over training real?

[Hermione Gainser]

long story short when your muscles break down they release myoglobin into your blood stream and it ends up in your urine.

We don't have an emoticon for the face I'm making after reading this. Good GOD!

[Guest Snake McClain]

We don't have an emoticon for the face I'm making after reading this. Good GOD!

Yeah. Like i said it happened to a friend of mine. and "GOOD GOD!" is about the only reaction other than "WHAT THE $#!%?" or "AHHHHHHHHH"

So an emotican for any of those would suffice.

[aj_rock]

Symptoms and signs of overtraining:

- the icky urine colour

- unexplained fatigue and soreness

- fogginess of the mind

- decreased exercise capacity. Yes, when you overtrain, you cause performance to go DOWN.

- injury is much much much more likely to occur

Basically, overtraining = BAD. However, there is a term known as overreaching that is very similar. Basically, you train at an intensity that would cause overtraining eventually, but only for like, a week or two at most, and then taper off significantly. A lot of event-oriented athletes use overreaching to finish off their program and then taper off before the event.

All the same, to prevent overtraining, all you really need to do is ensure your training does not overcome your body's ability to recover. That means either decrease training, or increase recovery

To increase recovery, you can

- get more sleep

- eat maintainence level calories or higher (overtraining is very easy to slip into on a prolonged dieting/cutting phase)

- ensure adequate vitamin and mineral intake

- incorporate appropriate time intervals between training (at least as it pertains to muscles/systems used. Doing legs one day and then running right after? Not so good. Chest workout followed by HIIT? Maybe later in the day.)

- recovery naturally should improve over time assuming a good training program is followed

Either way, the two BEST methods to detect overtraining (before symptoms show up) is one called HRV, or heart rate variability, and resting HR.

HRV is hard to measure, but basically your heart rate should increase slightly when you inhale, and decrease slightly when you exhale. The wider the gap, the better suited for training you are that day.

With HR, measure what your usual resting HR is, and then track it upon waking every morning. If it elevated by 10% or more, then you are headed toward overtraining. If elevated by 5%, go ahead, but keep intensity down. If no elevation, or depression, you're fitter than you were before! Kick ass today!

[ETFnerd]

having said that, if the symptoms aren't severe, you can overtrain for a prolonged period of time and have your body adapt to a new baseline of higher capacity. it's not fun though...

[andygates]

The main thing about overtraining is that it's a good ol long-term thing. It's when you screw up a season, not a couple of weeks. I saw my housemate (who had switch in two positions: beer o'clock and nuclear assault) go into a long grotty fugue of decreased performance, utter grumpiness, repeat sickness and all the good stuff.

(no idea what her pee looked like, but rhabdo is a bit of a Crossfit Special because of the mindset, caveat chundor)

A long enforced layoff was required. Subsequently there was an intervention in the form of a HRM which measured training intensity (a Suunto), so that there was clear evidence that every workout was balls-out with no recovery sessions, etc. The tool that was an intensity-raising goad to slackers was turned into a chronic-overdoing-it warning for this person.

[67alecto]

Unless it is your profession, it is pretty easy to overtrain if your goal is performance improvements. A very accurate quote is "There no such thing as overtraining...just undereating and undersleeping". Your body needs time to recover, and if you don't give it enough rest and fuel, it will start to break down.

[andygates]

It is perfectly possible to train so much that no amount of food and sleep will handle it, and that's the big nasty, because as performance slips, there's a temptation* to increase training to make up the slack. That's your full-fat original-recipe overtraining. I think what you're describing there is just the fatiguey lip of the canyon.

* Not in me: I go to the beach. I don't have that nutty drive.

[Knightwatch]

In my experience, most people will be overtrained mentally before they're overtrained physically. However, the former can be a sign on the onset of the latter.

So, could you follow this program? Maybe. I just don't think you would, and I don't mean for that to sound like an attack. It's just the truth. It sounds fine in your head, but when it comes time to do it, day in and day out, you just likely won't, statistically speaking. Right about now, in fact, you're probably gonna see the local gyms get less crowded then they have been since the first.

Honestly now. Honestly. For real. Honestly. Just stick with a program. If it's not the perfect program for you, it'll still be better than starting and stopping and tinkering with a bunch of programs. Just pick one that has you getting stronger in some regard a few times a week and getting proper rest. Determine what will be a "cycle" for you, probably somewhere between 4 and 6 weeks. Stick with it, and then evaluate and tinker. That's honestly the best advice I can give you.

Best of luck!

[Guest Snake McClain]

First. it's only THREE DAYS A WEEK! THREE! 3. thrice. 2 + 1.

Do we really think adding in a 20 - 30 minute bw circuit in the morning of the same day i do sl is going to do this much damage? Seriously? Like guys I don't lift super heavy weights like you but I'm no slouch. I have high energy levels and I'm overall a pretty healthy dude.

And i've been on SL for....if my count is right...around 9-10 weeks. Its been good. I'm keeping on it. Just want something else in addition to. If this is insane then apparently i'm just an idiot but i don't see it as beign that big of an obstacle.

[spezzy]

Didn't you say convict conditioning bw stuff in the morning, then a high intensity circuit, and then strong lifts?

[aj_rock]

Depends how intense the BW circuit is. Very high intensity I'd have to say bad idea. If you don't see any symptoms, just do what you gotta do, and listen to your body. The resting HR thing will work, trust.

[K Po]

Instead of doing an intense bodyweight circuit in the morning of certain days, have you thought about adding in a short conditioning/bodyweight workout after the SL program for that day? Something less than 10-15 minutes in total length. Like if you do a M-W-F split with wrestling on Saturday, maybe throwing in one on Monday or Wednesday. This way, gaining strength is still your main priority, get the benefit of doing a little extra conditioning work, and still allow time for ample recovery.

[Guest Snake McClain]

Instead of doing an intense bodyweight circuit in the morning of certain days, have you thought about adding in a short conditioning/bodyweight workout after the SL program for that day? Something less than 10-15 minutes in total length. Like if you do a M-W-F split with wrestling on Saturday, maybe throwing in one on Monday or Wednesday. This way, gaining strength is still your main priority, get the benefit of doing a little extra conditioning work, and still allow time for ample recovery.

this is an idea i like. I actually do a bit of a bw routine already. so i'll probably realistically just up the intensity and time a bit with the body weight stuff. I'm also thinking I'll only be able to lift two days a week for a while until i'm used to the trails of wrestling training.

Sunday is wrestling (except this coming weekend is sat and sun) then i'll do tues and thursday in the gym. recover. then sunday again. do this until its not a big deal then i'll go back to three days. so my gains won't be very interesting for a while.

[SuperVitali]

First. it's only THREE DAYS A WEEK! THREE! 3. thrice. 2 + 1.

Do we really think adding in a 20 - 30 minute bw circuit in the morning of the same day i do sl is going to do this much damage? Seriously? Like guys I don't lift super heavy weights like you but I'm no slouch. I have high energy levels and I'm overall a pretty healthy dude.

And i've been on SL for....if my count is right...around 9-10 weeks. Its been good. I'm keeping on it. Just want something else in addition to. If this is insane then apparently i'm just an idiot but i don't see it as beign that big of an obstacle.

Even with being a "overall pretty healthy dude" You've only been doing your current routine 9-10 weeks like you said. You're barely giving yourself time to adjust before you start tweaking things and you are just coming off an injury too. "Super heavy weights" is relative.

I know you want us to tell you "yes, you're right, you'll be absoulte fine, go for it!" but there are manys igns indicating you're just not ready for that level of activity, sorry.

But ultimately it's your choice.

[Guest Snake McClain]

Even with being a "overall pretty healthy dude" You've only been doing your current routine 9-10 weeks like you said. You're barely giving yourself time to adjust before you start tweaking things and you are just coming off an injury too. "Super heavy weights" is relative.

I know you want us to tell you "yes, you're right, you'll be absoulte fine, go for it!" but there are manys igns indicating you're just not ready for that level of activity, sorry.

But ultimately it's your choice.

No you're probably right. I probably am NOT ready for it. But I wasn't ready for basic training when I did that? And I didn't know cpr when the guy at the bar had a heart attack and I tried to help him. Or (name any list of things ive done). My life has been trial by fire go for it and eventually it will come together. So yes this is different and YES you all ARE RIGHT I SHOULD NOT DO THIS!!!! I was just surprised to see that something that seems like such a small addition could be as harmful as you're making it sound. Advice taken though. We can al continue to not pummel me.

[spezzy]

We're not pummeling you. You asked a question so we answered it.

And we just don't want to see you get hurt.

[macnip78]

I think you can do it....if you have planned for it properly. What is your eating schedule going to look like? How many extra calories are you going to take in during the day to account for the extra activity you are adding. As people have stated in this post, you will need lots of sleep and plenty of food to make this routine work. Otherwise you could definitely hurt yourself buddy and an injury would derail your dreams.

[Pat G]

We can al continue to not pummel me.

Don't want to pummel the wrestling BMac.

[Waldo]

I think the risks would be lowered a good bit and productivity increased if you switched the SL and CC order, especially if you are looking at CC as more of a conditioning workout. It is much easier to scale how hard you work with a CC type workout than a SL type workout, which is better off done 100%. If you had to choose one to do at 75%, CC is the obvious choice as you could still be quite productive.

[oystergirl]

I have a question on this, as I learned a lot about this in kinesiology class in college. The process of muscle building begins as muscle cells are damaged during contraction. The more cells contract (and when they contract, they contract all the way and are damaged) lactic acid and other processes occur, including swelling, water retention and decrease in muscle glycogen. The reparation process is what strengthens the muscle and makes it bigger but that can only occur in a period of rest from excessive contraction on the muscle, so isn't there a limit to the amount of strength/muscle mass you can build and if you try to work the muscles too much (contraction/working out) you never give the muscle a chance to rebuild and thus continue to break it down until it gets weak and injury occurs?

I was always told worked out muscles need 24 hours to recover, so if you were doing a workout in the morning and then again at night--bodyweight or heavy lifting, you are still trying to contract the muscle fibers 2 times in one day and not giving it any rest time...just wondering...

[Waldo]

I was always told worked out muscles need 24 hours to recover, so if you were doing a workout in the morning and then again at night--bodyweight or heavy lifting, you are still trying to contract the muscle fibers 2 times in one day and not giving it any rest time...just wondering...

I think the general idea here (CC and SL) is that they are very different workouts. SL is all about increasing 1 RM as fast as possible whilst ignoring muscular endurance completely, also having some hypertrophy effects (though not ideal for that purpose). CC can be really tailored for type (speed up the progression and it is more like SL, slow it down and it is a muscular endurance workout). Most of the time a CC workout will be an endurance/hypertrophy workout, unless you are doing the very advanced exercises you should rapidly progress through the strength portion of each workout's progression (1-5 reps or 0-20 sec hold). In the end there is some crossover but not a whole lot.

Same concept as cardio and lifting. Squatting heavy in the morning and running in the evening isn't really a big deal, for the most part you are working different fibers in the same muscle.

[Guest Snake McClain]

After a lot of reading and looking for alternate workouts I actually found one. It is a bit "extreme" in some cases but also somewhat easy. I have posted it in my battle blog if anyone cares to see what I'm doing but basically with wrestling being every sunday I account for it as one workout day of my three workout day week. And this new routine I have now still uses all the exercises from Strong lift, but it also incorporates body weight exercises I want/need as well as many other exercises to go with it. So I am quite happy with it. yesterday was the first attempt at it and it went quite well. Today I'm really feeling it which I can't say is always true with just doing SL. Also because of the implementation of multiple types of workouts (bb, bw and db) i get all i need in one workout and don't have to do a 2 a day thing. Which is nice.