Am I Overtraining?

So I’m wondering if I’m overtraining. I’ll post my workout routine, supplements, food intake, rest, the likes. Hopefully you guys can provide insight into A: if I am overtraining B: Cures for it if I am. For the record, the practice is for baseball. This whole training regiment is assigned by the college I play for.

Sunday: Off Day
Monday: 4 hour practice and lifting.
Tuesday: 5 hour practice and cardio.
Wednesday: 4 hour practice, lifting and cardio.
Thursday: 5 hour practice, cardio.
Friday: 5 hour practice, light lifting.
Saturday: 5 hour practice, heavy lifting.

I usually take in about 3-4k calories per day. Currently on creatine, ZMA, Beta-7, Fish oils, and a multi. I usually get about 8-9 hours of sleep every day. It’s hard to get more with classes and homework.

My symptoms: severe lack of enthusiasm for anything - I feel like I’m constantly dead. Severe drop in libido. This has been pretty major, I’m not even sure I could get it up if I tried. Strangely I don’t feel too bad when I lift. In fact, I’ve had some of the best lifting sessions the past 2 weeks.

Would increasing calorie intake help out these feelings? I’ll try to increase sleep, but it’s awfully hard. Any supplements that might help out?

Thanks in advance.

For the record, I was looking at throwing in some injectable B12. For starters I’ve heard it’s great for mood/energy lifts. Also, I’ve heard from a friend (I know, great source of research) that it’s far superior to oral B12.

Any thoughts on that?

Short answer yes I think so. Long ass tomorrow when I have time.

Are your muscle size/lifts going up?

I’m no expert, but it sounds like you may be overreaching a bit. Since you probably can’t get out of any practices, you may try dropping a day of heavy lifting and see if that helps at all. I would say make sure during those long practice sessions you have an appropriate peri-workout drink, malto, whey, BCAAs etc.

yes - a bit. The mood goes first but the lift poundages keep going up. Then the poundages start going down or stagnate. You lose your appetite and have trouble sleeping if you keep going.

I take a lower-volume week when my mood goes in the dumper and stays there for a couple of days.

When you say it’s the program by the shcool, are the lifting sessions totally mandatory? Cause to me you need some time out of the gym and four sessions a week with that many practices will bury you over time.

No. You’re undereating. 3000 C is barely enough to maintain an anorexic schoolgirl that lifts like that. When I was playing college ball I was eating ~ 10000 C a day. Felt fine. If I didn’t eat very much I would get sick and feel like shit.

[quote]tveddy wrote:
No. You’re undereating. 3000 C is barely enough to maintain an anorexic schoolgirl that lifts like that. When I was playing college ball I was eating ~ 10000 C a day. Felt fine. If I didn’t eat very much I would get sick and feel like shit.[/quote]

Haha yusss. That’s the answer I was hoping I’d see.

Seriously tho, if you feel ok then you’re probably not. If you feel rough but your lifts are still increasing I’d say it’s nearly time for a bit of a deload.

Try sleeping more and eating more if you can. If that doesn’t improve how oyu feel then you might wanna take it easy for a week or two.

Yeah your overtraining, and its probably caused by undereating. Reason I say overtraining is because even if you start eating tomorrow your not going to just overcome your damage. If possible I would take it easy on the extracurricular training for a week while catching up on calories and sleep. Once you come back don’t forget to keep your calories up and cycle your workout periods.

The other thing is if you just started this, say last week, its going to take a few weeks for your body to get used to doing this day in and day out.

[quote]Airtruth wrote:
Yeah your overtraining, and its probably caused by undereating. Reason I say overtraining is because even if you start eating tomorrow your not going to just overcome your damage. If possible I would take it easy on the extracurricular training for a week while catching up on calories and sleep. Once you come back don’t forget to keep your calories up and cycle your workout periods.

The other thing is if you just started this, say last week, its going to take a few weeks for your body to get used to doing this day in and day out.[/quote]

He HAS to practice, and I’m guessing from how he wrote the post that lifting isn’t optional. A week off is a wet dream. Eat more, get plenty of fats, and sleep every chance you get. If you have access to a hot tub and pool hit up some contrast. And even better, if your training room has a whirlpool go in up to your chest for a nice relaxing icebath. Stretch after every lifting session also. And Don’t booze till you feel better.

Thanks for the advice guys. I’ll bump the calories up to 5-6k. I’ve noticed that my weight HAS stagnated recently. It’s just tough to get enough food in my system with the schedule. Guess I’ll start packing some extra nuts and gainer shakes. Probably throw a couple of sandwiches in the mix.

Yeah, lifting isn’t optional, neither is the practice. And don’t worry, I haven’t boozed it up since I started feeling so shitty. Hell, even when I DO drink it’s usually only 3-4 drinks - I try to keep it moderate.

Thanks for the advice guys. I don’t have access to a whirpool (well, I do, but I really can’t fit it into my schedule) I’ll try it out in my shower though. Hopefully it works similar.

[quote]Schmazz wrote:
Thanks for the advice guys. I’ll bump the calories up to 5-6k. I’ve noticed that my weight HAS stagnated recently. It’s just tough to get enough food in my system with the schedule. Guess I’ll start packing some extra nuts and gainer shakes. Probably throw a couple of sandwiches in the mix.

Yeah, lifting isn’t optional, neither is the practice. And don’t worry, I haven’t boozed it up since I started feeling so shitty. Hell, even when I DO drink it’s usually only 3-4 drinks - I try to keep it moderate.

Thanks for the advice guys. I don’t have access to a whirpool (well, I do, but I really can’t fit it into my schedule) I’ll try it out in my shower though. Hopefully it works similar.[/quote]

Keep in mind that when its hard to get calories, fats are more dense. So bottles of olive oil and fish oil help out in a pinch.

Yeah def up the cals. esp. if all the workouts are manditory. IS the cardio optional? If so cut that back for a bit and see if that helps. If not id be slamming a couple 1000k shakes a day with what your eating now. alos I dont knwo if powerdrive is banned or not from NCAA (i assume your in college?) but id start taking a serving or two of that as well.

[quote]tveddy wrote:
Airtruth wrote:
Yeah your overtraining, and its probably caused by undereating. Reason I say overtraining is because even if you start eating tomorrow your not going to just overcome your damage. If possible I would take it easy on the extracurricular training for a week while catching up on calories and sleep. Once you come back don’t forget to keep your calories up and cycle your workout periods.

The other thing is if you just started this, say last week, its going to take a few weeks for your body to get used to doing this day in and day out.

He HAS to practice, and I’m guessing from how he wrote the post that lifting isn’t optional. A week off is a wet dream. Eat more, get plenty of fats, and sleep every chance you get. If you have access to a hot tub and pool hit up some contrast. And even better, if your training room has a whirlpool go in up to your chest for a nice relaxing icebath. Stretch after every lifting session also. And Don’t booze till you feel better.[/quote]

“If possible I would take it easy on the extracurricular training for a week while catching up on calories and sleep”

Let’s see how Dictionary.com defines EXTRACURRICULAR

  1. outside the regular curriculum or program of courses: football, orchestra, and other extracurricular activities.
  2. outside one’s regular work, responsibilities, or routine.
  3. Informal. outside the conventional bounds of propriety or ethics: Does his wife know he has an extracurricular girlfriend?

Choose any one of them. Now lets convert this to reading comprehension. PRACTICE would be your regular curriculum. Light lifting and cardio after practice would be 1)OUTSIDE the regular curriculum. or 2) outside one’s regular work or 3) Outside conventional bounds. You choose.

now lets say he decides I don’t have to light lift or do cardio today. If your 4 hours of practice doesn’t keep you in shape for a week, you should trasnfer to another team. Light lifting after your tired from working hard does pretty much NOTHING.

My point was that what was wearing him out wasn’t extracurricular.

I agree with the other. Id up your cals by about 500/day to start with. Steadily incresing them week by week until you start to become fat/sluggish from the extra food.
Depending on how intense those practices would depend on just how bad you are starving yourself.

I disagree a little bit with that. I would up them immidiatly for a huge surplus. Then back it off once I felt better.

[quote]tveddy wrote:
I disagree a little bit with that. I would up them immidiatly for a huge surplus. Then back it off once I felt better.[/quote]

Yeah tbh I’d do the same. A week of super high kcals isn’t gonna be too detrimental (sp) when it comes to performance or appearance and if it’s gonna help your recover you’d be mad not to do it imo.

eat more to accommodate for working more, over training to me means your working so much your putting too much pressure on joints and pushing towards injury-which I’m sure most people can avoid-