probably not smart to just throw in another bench session mid week… or is that how you do it and just gauge from there?

78

Have you read the recent article? Posted yesterday i think. just start working into it. Slowly add volume. But when you do that you need to keep intensity in check. you start goign to failure and it wont work. You need to be really far from failure and you cant be short sighted. You need to think of overall work done in many workouts rather than jsut one workout.

For example i have been benching, squating, doing pulldowns and a shoulder exercise at the start of every workout and many times 2 times a day. Benching depending on reps is somewhere between 155 and 245 which doesnt sound like much but when you look at it over a week i am lfiting anywhere form 20000 to 40000lbs. Volume goes up for 3 weeks then drops back.

79

[quote]Terrax wrote:
How would one go about attempting to greatly increase their work capacity? I’ve read some westside articles where some of the benchers train the bench like 4 times a week, with back work like every workout.

The guy on this thread accomplished similar and it really worked for him (sorry I don’t remember your username right now), and Thibaudeau’s recent stuff is really high volume.

Obviously at high volume you dont really train to failure (from what I’ve seen), but how would you ideally build up to this kind of conditioning level? Its probably not smart to just throw in another bench session mid week… or is that how you do it and just gauge from there?[/quote]

Sorry, for typos, on my phone. What ryan said above is true–you work into the extra volume by doing low intensity NON-Failure work, stopping when speed or form breaks down rather than when you can’t lift the weight. In the simplest form, this is doing eccentric-less work like sled dragging/pulling/pressing or prowler work, adding in 2-3 sessions a week and giving youraelf a month to get used to it.

THE WEIGHTS WILL GO DOWN, ALONG WITH YOUR ENERGY AND STRENGTH LEVELS for 2-4 weeks while your body adjust to the extra strain. IF you are eating and sleeping enough, your body will adapt and work capacity will go up. As your work capacity and recovery abilities increase, you can add more sled sessions, or increase the intensity of the extra sessions (for example going from sled/prowler to “regular” gym isolation work, then from that to compound lifts) add a small amount of extra “normal” gym work. But each time you add small amounts and give 4 weeks to get your body used to it.

I wrote about this elsewhere in a discussion on high frequency squatting for PL, but there are 2 primary mistakes people make when trying to train more frequently

  1. they jump into it all at once instead of building up gradually–adding 5 extra full workouts instead of 2-3 sled sessions. This is built up over time, not immediately. They feel like shit, and conclude it doesnt work–wrong, they just did it wrong.

  2. they push the intensity too high and/or go to failure. frequency and failure are diametrically opposed–if you have high frequwncy you can’t even approach failure on a regular basis…if you have low frequency (think 1 body part workout a week, or HIT), you can destroy it with failure, drop sets, forced reps etc. in high frequency squatting you a) are always explosive, which lessens CNS load and b) never fail. you never grind a rep out, and you NEVER miss a rep. If the bar slows, you stop. Too many people get fixated on the weight on the bar–it’s not about the weight! It’s about a) speed and explosiveness and b) total weekly tonnage, as ryan pointed out. Over all workload, not any one woekout.

Think of it sort of as EDT style training, only spread through a whole week instead of one workout. This is a very general and simple way to approach it, but reliable. There are other ways but they’re mostly something that takes to long to thumb-type on my damn mobile…and in any case are best left to either an experienced coachto oversee or a very advanced trainee who can listen to his body well.

80

Training to failure or close is one of the best ways of increases the recovery need, and is why those in pursuit of maximal strength regulate it…but, I hate to say this, aren’t we talking about bodybuilding here (i.e. maximal muscular ‘damage’ which requires extreme intensity/effort and longer recovery between hitting bodyparts?)

Since when did training (aka ‘hammering’) bodyparts every 5-8 days become old or ineffective? lol

Feel free to correct me if I’m off or something…