Overtraining by The Iron Addict

[_Wolf_]

lmfao

[EricT]

I definitely agree with you in general 0311 and were I to disect the details I wouldn't be disagreeing with every point he makes. But you can agree with the details and not subscribe to the message which is too extreme for my taste. There is no other reason to write articles like this except to drum up newby clients. Anybody who really is doing a ridiculous 4 or 5 day split with way too much is certainly going to benefit I think from his ideas.

If it helps a lot of people at bb.com even if it gives them the wrong message in the long run, I guess that's ok.

I don't know how he is in the ballpark of overtraining with his description of it. His target object may be neophytes but his actual audience is more than that. If anyone believes that overtraining is defined by not recovering then they better be doing HIT! Any program that is optimized enough to allow for the best gains and progression over the short term is going to build up some fatigue and recovery debt. You wait long enough for full recovery to take place and you are very likely to have detrained any neural gains thus making progress very touch and go.

No matter if I agree with him on certain points I don't think it is going to help the majority of trainers to tell them if they stall on a lift they're overtraining! Bottom Line. I don't care about the trees I'm talking about the forest. It's such a hodgpodge of beliefs.

I get sick of hearing the word OVERTRAINING shouted from the mountains all the time. I could be wrong but adapting his philosophy completely could have many chronically under-reaching. For some extreme types they may be better off under-reaching but YOU CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS.

I do believe most beginners would be better off under-reaching compared to what they do..I certainly won't dispute that! I've sent that message enough myself. But I also believe that this beginner doesn't have to choose between extremes in terms of recovery.

[EricT]

Originally Posted by 0311

I also stand behind what he said for a few exercises per muscle group. I've been of the opinion for quite a while that a muscle can be worked with 1-2 exercises with the heaviest poundage for that rep range before moving on. His example of back is perfect.

To me, this article reinforces the need for upper/lower or full body splits for mass, especially in relation to less = more per muscle group. It's certainly easier (and more optimal) to nail a muscle with a few heavy compounds, then move onto another muscle in a SINGLE workout. This ties into why I personally loathe doing 1-2 muscles in a whole day. Essentially, your first few exercises are strong, then as you progress through your workout, the poundage/motivation/endurance decreases to the point to where you're lifting like a madman with 30 lb cable crossovers to "feel the burn"! LOL.

Course I couldn't agree more. And I actually like some of his plans for beginners. However, I think he tends to make things that are very simple sound very complicated (while saying they're simple) and makes complicated things sound simple (i.e. recovery).

Most beginners could do well on either an upper/lower split or full body provided they take they're ego's out of it and cycle the intensity. There is no need for some over complicated thought process and playing 20 sides of a two sided fence. Some things work better than others. Once every nine to ten days sucks for anyone no matter their "recovery". The only reason to embrace so many different philosophies and scream "recovery" and "overtraining" is to overwhelm someone with details making them think they need to pay you a lot of dough so you can help them choose the best one.

As far as what you say (0311) as usual we agree on the big picture we just differ slightly on some of the details. Where I agree with IA is on progress being the bottom line. Where I disagree is with progress being defined over the short term rather than the long term.

[EricT]

Originally Posted by IA

So how do you know if your overtraining? Well the real barometer should be your training weights. You should be seeing increases in about every movement from week to week.

You put a beginner on a simple abbreviated 3 day a week full body program concentrating on the big 3 (4 really) and he fails to make weekly progress in the SHORT TERM I guarantee the problem is one of adherance.

Number one most beginners overshoot the beginning of the program. Start too close to your maximal ability and your fucked. You're better off every time looking like a sissy and being conservative than letting your ego guide you. I help someone over the internet I assume they're lying to me over their weights anyway.

You can't correctly interelate volume and intensity and then take intensity out of the picture when you talk about people using too much volume. There are other ways to manipulate volume than just frequency, reps and sets. After all we define volume as TOTAL work load. Weight times reps times sets. That's why you should begin a full body beginner program backing off your maxes and building to them over time. Otherwise the overall workload is too much too fast. But a beginner with little experience and recovery ability if he starts nice and easy and builds up over time, even if it's 6 weeks as opposed to 4, will be subtly increasing the workload over that time and therefore increasing recovery ability in the process.

Two they load the bar too aggresively going by the way the "feel" rather than what is going to keep them progressing in the long term...in other words they refuse to pace themselves. Faster is always better mentality.

Three they basically do a totally different workout at one time to another without even adding more excercises cuz they fuck with the volume by going from ramping the weights to same weight sets or vice versa. This is the trap of putting too much emphasis on the training effect of one workout rather than the cumulative effect. "I feel good and strong today so I'll add volume and grow more". Then next week they wonder why they stopped progressing.

And four of course they add excercises to the program and increase the volume. They monkey fuck the program in any way possible. Throwing in this movement one workout and some other shit the next.

Training someone in the gym seeing what they're doing is one thing. Training them over the internet is another. You have to take their word for a lot of things you shouldn't take their word for.

Given all this I don't think there is a need to jump to bad recovery and overtraining and therefore these complicated prescriptions of what one beginner should do as opposed to another.

[Darkhorse]

Training someone in the gym seeing what they're doing is one thing. Training them over the internet is another. You have to take their word for a lot of things you shouldn't take their word for.

Absolutely! I'll use myself as an example. When I maxed out on flat bench last Wednesday, I had a "5 lb spot" to get up 405 lbs. How many "internet nazis" would go ahead and tell their trainer, "I finally got it!" Now you're screwed as your trainer (if he's a good one) will be slightly more aggressive with your training and poundages to continue driving up those weights. Even powerlifting-wise, if I lied, now my speed bench just got bumped up! Granted my max is only 10 pounds less than that, but how the fuck would I realistically go out and try to best my previous max (when it really wasn't my max to begin with).

If someone even touches the bar, it doesn't count. Period.

Given all this I don't think there is a need to jump to bad recovery and overtraining and therefore these complicated prescriptions of what one beginner should do as opposed to another.

I agree. Especially in bodybuilding circles, the word "overtraining" has become an EXCUSE to train like a pussy more than anything else.

I could go on another forum where everyone and their mother does a 5 day split and ask them how they came up with resting exactly 5-7 days before they're recovered. More often than not, they'll either say:

- Because I'm not sore anymore..
- I 'feel' stronger after exactly 5-7 days..
- Every professional waits 5-7 days, and they're big! (my favorite)
- Anything sooner and you'll OVERTRAIN.

Now the fun part is when I ask why OLY trainees train the A2G squat up to 15 + times a week and not "overtrain". Can you guess what their answer is?? -> Yeah, but they're olympians... Here's the kicker!.. Now they say that their Olympians and that's why they don't overtrain. Well, now I ask why they do a 5 day split even though they are natural and for the most part beginners. Why train like a PROFESSIONAL bodybuilder whose on the sauce?!

Now, most of them know that's bullshit, but they're too afraid to try out anything more than a 5 day split because it's popular with the pro's (whose supplement cabinet is located in the refrigerator! ).

Overtraining almost has a cult following.

I was searching around looking at different forums when I found this gem. Typical split dominated forum. Someone posted the "death of modern bb'ing". There's a ton of views, and only one person responds by saying it's wrong! Yet no proof otherwise is given. THREAD Funny part is just below that thread is a "everyone post your split"

[EricT]

Originally Posted by 0311

- Because I'm not sore anymore..
- I 'feel' stronger after exactly 5-7 days..
- Every professional waits 5-7 days, and they're big! (my favorite)
- Anything sooner and you'll OVERTRAIN.

LOL. That all begs another question I meant to ask but forgot to. How the hell does you trainer know when you've "recovered" from a workout? Hell I wouldn't know whether I recovered from anything. Since I know that there's no way I could recover from any of my full body or upper/lower split workouts yet I still manage to progress very well, even if things fail to go to plan on one workout I can realistically point to many potential reasons. Eating, sleeping you name it. Hell the other day I was forced to work out with most of a big meal in my stomach. That is a big no no for me personally. I managed to get everything done but I felt weak and every single set was harder than it should be. My coordination was off and I felt like my neurons weren't firing in sinc if you know what I mean. Next workout everything was perfectly fine.

On that other forum I feel like joining up and inviting that guy over here.

[EricT]

Originally Posted by IA

5 x 5’s are done with sub-maximal weights in most cases. An example of a 300 lb bencher might look like:

150
185
225
265
300 the following week the sub-maximal weights go up, as do the last top set.

See this is the kind of thing I'm talking about. I don't know whether he means a 300 lb 1RM or 300 lb 5RM. I'm assuming the latter. How is this an explantion of how the kind of 5x5 he's talking works? You can talk about the weights being submaximal all you want but the fact is that by the time that bencher reaches that point the volume is getting up there for him. That example would only confuse most beginners.

[Darkhorse]

How the hell does you trainer know when you've "recovered" from a workout?

He started me off with lighter volume than I'm doing now, A LOT lighter! Now, for Matt, there's an extensive questionare I filled out so he knows all about my training being predominantly Dual Factor. So right away he knows my experience level, my lifts, my build, ect.

He also has a safeguard in place as well. Every week, he has me rate every exercise with a 1-5 rating. 1 being very easy, 3 being a good working set, 4 meaning it was hard, maybe could've squeezed another, and 5 meaning I didn't finish the reps cause it was impossibly difficult.

So, if he sees me writing 4's and 5's in the first month, then my recovery sucks and it's time to really pull back on the reigns. If I put 4's and 5's for say, this whole week, guess what, deloading time.

Plus, he knows my experience level is high, so he also trusts I'll tell him as well that I need a break to get my sanity back!

[EricT]

Oh, that all makes perfect sense. But as usual I didn't make myself clear. I know when I'm not recovering adequately. I was talking about in the sense you need to fully recover in order to progress consistently and the idea that anything more and you're overtraining. Not recovery in the sense of adequate recovery and whether it's deload time or not. I think I'm really speaking of beginners and many intermediates.

If you weren't building up some kind of debt in terms of recovery we wouldn't even be talking about deloads.

[Darkhorse]

I was talking about in the sense you need to fully recover in order to progress consistently and the idea that anything more and you're overtraining.

Shit, that goes against the dual factor model right there! I know that's the main idea of IA's article.. To tell everyone you need complete recovery between sessions in order to progress. Yet the funny thing to me is that in his forum, he was RAVING about Kelley Baggett's dual factor/intentional overreaching for improved performance articles saying it was a "must read". Yet everything in his article above is contrary to that! This of course reinforces my belief that his overtraining article is ONLY intended for neophytes.