Am I overtraining?

[cdjeffery]

Hey guys,

Lately I've been seeing crazy strength gains but not the aesthetic gains I want to see. Is it possible that I'm overtraining?

Basically my routine looks like this:

Monday: Chest/Shoulders/Arms

5x5 Bench
5x8 Incline DB's
5x10-12 Cable Fly Variation (2-3 different variations)
4x10 Pec Dec Fly's
4x10 Seated Shoulder Press
4x10 Arnold Press
4x10 Lateral and Front Shoulder Raises
4x12 Shrugs
4x10 DB Curls
4x10 Hammer Curls
4x10 Preacher Curls
4x10 Tricep Pushdown
4x10 Tricep Pulldown
4x10 Closed Grip Benchpress

Tuesday: Back/Arms

5x10 Pull Ups
5x5 Deadlift
5x8 Bent Over Rows
5x8 Pulldowns
5x8 Seated Rows
4x10 DB Curls
4x10 Hammer Curls
4x10 Preacher Curls
4x10 Tricep Pushdown
4x10 Tricep Pulldown
4x10 Closed Grip Benchpress

Wednesday: Legs

5x5 Squats
5x10 RDL's
5x10 One-Legged Leg Press
5x10 Leg Extensions
5x10 Leg Curls
3x10 Lunges
5-8x10 Seated Calf Raises

Then repeat for the next 3 days, occasionally mixing up reps or adding/removing exercises.

Rest day on Sunday.

Current lifts:

Bench: 225 lbs (1RPM)
Deadlift: 315 lbs (1RPM)
Squat: 225 lbs (5RPM)

Thoughts?

[FaIIen]

What a mess. Dumpster time. If you insist on working out 6 days a week, here's a solid PPL: http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showth...hp?t=149807833 <- For the love of God, don't add anything to it. It's already rather high volume.

[TheGymJim]

Probably not technically "overtraining" but that is a simply absurd amount of exercises, sets and reps.

What you need is EFFECTIVE volume.

Do fewer exercises and fewer, harder sets. If you're actually doing everything listed, you can't possibly be lifting challenging weights.

Your volume on your arms is particularly hilarious.

[cdjeffery]

Probably not technically "overtraining" but that is a simply absurd amount of exercises, sets and reps.

What you need is EFFECTIVE volume.

Do fewer exercises and fewer, harder sets. If you're actually doing everything listed, you can't possibly be lifting challenging weights.

Your volume on your arms is particularly hilarious.

I definitely found myself struggling to do heavier weights deeper into the workout. They'd also range anywhere from 1 1/2 hours to 2 1/2 hours. The heavy volume on my arms was just an attempt to grow them since they we're the only body part lagging behind.

[ItsTiME35]

Do you book the day off work for each session lol.. good Lord bro

[grubman]

Ha ha, you do more sets just for arms than I do for my entire body on my full-body workouts...I dunno, post some pictures and lets compare arms, maybe yours are better...I do 6 sets a week for biceps and 6 sets a week for triceps....16" at 5'7" (and that's down almost an inch from when I was 20).

Quality, not quantity.

If you like working out 6 days a week, check this out: https://www.t-nation.com/training/th...atural-lifters

[TheGymJim]

I definitely found myself struggling to do heavier weights deeper into the workout. They'd also range anywhere from 1 1/2 hours to 2 1/2 hours. The heavy volume on my arms was just an attempt to grow them since they we're the only body part lagging behind.

They're probably not lagging behind. It's probably just your perception. Everyone wants bigger arms. I have never done a large amount of isolations for my arms. In fact, I've done long stints with no bicep or tricep isolations, and still had my arms grow. Even when I was running a PPL I wasn't doing this amount of stuff. It's simply too much to possibly be having effective working sets.

You need to switch to a better routine, written by someone who knows what they're doing. There's plenty in the stickies.

But again, the key is effective volume, not just volume.

Doing 3x5 on major compounds, with challenging sets and progressive overload, and then only as many isos as necessary is gonna promote more adaptation (and therefore size and strength) than fannying around with 50 different exercises with ridiculous rep ranges and pissening weights.