How much training is over training?

[ThrottleBod]

Read in magazines and on the Internet a little about this. Just wondered if anyone could clear it up.

If you train more than an hour on 1 or 2 muscle groups will it have a negative effect? Also if you train say back and biceps together for an hour twice a week with a 2 day break inbetween would that be too much? This is for training to put on muscle if that matters at all. Thanks in advance!

[Fozziebear]

I think you have to look at weight lifted, reps and sets completed and calorie input. You could lift 2kg every day for x amount of hours and have zero overtraining. Look at manual labourers and how the repeat an exercise, bricklayer, stoker in a Furness etc.

[Liquid Tuna]

I honestly think over-training is bandied about waaaaaaaay too often. You really need to be going at it like a maniac for weeks on end and with a stty diet and no proper rest before you'll be over training. I think you'll also notice your body telling you, usually through injury or illness, colds etc, which simply prevents you from training any more unless you start taking meds to overcome that.

It seems a convenient excuse sometimes for people to use instead of putting in the hard effort - I'm over-training - course you are.

[Burrow01]

When I was training for a 100km bike ride last year I was tracking it with a HRM

One of the stats it presented was training volume, with an indication of when you were overtraining

Basically I had to cover at least 50km at a good rate to even approach this, so I agree, you really have to push to get to overtraining. The recommendation at that point was not to train for two days so it was still not a bar to a pretty good regime

[DSharp]

Have to be really pushing it to properly overtrain as a recreational gym user. It's just training to a point where the body can't recover sufficiently. diet will impact this as well as conditioning and intensity of training. Best to build up gradually.

Simplest way is to look for decrease in strength, colds, lots of injuries and feeling like rubbish, not wanting to train etc.

Can see how it could occur in training for stamina based event (as above) where regular long training would be required, in which case basal heart rate would be important. for strength training I'd monitor strength.

whats your current routine like?

Edited by DSharp on Monday 29th July 20:35

[Regiment]

Liquid Tuna said:

I honestly think over-training is bandied about waaaaaaaay too often. You really need to be going at it like a maniac for weeks on end and with a stty diet and no proper rest before you'll be over training. I think you'll also notice your body telling you, usually through injury or illness, colds etc, which simply prevents you from training any more unless you start taking meds to overcome that.

It seems a convenient excuse sometimes for people to use instead of putting in the hard effort - I'm over-training - course you are.

This.

[ThrottleBod]

Current routine is- Back and biceps, chest and triceps, shoulders and abs then squats and legs. I'm really not doing as much legs as i should be but i just want to build some upper body muscle first. Normally do an hour to an hour and a quarter of weights each time. Every other session i do half an hour of cardio aswell.

The past monthive been laying off the protein shakes and thats when i started doing the cardio aswell. I've been trying to eat around 2000-2500 calories a day to trim down for a weeks holiday the end of the month. I feel like im losing some of the size i've gained though. I'm 25 and only started training in the gym 6 months ago so im learning all the time just by reading about it on here and magazines etc.

Im going back to eating more today and also back on the protein shakes. Today i've had- bowl of weetabix mini's, banana and a protein shake for breakfast. Apple mid morning then a brown tuna baguette with a packet of crisps for dinner. Two chicken breasts with brown rice for tea with a protein shake aswell, this was after the gym. Does this sound terrible? It's what i eat most days to be honest.

[Regiment]

Throttlebod, post your full workout including sets and reps. Best thing to do is to look at training routines online and also realise that everyone is different.

I work each muscle twice a week, including a heavy session and a volume session. I've always been taught that you shouldn't do more than 2 heavy, intense sessions a week for each body part but there are guys on here that do more than 2 heavy, intense sessions for the body parts but keep the volume very low.

[DSharp]

ThrottleBod said:

Current routine is- Back and biceps, chest and triceps, shoulders and abs then squats and legs. I'm really not doing as much legs as i should be but i just want to build some upper body muscle first. Normally do an hour to an hour and a quarter of weights each time. Every other session i do half an hour of cardio aswell.

The past monthive been laying off the protein shakes and thats when i started doing the cardio aswell. I've been trying to eat around 2000-2500 calories a day to trim down for a weeks holiday the end of the month. I feel like im losing some of the size i've gained though. I'm 25 and only started training in the gym 6 months ago so im learning all the time just by reading about it on here and magazines etc.

Im going back to eating more today and also back on the protein shakes. Today i've had- bowl of weetabix mini's, banana and a protein shake for breakfast. Apple mid morning then a brown tuna baguette with a packet of crisps for dinner. Two chicken breasts with brown rice for tea with a protein shake aswell, this was after the gym. Does this sound terrible? It's what i eat most days to be honest.

If you are doing the sessions in that order, or are you splitting the chest and tri and shoulder and abs sessions? just to make sure tris are recovered, e.g.
Back and bis
Chest and Tris
Legs / squats
Shoulders / abs

What rep ranges and how many exercises are you doing? You should be pretty safe within 75 minutes unless you are doing some seriously hardcore training! There are lots of planned routines online that can make life easy to plan the routine out and what exercise to try. Have you been focussing on three sets of 8 reps, or similar so far?

You've dropped the protein shakes, but are you making sure you get enough protein in the diet? It's very important to maintenance ad building muscle - and it doesn't look enough to me tbh. Aim for 1g per lb of bodyweight minimum.

diet is not perfect, but not horrific. If you want to lean up I'd reduce the sugars (e.g. the cereal and switch to porridge etc, unless you want to go to a lower carb diet) and either way increase the protein.

If you are trimming down keep an eye on the weights you can lift, if these are coming down much then you are possibly going too far under maintenance calories / not enough protein for example.

Oh, and train legs! hard!!

[Speed_Demon]

When you struggle to sleep and lose your appetite, your overtraining. Unless dieting hard, it's not THAT easy to overtrain. Squat to failure 3+ times a week is the kinda level you need to be at before it's a risk.

[ThrottleBod]

Regiment- I dont really follow a routine. I just train those muscles together that i've listed. I guess that's a bad thing? I will look into some routines online. Any recommendations of where to look?

DSharp- Lately i havent been splitting the sessions. E.g 45 minutes on chest then 30 minutes on tri's, is that a bad way to do it? I normally do 4 sets of 8-12 reps, try to make sure im struggling on the last rep. So if i was chest pressing with dumbells i'd start with 22's then end on 28's. Or would it be best to start heavier and do less?

I stopped the protein shakes as i felt i was gaining too much fat, im back on them now and that's why im doing more cardio. I was doing hardly any at all before.

Thanks for all the advice, it's really helpful. Everytime i think im traing right i learn something else so i think i've been doing it wrong. Just wish i'd started years ago!

[Hoofy]

I heard that the Olympic athletes were really susceptible to colds etc as they were pushing the limits of their training. That's overtraining.

[Burrow01]

swerni said:

Burrow01 said:

When I was training for a 100km bike ride last year I was tracking it with a HRM

One of the stats it presented was training volume, with an indication of when you were overtraining

Basically I had to cover at least 50km at a good rate to even approach this, so I agree, you really have to push to get to overtraining. The recommendation at that point was not to train for two days so it was still not a bar to a pretty good regime

Think the OP was referring to weight training and the adverse effect on muscle growth.
When you're cycle training the objective isn't to grow muscles.

The theory on weights is your muscle cells split while training, they then heal when rested but are slightly larger, you then repeat the process
No rest no healing.

Fact or fiction? No idea.
I stopped lifting weights years ago and spend my time on the bike these days

Yep was aware of that, but the principle is the same - you are tearing down muscle to rebuild it, and I was trying to give a measured example of how hard you needed to go to get to that point

[Xerstead]

ThrottleBod said:

I stopped the protein shakes as i felt i was gaining too much fat,

What type of shake are you drinking? If it's a plain protein blend then there shouldn't be too many calories in it. If you're on a proper bulking shake, there can be 800cal+ per shake!

[M400 NBL]

You can train much harder than you think but need to push through the pain for a while. Listen to your body by all means, but a slight ache is the minimum you should expect if you are body building.

As said above, people use their muscles / tendons / ligaments every day because of their job. Scaffolders, farmers, plasterers etc.

Over training according to C T Fletcher (some swearing so turn your volume down at work).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8_8phD7AwM

[Buzz word]

Can someone explain the nuances between not recovering and over training? In my mind they are one in the same. Surely if you have not recovered for your next workout you have done too much? I think that's why it gets over used as most people, myself included cannot see a difference between over training and simply not recovered. All I can really see is that over training is the cumulative state of a lot of improper recovery.

[Haggleburyfinius]

Hoofy said:

I heard that the Olympic athletes were really susceptible to colds etc as they were pushing the limits of their training. That's overtraining.

This happened to me at MT camp last Winter. I mentioned it on here.

5-8 hours training per day, 6 days per week caught up with me after about 7-8 weeks.

[RickRolled]

M400 NBL said:

You can train much harder than you think but need to push through the pain for a while. Listen to your body by all means, but a slight ache is the minimum you should expect if you are body building.

As said above, people use their muscles / tendons / ligaments every day because of their job. Scaffolders, farmers, plasterers etc.

Over training according to C T Fletcher (some swearing so turn your volume down at work).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8_8phD7AwM

Was just about to mentioned CT, he does make some interesting points.

[throt]

Colds is a big teller noticed by sneezing fits the day after say a hard long run.. I trained every single day for 15 month, it was 1 hour a day doing high intensity stamina training. The thing I found out was that my food intake was smack on right, but my eff up was with fluid in take, I was not taking in enough, this cause fatigue, muscle aches and confusion, as soon as it hit 9.30pm I was gagging for bedtime sleep. If my water in take was correct there was a monumental difference for the good in all aspects of everything you do in your daily schedule.

So, good diet, plenty of fluids and good sleeping habits are vitally important..

[CarbonViper]

ThrottleBod said:

Regiment- I dont really follow a routine. I just train those muscles together that i've listed. I guess that's a bad thing? I will look into some routines online. Any recommendations of where to look?

DSharp- Lately i havent been splitting the sessions. E.g 45 minutes on chest then 30 minutes on tri's, is that a bad way to do it? I normally do 4 sets of 8-12 reps, try to make sure im struggling on the last rep. So if i was chest pressing with dumbells i'd start with 22's then end on 28's. Or would it be best to start heavier and do less?

I stopped the protein shakes as i felt i was gaining too much fat, im back on them now and that's why im doing more cardio. I was doing hardly any at all before.

Thanks for all the advice, it's really helpful. Everytime i think im traing right i learn something else so i think i've been doing it wrong. Just wish i'd started years ago!

Taking protein shakes really isn't the cause for you gaining too much fat, you must be eating too much, you need to have a sound diet plan, from experience for effective muscle increase your diet will make up roughly 70% of this and the training 30%.

In regards to you asking about your reps etc, mix things up, you could start heavier or start lighter its up to you really.