Over training : whats your oppinion

Gunsmith · Sep 23, 2011

OK , so this hase been bumping around in my mellon for a while and id like to get some other input on it. I'm not trying to start a pissing match just wanting to hear everybody thoughts and oppionons.

I have been training every other day the past few months , totaly drug free and using a DC style workout , been getting stronger very slowly but for being clean im happy.

So the thoughts im having are this , we have been told that over training is bad and slows muscle growth but im seeing cases where guys are over training body parts and those parts ore getting over developed for instance , i have a friend that does two sets of barbell curls to failure twice a day every day (AM & PM) an dhis biceps over power his tri's and are the most over developed things he has , if i didnt know him so well id swear he uses synthol.
Another buddy does incline bench for chest and then does shoulders on a differant day hitting both workout twice a week , we know that incline bench hits the front delts alot so in effect he is hitting his front delts 4-5 times in a 7 day period , definatly "over training" but his front delts are huge. A good friend of mine who is a FROG (Navy SEAL) does 3 sets heavy weighted pullups every day before starting his workout , this guy is stupid strong in the back and has a lat spread like he is posing even when relaxed

Granted all these guys eat right but are definatly over training these muscle groups yet these muscles are developed out of perportion , so will the body eventualy adapt to the added abuse and start growing to make up for it or is over training a myth?

buselmo · Sep 23, 2011

two weeks ago i did calves every workout day (five days a week) for a week... 10 sets, light weight, slow, full stretch, full contraction...
by the end of the week i couldn't walk... i'm serious... not a figure of speech, but literally i couldnt bend my ankle cuz my calf felt torn...
they're bigger now, and they pop out like never before...

and as you can tell from my training last year, i did every muscle twice a week with 20 sets per session... no overtraining... just results.

i used to overtrain when i did more than 9 sets per muscle per week... because i believed in overtraining. now? pffft.... I just said to myself that i don't even work at 10% of the intensity or frequency of, for example, gymnasts... and they're doing just fine

dukkitdalaw · Sep 23, 2011

buselmo said:
two weeks ago i did calves every workout day (five days a week) for a week... 10 sets, light weight, slow, full stretch, full contraction...
by the end of the week i couldn't walk... i'm serious... not a figure of speech, but literally i couldnt bend my ankle cuz my calf felt torn...
they're bigger now, and they pop out like never before...

and as you can tell from my training last year, i did every muscle twice a week with 20 sets per session... no overtraining... just results.

i used to overtrain when i did more than 9 sets per muscle per week... because i believed in overtraining. now? pffft.... I just said to myself that i don't even work at 10% of the intensity or frequency of, for example, gymnasts... and they're doing just fine

Thats what I think sometimes. Olympic athletes train so hard and for so long; hours and hours, over and over. (According to interviews and such Ive seen) Yet they still perform at their peak.

I believe that as long as your nutrition and rest are up to par... that overtraining is hard to achieve.

AlphaMaleDawg · Sep 23, 2011

At the end of the day, it comes down to what drugs you are taking and how much of each. I have done high volume, low volume, medium volume, high reps, lower reps, etc. They will all work as long as the right drug regimen is in place, let's face it. As a natural, then it's a totally different story

bmcjames · Sep 23, 2011

relatively speaking

I made some great gains when on a high frequency program (size gains) but strength gains were always very low for me.
Trained entire body 2x in a 8 day block.
I went from a 14.75" arm to 17" arm

Strength didn't make that much of a jump over starting though, bench went from 185x8 to 225x10 (yes I am terrible at bench!) just putting a number on this for measure.

I have since recently changed over to DC's mon/wed/fri split and am packing on strength like crazy. Every time I go in I am adding 20lbs or more to leg movements and 5-10lbs on upperbody movements (note I am early on in the program). As to size I can't comment on this yet.

I will say, that I gained a ton of size with the previous but minimal strength. I am a book logging kinda guy and being fairly stagnant with my numbers drives me mad. I don't know if the DC program is going to pack on the same sort of size but it is making my numbers go up in the log book VERY quickly. So in short, I believe this question "overtraining" is relative to the goals of the individual and their goals (strength/size).

Amazon Doll · Sep 23, 2011

Just for clarification:

What you are talking about is "over reaching" and this can be done in short bursts as long as there is enough recovery after to get the desired effect. Usually using over reaching as a training method for a muscle group for too long without proper recovery will create an injury in that muscle.

"Overtraining" is a very serious state and can take months to recover from so all forward progress is lost. Over training is more of a central nervous system (CNS) event. Most people get an injury that slows them down before they ever get to the complete state of over training.

Olympic level athletes can train so many hours or so intensly because they have built up to that level after many years of exercise. Volume and intensity can be increased as conditioning increases.

Kauto_star · Sep 23, 2011

Interesting thread.

I made this thread the other day ;

http://www.professionalmuscle.com/forums/professional-muscle-forum/78255-time-away-gym.html

I think from a mental and psychological view ; yes ; you can overtrain ; whether or not your muscles get overtrained ; in the way people think ; i dont know ; but definitely ; mental exhaustion definitely is real i think.

At the moment ; i am very much mentally fatigued ; i have trained for months and months ; 5 days per week ; lots of volume during training ; and i feel drained ; tired ; and mentally fatigued ; i have other factors affecting my mental fatigue ; yes ; but i am sure training like i do ; has had an effect.

So i am taking some time off ; to relax ; to allow my injuries to get better ; and to just feel better in general ; i am in my early twenties ; so want to make sure i think long term.

Ivanko · Sep 23, 2011

You can't argue with results. If training bis everyday makes and continue s to make your bis grow then there ya go... Forget what everyone else says or does, find what works for you and go with it. Imo most people don't over train or under eat.. They just under train and eat the wrong stuff

danc1007 · Sep 23, 2011

Amazon Doll said:
Just for clarification:

What you are talking about is "over reaching" and this can be done in short bursts as long as there is enough recovery after to get the desired effect. Usually using over reaching as a training method for a muscle group for too long without proper recovery will create an injury in that muscle.

"Overtraining" is a very serious state and can take months to recover from so all forward progress is lost. Over training is more of a central nervous system (CNS) event. Most people get an injury that slows them down before they ever get to the complete state of over training.

Olympic level athletes can train so many hours or so intensly because they have built up to that level after many years of exercise. Volume and intensity can be increased as conditioning increases.

you are 100% correct nice post:yeahthat:

sammy555 · Sep 23, 2011

Kauto_star said:
Interesting thread.

I made this thread the other day ;

http://www.professionalmuscle.com/forums/professional-muscle-forum/78255-time-away-gym.html

I think from a mental and psychological view ; yes ; you can overtrain ; whether or not your muscles get overtrained ; in the way people think ; i dont know ; but definitely ; mental exhaustion definitely is real i think.

At the moment ; i am very much mentally fatigued ; i have trained for months and months ; 5 days per week ; lots of volume during training ; and i feel drained ; tired ; and mentally fatigued ; i have other factors affecting my mental fatigue ; yes ; but i am sure training like i do ; has had an effect.

So i am taking some time off ; to relax ; to allow my injuries to get better ; and to just feel better in general ; i am in my early twenties ; so want to make sure i think long term.

This for sure. when i came of a cut and need to add some muscle back quick-i squat 2x weekly adding about 5lb to bar ever workout. For a few months its great but eventually you fucking dread doing it and drop back to once a week,but its mental fatigue before physical exhaustion for sure

Kaladryn · Sep 23, 2011

You can over train the individual muscles, which usually manifests itself in the form of tendinitis/tendinosis, or you can over train the nervous system. Detecting and measuring nervous system overtraining is a big deal for professional endurance athletes because of how much they train. They use several methods that include waking heart rate and heart rate recovery, probably others also, but I'm not up to speed on it. Bodybuilders tend to notice being tired, having trouble sleeping, lack of strength, etc.

Some of your friends that have amazing development in some body parts probably get away with all the extra training because muscles are so well developed and resistant to breakdown, especially in the tendons. Their development also probably allows them to use mechanically efficient form that also helps.

Systemic overtraining is easy to avoid with rest, diet, and pharmacology. If you trained every body part that frequently, you would have problems fast, but if you just train one or a couple frequently, you can probably get away with it for a longer period of time.

I personally feel you can be in a minor state of systemic overtraining, which can be very hard to detect, and will hurt your gains. I also like the saying, there is no such thing as overtraining, just under eating. Although not 100% accurate, it does highlight the power of proper diet. A few other things come to mind, like the saying that you should never copy someones body part routine if they are genetically gifted in that department. Also that adaptation (growth) probably happens AFTER recovery, so if you train too frequently, you may limit adaptation.

warrior504th · Sep 23, 2011

I've been saying this for quite some time and MARK THIS POST, because this WILL pick up as people start trying it.

I've always felt that overtraining came down to two factors:
1. Training again before full recovery.
2. Burning out the CNS.

there are a few causes:
1. Pushing beyond failure by lowering the weight or switching to another exercise on the same group (SAME THING boys, never understood this). Slowing recovery to half or worse without benefit.
2. Forcing failure reps rather than stopping short. Burns the cns and cannot be soon repeated. Just like any failure attempt (max out for example). CNS BURNOUT.

Both of these wear the nervous system and severely prolong recovery for almost NO additional benefit.

This is part of the reason I've come off pushing to failure. There's been a big discussion with plenty of links on MSci showing pushing to/past failure is of little additional benefit. These were actually posted to try to oppose my theory and simply supported them. I am not a fan of bench pressing until you cant lift the weight on the bar, then lowering it or moving to another chest workout (same shit as lowering the weight). Imo this defines overtraining.... continuing working for no real benefit but additional downtime. No longer straining the muscle, just exhausting it or wearing down the nerves.

There's TONS of people with experience that indicates pushing a muscle group but leaving it short of failure or exhaustion yields excellent results with extremely rapid recovery, if that muscle is then trained multiple times per week. Recovery is much faster, nervous strain is much lower, and stimulation is much more frequent! No burnout, no overtraining, more frequent release and growth.

Football guys, ever notice that your legs exploded in size during football season, more than you've ever seen them grow since? Wonder why? You may only squat one day a week, but football and practice is a game of legs. You're actually training legs five times per week, although four of them are just repeat stimulation short of failure and burnout.

I challenge anyone here to give my training a shot. Try something new. Break the mold.

triathloncoach · Sep 23, 2011

I don't see how you can overtrain and grow. So if one continues to grow and remains injury free hard to believe you are over training. The body adapts to the work load, but its kinda like a guy who runs 10 miles a day doesn't get big legs. Especially natty. I guess you are doing low volume stuff. And everyone responds differently. The chin up guy developing a heavy back is a surprise, but maybe if he trained less he would be even larger.

But Id rather be undertrained than over.

djdizzy · Sep 23, 2011

This is a long read but the best I've seen so far on overtraining and overreaching.

**broken link removed**

Medic08 · Sep 23, 2011

Something I heard a long tme ago and I stick by. "You can't over train, you can only under eat."

suparay · Sep 24, 2011

Are you talking about my front delts gunsmith lol? Me and u talked about this. Saturday makes 21 days strait with out rest! I know u know this just for the guys on the bored I'm not on any aas i am using slin imp cjc 195 my strength is continually going UP I feel as if in gaining size unless it's just a all the time pump. With the peptides im getting leaner eating 9 meals a day I'm 243 at the moment 5"9 top 4 abs visible not shredded but it's my off season so who cares

1badboy · Sep 24, 2011

Lots of great posts here- I have to add my $.02...

Most everyone of us has a least one body part that grows easier, faster, and looks better than other body parts (unless your a genetic freak). Many of these folks get complements "Hey- your biceps are SO big blah blah..." and that reinforces in them to train them more- they grow because that's their genetic predisposition, even when training high frequency (I like Amazon Doll's "overreaching"- they don't do it forever).

Also, as far as gymnists go, there aren't very many "old" ones- over 30- they take a serious beating. And the olympic-types start training when they are so young- doing rings, pommel horse, etc for days-on-end when you are 13 is much different than when you are 35.

But I do like to "flirt" with overtraining for short bursts...

Sepjuice1 · Sep 24, 2011

I usually workout a bodypart twice a week on gear. the key is hitting that hypertrophy point, but not go overboard where you cannot heal in time..its taken me alot of trial and error to find that sweet spot.

comedycentral · Sep 24, 2011

there are a lot of different factors to take into account with overtraining.

if you look back at lifters from the 50s and 60s they usually did 3 full body workouts per week so on the face of it they look like its over training because of BP 3 times per week but overall volume was normally low 3-4 sets per session per bodypart.

also as people have pointed out already.

planned overtraining (over reaching really) is definately an effective method for growth but it needs to be accompanied by a period of unloading.

if you look at big beyond belief this is essesntially the crux of the program
several weeks building up the volume and decreasing the rest times pushing you to a slightly overtrained state and then suddenly taking your foot of the gas to allow your body to play catch up.

true over training as others have said can be health detrimental and often is accompanied by poor sleep quality, poor immunity health regular colds etc.

training to total failiure to often in think can be a killer and in all the studies i have read stopping a rep or two short will not impede your growth.

gunsmith as you stated you are natty at the moment you are in a great position to try over reaching/under training.

have a good look at big beyond..the 4 day routine although looks weird if you follow the rest times and what it says it is a brutal routine that works and gives some nice instant results.