Too much of a good thing

Everybody has heard it at some time or another “You’re over training! That’s why you’re not making serious gains.” So we hear it. But do we understand what it means? I mean really what it means? Once you do and once you can make the distinction between an over trained body and one that remains fresh, - believe me – you’ll make very serious changes.

In its most basic sense, over training means the body is being put under greater stress than it can handle. It’s that simple. Any additional stress, above and beyond what your own body can handle will result in a failure to recover and grow. So you could be fairly dedicated, training with a routine you believe to be a well thought out approach– yet fail to move ahead and change your body.

One of the myths that perpetuates over training is the silly idea “There’s no such thing as over training, just under eating.” The idea is so far off the mark and ill advised, I don’t even want to spend much time with it. The fact is, nutrition can only support the body so far. When exercise stress exceeds your body’s own tolerance for recovery, you go backwards. You don’t change. Even if you are eating a well.

Building muscle relies on the poundage's you use also known as the weight. Pretty simple, if you can perform a set of barbell curls with 60 pounds, you’ll stimulate far more growth than using only 30 pounds. No matter how you cut it, the weight you use is immensely important in stimulating the muscles to grow. After the weight comes volume or the total number of sets you perform. Volume influences muscle growth. If you do not perform enough sets, you’ll fail to trigger growth. If you get carried away and do too many, you’ll over train and also fail to grow, so you have to find a balance, a happy medium. Where’s the happy medium? It depends, but here are some guidelines.

1) The More Sets You Perform, the Better

Just as the greater the weight you handle, the better in terms of muscle recruitment, the more sets you do, the greater you’ll work a muscle. The thing you really have to distinguish is where to stop. To illustrate the point, just ask yourself is three sets of bicep curls better than one? Of course, the answer is yes. Is five better than three. Most likely. Is 7 better than five? The point where you have to stop or the point where more sets are no longer helping is typically where you lose the ‘feel” or ‘pump’ in the muscle or where your poundage's start to drop. It’s important to listen to your body and move on when you need to. If you lose a pump, move on. When your poundage's drop – you can’t handle the same heavy weight for each continuous set, move on!

2) Speed Of Reps Count

The speed or perceived speed at which you move a weight influences how many sets you can do. Outside of the weight and total number of sets you perform, the speed at which you drive a weight has an influence on growth and can determine your own personal threshold for over training within each training session. Moving a weight fast, with speed and aggression, is far better for growth than moving a weight with a slow and even speed. That’s because in trying to ‘drive a weight’ with the intensity of a bullet coming out of a gun – causes a far greater number of muscle fibers to come into play than simply moving the weight with a slow cadence. Slow training, in my opinion, is a gimmick and has no real place in mass building plans. If you want to grow, you should pick a heavy weight and drive the weight while maintaining good form. Of course when you drive a weight, there's not going to be a lot of momentum created because when you overload the muscle with a heavy weight, the poundage radically cuts down on the creation of momentum. In overloading a muscle with a heavy weight and driving the weight by pushing it fast rather than super slow, you physiologically create the greatest amount of stress on the muscle as possible. One way to discover whether you are about to do too much is by getting in touch with your ability to drive a weight. If you go into the gym and there’s no oomph to the muscle – you can’t explode and drive the first few sets of an exercise (after warming up of course) you are already over trained. Get out of the gym! On the other hand, if there is a lot of snap in the muscle – you can drive those heavy weights and you feel powerful, for sure you are not over training and should proceed with the workout.

3) Frequency Counts

Another factor influences recovery is training frequency. For the most part, I believe you have to train a muscle once every 3 to 7 days. In general, if you train a body part more frequently – say training chest every fourth day, you won't grow due to over training. On the other hand, if you wait more than 8 days, you’ll also fail to grow. In this case not by over training but by failing to train frequently enough. You see, the muscles grow by stimulating them, then resting. If you rest too long – waiting too many days before hitting the same muscle group for another workout, the stress on the body appears to be too great which overwhelms the recovery process leading to a lack of growth. Let’s put it this way, imagine training legs on Monday and then again on Wednesday. The time in between is too short, so you over train. Now tray training them for a second time 10 –12 days after the first workout. What happens? The time between training is so long your legs become immensely sore the second time you train which can also trigger over training. You need balance, not too often and not too infrequent. To avoid over training, you’ll need a training strategy that allows you to hit each body part once every 5 to 8 days.

4) Too Many Days In a Row

If mass is the goal, you have to rest. Many bodybuilders won't be able to train more than two consecutive days – or at least should not train for more than two consecutive days in a row – because training for more than two days usually causes hormonal changes that lead to over training. Typically, in an over training state, testosterone levels start to drop a little. In addition, you’ll experience a small surge in cortisol levels. Cortisol is the stress hormone released from the adrenal cortex that sits just atop the kidneys and it increases in secretion is response to stress. In small amounts it actually contributes to anabolism – the building up in muscle tissue. However, when released in larger amounts, especially when testosterone levels drop even mildly, it tends to tear muscle down creating a catabolic scenario.