RRRAAGGGEEEE Overtraining!

[quote] wrote:
[/quote]

x2. This is really all you need to worry about.

Stop reading.

Go with how you feel daily, and the progress you’re making in the gym. Many factors come into play with our recovery. Often it’s something small like too little sleep, or not getting in enough calories, or water. Sadly, our training gets blamed… probably because it’s the easiest thing to manipulate in this stress-filled world.

[quote]Protoculture wrote:
Dude, fuck what anyone tells you (board members and myself included)

[/quote]

Dude, fuck what this guy tells you :slight_smile:

[quote]redgladiator wrote:
Protoculture wrote:
Dude, fuck what anyone tells you (board members and myself included)

Dude, fuck what this guy tells you :)[/quote]

x2

[quote]slippery_banana wrote:
redgladiator wrote:
Protoculture wrote:
Dude, fuck what anyone tells you (board members and myself included)

Dude, fuck what this guy tells you :slight_smile:

x2[/quote]

x3

For me the old saying is true: “There’s no such thing as overtraining, only undereating.”
I’ve only been training for 2 years but I think one thing that held back my progress in my first year was that I wasn’t training or eating often enough.
For those of us who start out relatively skinny, extra workouts for lagging and/or fast-recovering bodyparts can definitely make a huge difference if you’re getting enough protein/calories.

In my first year I basically just did the big compound lifts but I neglected direct arms work.
Then I started doing extra isolation for biceps, triceps, and shoulders up to 7 days a week and my arms finally started growing.
Overtraining is one of those subjects which you can only really figure out through individual experience; science will never be able to properly define it.

I’m sure anyone that’s spent a considerable amount of time has had a shitty day in the gym before, if not many times. I know I’ve had my share, and I can tell you from the one time that I did overtrain that the two are NOT the same. IMO, shitty days happen for random reasons: maybe you’re agitated, stressed, didn’t sleep well, ate differently or ate less than usual, etc. However, if having regressive days becomes a regular occurrence, then you may be approaching overtraining and should probably back of 'til you regain your fire.

Just to give you a little context of what my overtraining experience was, I could literally barely walk, struggled to sleep despite being deadly tired, lost appetite, and felt depressed, along with pretty bad joint and muscle aches. It felt like what I would assume getting hit by a truck and surviving would feel like. Also, when I reached this point, I had decided to try to double my volume in a fashion similar to Advanced GVT, except I was doing two sessions four times a week. I was doing probably at least 5 exercises a session and each exercise was in 10x10 fashion with heaviest possible weights and the employment of supersetting and some other techniques. Now that my training age is older, my training capacity has improved significantly, but I haven’t yet tried anything to that extent since.

Anyways, I hope that helps.
BT

If someone told you that sucking dicks will get you swole would you do it blindly? Fuck what everyone says. Do what works for you and take in veterans input to come up with your own game plan.

[quote]Turbo Mysterio wrote:
If someone told you that sucking dicks will get you swole would you do it blindly? [/quote]

i mean…how swole am i going to get?

[quote]Turbo Mysterio wrote:
Fuck what everyone says. [/quote]

Ummmmmmmm

fuck what this guy says

On this entire basic subject:

I think it’s best to completely avoid the word “overtraining” anyway.

Communication and thinking are much clearer when thinking of a way to say what one means that does not use that phrase.

I could go into reasons for why this is, but hopefully it’s needless to do so.

And if using it, the way to use it (as per what words mean in exercise science) is as BlakedaMan described, above.

So far as warnings in Beyond Brawn or whatever that training more than recommended there will result in “overtraining” and causing people to fear training more than Stuart McRobert says, or Mike Mentzer says, or whatever… it’s hogwash.

Just avoid the phrase and a lot of problems disappear.

[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:

Just avoid the phrase and a lot of problems disappear.[/quote]

Best advice yet.

Fuck everything else.

Why is it you NEVER hear really big guys worrying about overtraining like this? Down to each last one, it is always the little guys who haven’t even built much size at all more worried about how to avoid training than to actually do any.

On the one hand I don’t want to go into overkill, which the below may well be. On the other, the concern you have – worrying about “overtraining” because of the authors and other lifters that put that fear out there – is a widespread one and probably not easy to shake.

Here are my suggestions, on top of avoiding the phrase entirely:

If a program that appeals to you and you want to do it is moderate volume, say Rippetoe’s program, fine, no problem, you don’t have to rule it out because of being moderate in volume. Nor do you have to fear something because it is somewhat higher volume than you’ve done before.

Try the program the way it is supposed to be done. Don’t go adding 10 sets of 10 in the incline press or whatever on top of the program. Not because you will “go into overtraining” necessarily but because the program has a track record the way it is and you have no basis for assuming that this modification will be an improvement.

After you understand the program and how it works for you, if you think some changes would tailor it better to you, fine, give that a try. See if it helps or does not. If it doesn’t, stick with what works, or try another thing you think may improve it. Or if the basic thing doesn’t seem right for you try another basic approach.

As for seeing “on the fly” whether something is too much, have an idea of your relatively-fresh strength on each exercise. If by the time you get to that exercise in your workout or by some set of that exercise your performance has gone in the toilet – you either have to cut the weight quite severely to get the same reps you would fresh, or your reps have just gone in the toilet – then you don’t need to be doing it. You were done already for that bodypart.

If you find that you seem still shot from your previous workout – not just as a one-time thing that might be related to any odd thing but a definite trend that you can’t beat regardless of doing best possible with rest and nutrition, then it may well be correct that you were overambitious in the workload and should be planning to do less.

In any case you need not fear disaster from having done more than was sustainable or more than was ideal. If anything, training at an above-sustainable pace for a time, discovering that, then cutting it back can be VERY productive.

Let not your heart be troubled.

[quote]Professor X wrote:
Why is it you NEVER hear really big guys worrying about overtraining like this? Down to each last one, it is always the little guys who haven’t even built much size at all more worried about how to avoid training than to actually do any.[/quote]

Words of wisdom.

Oh, another thing:

Hang with guys who fret about “overtraining” and they will hold you back.

Hang with guys that want to do as much hard work as they can, and they may inspire you to new levels.

Or if not the latter, if you train alone, then at least have the second attitude, not the first. Mindset makes a difference.

I’ve seen overtraining used as an excuse not to train hard. A guy I knew did some ab crunches and curls and then worried about overtraining. I was thinking “don’t you have to start training in the first place?”