Overtrained? I Doubt It
August 6th 2007 13:04
Most of the people who enter a gym in a given day will never really train too much for their body's capacity to adapt. Most trainers are locked into the ridiculous three days a week program, which means that they are there on Mondays and Wednesdays. No one on a three day program actually trains on Friday. If you do not believe this, drop by the gym on Friday evening at the time it is normally packed on Mondays. This entry is for the relative few who are serious enough about weight training and fitness to let enthusiasm burden the body.
If you are training every other day you are going to have to do some serious work to over train, unless you train your whole body every other day. If that happens to be what you are doing, you are expending alot of wasted energy. Set up a regimen in which only two,maybe three, body parts are trained in any one workout and your every other day workout will begin to bear more fruit. I've written on how to split up your body many times. Take a look at the achives.
If you undertake to train 4-6 days a week with a split routine, it is possible that you are going to over train. In reality, though, the number of set you do in a given workout is the central factor in whether you are progressively overburdening your system. If your workout is less than 30 total sets you are unlikely to be overdoing it-thats 10 sets per body part, more or less.On a weekly basis that's less than 200 sets. That amount only seems like a large number until you consider that each body part is being hit for about 20-25 times.
If you are under 200 sets a week you are not over training. You may be getting tired,but I doubt that you are over training in a physiological sense. If you are saying to yourself that 200 is a huge number and can he be serious, you are not even close to overdoing it. A fifty set workout is getting on the serious side and if yours is less than that you are probably not pushing any one muscle to its limits.
I believe that you can detect over training from some signs your body sends you. Rather than being sound to sleep at night over trainers are more likely to be unable to wind down. They may be able to force themselves into the gym, but the weights they use (or the reps) will probably be very difficult to maintain at a high level. The body does not care what you want to lift. If it hasn't recovered enough it will do only what it can do. If your heart rate seems elevated while you are at rest, you may have a medical problem,but your body may be over trained.
Sometimes trainers get convicted about their laziness and come flying into the gym to get serious. They pile on the sets and weight and within a week they are blasted and home on the couch. Sometimes they take off on a leg training jag and hammer their poor thighs at every opportunity. There is nothing that will land you on the couch faster than working legs in an unaccustomed pattern. Let your enthusiasm drive you, but make haste slowly and in a programmed manner.
I commend you if you think you are over trained. It is much more rare than undertrained! Use your head and control your emotions and you will not need to worry about doing too much too fast. Your servant, as always.
If you are training every other day you are going to have to do some serious work to over train, unless you train your whole body every other day. If that happens to be what you are doing, you are expending alot of wasted energy. Set up a regimen in which only two,maybe three, body parts are trained in any one workout and your every other day workout will begin to bear more fruit. I've written on how to split up your body many times. Take a look at the achives.
If you undertake to train 4-6 days a week with a split routine, it is possible that you are going to over train. In reality, though, the number of set you do in a given workout is the central factor in whether you are progressively overburdening your system. If your workout is less than 30 total sets you are unlikely to be overdoing it-thats 10 sets per body part, more or less.On a weekly basis that's less than 200 sets. That amount only seems like a large number until you consider that each body part is being hit for about 20-25 times.
If you are under 200 sets a week you are not over training. You may be getting tired,but I doubt that you are over training in a physiological sense. If you are saying to yourself that 200 is a huge number and can he be serious, you are not even close to overdoing it. A fifty set workout is getting on the serious side and if yours is less than that you are probably not pushing any one muscle to its limits.
I believe that you can detect over training from some signs your body sends you. Rather than being sound to sleep at night over trainers are more likely to be unable to wind down. They may be able to force themselves into the gym, but the weights they use (or the reps) will probably be very difficult to maintain at a high level. The body does not care what you want to lift. If it hasn't recovered enough it will do only what it can do. If your heart rate seems elevated while you are at rest, you may have a medical problem,but your body may be over trained.
Sometimes trainers get convicted about their laziness and come flying into the gym to get serious. They pile on the sets and weight and within a week they are blasted and home on the couch. Sometimes they take off on a leg training jag and hammer their poor thighs at every opportunity. There is nothing that will land you on the couch faster than working legs in an unaccustomed pattern. Let your enthusiasm drive you, but make haste slowly and in a programmed manner.
I commend you if you think you are over trained. It is much more rare than undertrained! Use your head and control your emotions and you will not need to worry about doing too much too fast. Your servant, as always.
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