Over-training advice

[HoustonTex]

I am extremely serious and dedicated to bodybuilding. My concern is that my willpower and motivation might be exceeding the physical limits of a 39 year-old man. Don't get me wrong, I am not fatigued or overwhelmed. I can do more. My concern is that my additional effort might be harmful or at the very least worthless to my overall goals of lean muscle building. I do a push day, pull day, leg day, and forearm/neck/abs day. We're talking 96 hours in between serious efforts to break down each muscle. It's a 7 day per week cycle and I rarely miss a day. However, I do two workout sessions per day targeting the same muscle groups. I do an after lunch workout until my muscles are shaking like a chihuaha in a thunderstorm and then I "recover" and do an after dinner workout until I get an endorphin high. Both workouts begin with a heavy compound exercise followed by 2 medium weight compound exercises and 1 or 2 light weight isolation exercises.

Here's what a random push day looks like for me although I never do the same workout twice..I have printed out every exercise on bb.com and I randomly pick them out for each session. My muscles have no idea what to expect on a day-to-day basis.

e.g.

After lunch workout:

flat dumbell press (heavy)
unweighted dips angled forward (medium)
30 degree incline barbell bench press (medium)
front dumbell raises (light)
standing tricep bar extensions (light)


After dinner workout:

Weighted push-ups on push-up bars (heavy)
military press (medium)
decline dumbell fly (medium)
lateral dumbell raises (light)

I feel crushed after 2 workouts and I'm always very sore. My questions are the following:

1. Is the post-dinner workout good, bad or worthless to my overall efforts to add lean muscle? After all, I've pretty much thrashed myself after the post-lunch workout.
2. When is the cutoff point for overtraining? The next day? 1 hour? 2 hours?


One more note. I am 39 years-old. I started training at 38 and have gone from 156 pounds to 168 in 10 months. I am average height at 5'10". I have not added fat. I am very lean but couldn't tell you my bf percentage. I'm not a hoss but I'm very, very serious about getting there and I'm looking pretty fantastic in the meantime. I have heard that newbies can add up to 25 pounds of lean muscle in one year and I'm a little under that pace. I don't know if it's from overtraining or simply from the fact that I started beyond my physical prime. For the record, I adhere to a very strict bb diet, plenty of protein, carbs and good fat and 500 - 600 calories per day in excess. I do everything right (I think) except potentially for the issue of overtraining.

I would love to hear your thoughts. I have tremendous respect for all of you who punish yourselves in this sport and stick with it. We are a small band of like-minded brothers (and sisters) seeking to reap the rewards of torturing ourselves! MAD props to all of you.

Tex

[Cranz]

Read the stickies....

[HoustonTex]

Read the stickies....

Thanks, kid, but if anyone old enough to buy a beer could weigh in I'd surely appreciate it.

[themonkay]

If you have to ask whether you're overtraining or not, you're not

[8eggs]

Overtraining is something that does not just creep up on you,It takes you by suprise. You don't feel it coming.It just hits you like a freight train when it happens. Your joints and general mood is probabbly the best indicator if you need some time to deload.

I feel its really really hard to overtrain well doing a split routine. I've only overtrained while doing full body workouts 5 days a week and that took 3 weeks to hit.And those workouts were 3 hours long with something like 65-75 sets.

You probably will do better with more "off" time to recover though. Rember you grow while you rest not while you workout. A full day of rest will give you better recover then just working a differnt muscle group. The energy you spend working a differnt muscle group takes away from the recovery of the ones in "rest"

As a beginer you might do better with a different routine all together. Something like Reg Parks 5x5 full body 3 days per week. It seems so many of the greats have started with this routine with great results.

[SuffolkPunch]

If you are able to progress continuously over time (add weight or add reps regularly) then you are not overreaching. The capacity for work is an individual thing and you will have to find for yourself how much you can do in a week without fatigue from one session to the next causing your performance to suffer.

If you do overreach you can always deload or reset... but having said all this, a 7 day a week program is not very sensible since it's unlikely to elicit much more results than a 3-4 day a week

[RockCrab]

Here's what a random push day looks like for me although I never do the same workout twice..I have printed out every exercise on bb.com and I randomly pick them out for each session. My muscles have no idea what to expect on a day-to-day basis.

I don't get this. How do you go about progressing if everything is random? Today you use 75's for 3x8 reps of flat DB Bench but don't do it again for two weeks because you've been doing BB bench press, incline DB press, decline BB bench press, etc. When you finally get back to it, do you grab the 75's? Do you plan to get 9 reps or do you grab the 80's and see if you can get 8?

Muscle confusion is a myth. Planned progression is key to long term growth, whether you use linear progression with weights, reps, sets or rest time; or if you use something a little more advanced like dual factor periodization. I will tell you that it's a lot easier to keep track of progress when you are comparing numbers from a previous workout rather than whether you're 'shaking like a chihuahua' like you did last time. Subjective metrics are subjective.

[Juggertha]

Overtraining is overhyped.

[jgreystoke]

My muscles have no idea what to expect on a day-to-day basis.

That's just dandy.

If you were in college, and you didn't know what subject you were going to do on a day-to-day basis, and did random stuff for a whole decade, you'd never graduate at anything.

Here is a program I recommend to put a lot of muscle, strength, strength endurance all over, without a lot of weak links:

http://articles.elitefts.com/trainin...-and-strength/

That will work, even if you only trained a couple times a week, so long as you:

1. Train progressively(add weight to the bar regularly, THAT'S the way to keep your muscles progressing), and:

2. Eat enough to gain muscle.

When you can't progress on that any more, time to go to a more advanced program like 5 3 1 + the 5 3 1 Boring But Big assistance template for size.

When you are visibly more muscular than most, except those who are serious about weight training(so many guys just piss around in the gym for years with random stuff), then you can do what the hell you like.

[Cranz]

Thanks, kid, but if anyone old enough to buy a beer could weigh in I'd surely appreciate it.

Age does not equal knowledge or maturity.

In a nutshell, you seemed to be totally clueless so I directed you to the best source of information, instead of posting a wall of text that will not cover it totally like the stickies do.

As for the beers, I don't drink.

[theguitarman128]

Ct fletcher


/thread

[jgreystoke]

Age does not equal knowledge or maturity.

In a nutshell, you seemed to be totally clueless so I directed you to the best source of information, instead of posting a wall of text that will not cover it totally like the stickies do.

As for the beers, I don't drink.

This.

[magician27]

if you are making progress, push your limits . keep nutrition perfect. if you experience decrease in performance , consistent joint pain and muscle soreness, then you might be overdoing it.

[danny4xboy]

Proper Over training syndrome is a very hard thing to achieve (not that its an achievement by any means!!!), It takes a hell of a lot of work to get to such a state, moths and months of overly high training load inadequate nutrition and rest and in 99% of cases your head will give in before you actually reach over training, kind of like your situation right now!

What happens in 99% of these cases is that you will up you load, feel tired, see a decrease in performance and get a bit fed up, this is just the rubbish part of a deep overreaching cycle. These are the signs that you have reached far enough and its time to de-load and rest, then you recover, get bigger and stronger and start all over again.

You need to go to the ende every so often to push the boundaries, force improvement and also know where your boundaries lie. But don't do this all the time because the culmination of the tactic over te period of many months can start you on the road to proper over training. Like i say though before you get anywhere near actual over training syndrome your head will go first and you will begin to doubt yourself due to your performances and then you'll start asking on forums if you are over training!

Rest, eat and recover, thats all you need to do.

Dan

[JohnMariettePT]

Age does not equal knowledge or maturity.

In a nutshell, you seemed to be totally clueless so I directed you to the best source of information, instead of posting a wall of text that will not cover it totally like the stickies do.

As for the beers, I don't drink.

+1.