You Are NOT Overtraining

[quote]Lonnie123 wrote:
To everyone coming into this thread in 2015…

This thread is 4 years old. Please at least read through it before you write a wall of text that only a handful of people will read, less will take to heart, and even fewer still will thoughtfully respond to or think about.[/quote]

I’ll just give my quick thoughts on when I am “overtrained” then!

The only time I ever feel overtrained is during diet phase. Every 3-4 weeks(usually) I’ll start sucking shit at absolutely everything, feeling run down, a little under the weather, and performance will crash. I start to feel a little hung over I guess, and I get pretty damn hungry.

One single refeed (this is the only time I take a cheat meal) fixes everything, and I am back to hitting PRs weekly. This is training 6 days a week, 3 of them heavy, the other 3 loaded with volume, and 3-5 cardio sessions a week.

[quote]tontongg wrote:
OP: what would you advise to someone who works his ass off and thus barely fits in a whole day: sleeping 8 hours, eating 3000+ proper calories, 12 hours launching a somewhat big business and its skyhigh level of stress.

I’m thinking about this:
Standard Warmup+5/3/1 template and schedule
(optional joker sets?)
Pyramid
Amrap

With accessory pulling movements. Thats as much a no brainer (while at the gym) as I can think about. Go to the gym, one big movement, some bodyweight/bands pulls for super high reps for a few minutes, done.[/quote]

your situation’s pretty easy, honestly. Since you didn’t mention family, I’m assuming no wife or kids. So your time is all your own. I have a 10 month old son, a wife, I’m on multiple advisory boards outside of my main job, which is running a multi-million dollar grossing company, and I compete at a near-elite level as a powerlifter. I wish I got anything close to 8 hours of sleep a night. There’s no reason for you to have ‘sky high stress’ over a business if you’re not supporting a family.

Now that I’ve added some perspective, here’s an idea: Do whatever training relieves works best for you as an outlet for stress. Training is what keeps me sane. It’s ‘my time’, the only part of the day for me that is truly my own. I cherish it, and I do what I can to get the most out of it. If the plan you laid out helps you accomplish this, do it. If not, figure out what does. Fatigue should not play into it. Drink a damn redbull and hit the weights as hard as you can.

1 Like

[quote]dt79 wrote:
^Who the fuck trains hamstrings alone for 1hr 50mins?

[/quote]

It was a leg day concentrating on hamstrings.

[quote]

You sound like an extreme character who does ridiculous things that no one else does and wonders why he ended up injured, then calls all the good advice he misinterpreted bro science while coming up with his own version of bro science to counter it.[/quote]

No, I just injured my back deadlifting more than I was capable of doing. I should’ve learned form and built more core strength first.

I think you misread Lonnie’s original post. He was not claiming to be more hardcorer than everybody else because he overtrains harder than everybody else.

He was saying that if you train intelligently, overtraining rarely ever happens, even with people who push themselves to higher training volumes than normal. To many people seem afraid to put in real hard work, and use overtraining as an excuse. I push myself to extremes for weeks at a time. Two hour leg workouts are common. Three-second descents, rest pause, drop sets, rep-and-a-halfs, weighted stretch sets and static holds are incorporated at appropriate times to get more bang for my buck. I have never been in an overtrained condition.

Injuring yourself by lifting like an idiot doesn’t even factor into the equation.

I have no idea how these guys can train as much as they do. I used to train far more than I do now and gradually cut back to where I currently am at. I’m also getting frustrated at these “Olympic-lifters train 500 hours a week so I can too” arguments. Dude they use light weights most of the time bc they are practicing their technique most of the time. They also I juiced, taking GH and most of the people on this forum are not. They also have like 1 job to do a lot of the time, athletes put off having kids, getting married etc. So they don’t have the stress in their lives most people have.

I said it earlier, I don’t meet very many people who train hard. So they train long instead. Yeah I did like 50 sets for calves today, with like 30 lbs at 40 reps each. Or I trained ,y back for 9 hours straight, with like an hour rest between each set.

I don’t know how hard the people on this forum train, but if you have never experienced overtraining ever, perhaps the reason is you don’t work hard. And if you are not gaining muscle or strength consistently, maybe you just don’t know what it feels like to not be overtrained.

I think it’s more a matter of what your goals are. When I was more focused on strength, there’s no way I would have done a two hour leg workout. That’s too much volume at that high intensity (% of 1RM). As a matter of fact, I’m in a strength phase right now. I do one main lift for 8x3 and hit an accessory for the weak point of that lift. I hit two muscle groups a day, for a total of 24 sets on four lifts. Takes me about 45 minutes. Except for leg day. There, I hit a total of 20 sets on 3 lifts, but I work them twice a week.

But I really get awesome results from high volume, reverse pyramid programs with intensity techniques incorporated into the top sets. I do train hard, but only to technical failure. Once the target muscle has failed to the point where I can’t hold the proper form, the set’s over. I drop the weight ~10%, rest 60sec, and hit it again. My leg days take the longest because I can’t alternate sets. On any other day I can set up two lifts at a time and alternate with 30 sec rest, so I get done in a lot less time. On those days, I work calves as well.

I do six weeks of normal volume (12 sets/group), six weeks of gradually building volume to 16-18 sets per group, and then 4-6 weeks of low volume strength work.

Training is a stimulus for growth…as you train more, there is an increased stimulus for growth, up until a point. Once you cross that point, you are in overtraining territory. Overtraining is literally doing too much work. The overtraining that the OP refers to is chronic, uncorrected overtraining over a long time period.

Im currently deployed trying to hit the whole body in 3 days
since my rotation is 24 hrs on duty 24 off and 8 hour day then it repeats. sleep is around 6 hours a day and its interrupted so maybe 3 straight then another 3 max some days like 24 off you can sleep all day i guess. you have to do PT which is around 5 mile runs or whatever TOP wants to do.

but am I overtraining here is my split im currently
6’0 ft 185 lbs
2 mile : 13:20
2 min push up : 87
2 min sit up : 95
max bench 245
max squat 275
max OHP - no clue
I take creacore creatine --opti men multi --gold standard whey --and gold standard preworkout or black strooong coffee.

Monday - Legs - Squats 4 sets of 6 to 8
Leg extentions 4 sets pausing at the top for 10 to 12 reps
Ham string curls same 4 sets pausing at top for 10 to 12 reps
Calf raises 3 sets for 12 to 15 reps on the leg press ( Good stretch )

Abs Decline sit ups 1 set till failure ( around 105 to 120 depends on the day )
Hanging knee raises pausing at the top for 3 sets till failure
Russian twists or w/e the side to side twist with medicine ball 4 sets till failure

Tuesday- Back/ Bi’s Abs Start with - Bent over BB rows 4 sets for 8
Cable row in individual handles 3 sets of 12
lat pull down 3 sets of 12 shoulder width
Reverse grip ( palms towards me for 3 sets of 12 )
Single arm lat pull down with 1 handle for 2 sets till failure

now bi’s jeeze I do a lot ok same day bi’s
Straight barbell curls 4 sets of 8
dumbbell curl 4 sets to failure
reverse curl with straight bar hitting fore arms 3sets till failure
dumbbell hammer curl 3 sets till failure
Abs Decline sit ups 1 set till failure ( around 105 to 120 depends on the day )
Hanging knee raises pausing at the top for 3 sets till failure
Russian twists or w/e the side to side twist with medicine ball 4 sets till failure

wensday - Chest / Tri / Shoulder ((((( NO longer going to put sets in as its always the same 4 or 3 sets )))))
Incline BB bench or DB bench it varies from week to week
flat DB always I never flat BB
Body weight dips focusing on the chest
Low cable fly’s

Shoulder : Side raises
front raises
rear fly’s
single arm over head shoulder press

Tri : Straight bar machine press downs
rope press downs
DB kick backs
Abs Decline sit ups 1 set till failure ( around 105 to 120 depends on the day )
Hanging knee raises pausing at the top for 3 sets till failure
Russian twists or w/e the side to side twist with medicine ball 4 sets till failure

Now what am I missing

am I doing to much

my sleep is sub par being max 6 hours interrupted I understand if it was uninterrupted

food well we eat what we get if were back from site there’s a DFAC or theres MRE’s and whey shakes :slight_smile:

I was 167 after 10 months im 185 but ive stopped growing my lifts have got weaker and my shoulder has a bit of impingement due to wide grip benching ( elbows tooo flared )

what can I fix I need tips

am I over training ?

you’ve stopped growing. you’ve gotten weaker. And you’re injured. I’d say there’s a pretty good chance you’re overtraining. Under-eating/ under-sleeping is a possibility as well, but it sounds like you don’t have a ton of control over those factors.

So basically, if one starts to feel under the weather, run down, fatigued constantly, he/she should deload a bit for a while, check regeneration and diet patterns and add more training(sessions, intensivity etc.)but do it gradually and while listening to one’s body.

And Now for Something Completely Different- i feel manly when i do some hiit sprints workouts. I’d tried doing them on my rest days ( I’m doing fool body workouts every second day, not including sundays) for about two months until i started feeling seriously “overreached” - cought a flu, felt like lying all day long, had problems falling a sleep and so on. Since then i managed to add some volume, intensity and finishers (weight carries) to my regular workout but i would like to get back to sprinting- what would be the best way to implement hiit workout- after weightlifting or during rest days? Or should i try both ways and check whats best for me?

[quote]warburg wrote:
So basically, if one starts to feel under the weather, run down, fatigued constantly, he/she should deload a bit for a while, check regeneration and diet patterns and add more training(sessions, intensivity etc.)but do it gradually and while listening to one’s body.

And Now for Something Completely Different- i feel manly when i do some hiit sprints workouts. I’d tried doing them on my rest days ( I’m doing fool body workouts every second day, not including sundays) for about two months until i started feeling seriously “overreached” - cought a flu, felt like lying all day long, had problems falling a sleep and so on. Since then i managed to add some volume, intensity and finishers (weight carries) to my regular workout but i would like to get back to sprinting- what would be the best way to implement hiit workout- after weightlifting or during rest days? Or should i try both ways and check whats best for me?
[/quote]
Do them as either evening sessions (with your lifting as morning sessions), or on off days that are not before days where you do legs/squat/deadlift. Cut down on the finishers/farmers walks and slowly add sprinting volume back in. 400M sprints are also a really nice thing to try for conditioning/fat loss, CT had a nice article detailing a 400M sprint program.

Also yeah, that sounds like mild over training, a deload would’ve been a good call.

I think it’s ridiculous to say that overtraining isn’t real, or that it doesn’t apply to anyone but Olympians. I mean, it’s a fact that your body has to recover after a training session and that recovery is limited. And if you train so much that your body can’t keep up and your lifts start dropping, guess what? You’re starting to get into Overtraining. Your body is supposed to overcompensate after a workout so it comes back stronger and it can’t do that in this situation. I mean hell, there are other symptoms. Have you ever had this happen, where you’re doing great on a program, pushing yourself, workout out all the time. But one day you notice you don’t feel like going to the gym… what the hell? That’s your body telling you to rest! I mean hell, your lymph nodes can get swollen from overtraining because it can’t excrete your muscles’ waste products quickly enough.

What it comes down to is, if you’ve ever trained hard consistently for a good period of time, you KNOW overtraining is real and I don’t need to prove it to you!

I think one of the problems is that people get confused and think the word ‘Overtraining’ means something else - in this case, to go above and beyond what you normally do. I.e. working more (like how Mike Rashid uses the word to describe some of his training philosophy). That’s not the definition I’m using.

People tell me all the time it’s impossible to recover from the training I do, which bothers me a lot. Granted I do use AAS and maybe it would be a bit much for a natty, still I hate having people try to tell ME what I can and cant recover from…

dude why are your reviving SO MANY OLD THREADS??

2 Likes

My bad thanks for pointing that out, i’m not experienced with forums!