Anyone who’s every picked up a dumbbell has or will eventually experience overtraining. Overtraining can lead to serious injury, muscle loss, and chronic fatigue.
It is very common among athletes and bodybuilders to overtrain. They believe that training frequently will lead to huge muscle gains.
This couldn’t be any farther from the truth.
If you train too much or at too high of an intensity, it will lead you to overtraining.
I am not saying that you don’t have to put a lot of effort to see results. It doesn’t matter if you are an athlete, a bodybuilder, or just someone that wants to add some mass to your body — you have to train very hard as well as being consistent. That’s just a given. To be able to get the most out of your training, as well as your genetics, you have to overload your muscles progressively, by slowly increasing the weight and intensity of your training.
Many of us tend to increase the intensity of our training and at the same time not get enough rest. The real trick is to find a balance between working out and resting. Your body needs time for recovery, and it has to get it, no matter what.
The Effect of Overtraining on Bodybuilders
Let’s first look at some effects of overtraining and how we can prevent it from happening.
The Effects of Overtraining the Nervous System
Both the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous systems are influenced by overtraining in the following ways:
your resting heart rate gets higher
- Weak appetite
- Constant tiredness
- Higher resting heart rate
- Weight loss
- Difficulties sleeping
- Higher metabolic rate
- More irritable
If you happen to experience more than one of the above-mentioned symptoms, you might be overtraining, and should carefully and thoroughly evaluate the routine so that it doesn’t continue.
The Effects of Overtraining on Hormone Levels
Studies have indicated that overtraining affects the levels of hormones in your body very negatively. Hormones are known to play an important role in the muscle building process, and if anything happens to the way they react, it will have great influence on your training process
Overtraining will:
- Increase cortisol levels
- Decrease thryoxine levels
- Decrease testosterone level
Some of the above symptoms might be deadly to you as they will lead to protein tissue breakdown and ultimately to loss of muscle tissue.
The Effects of Overtraining on the Immune System
One of the most important, and also the most alarming, aspects of overtraining is the negative impact it has on your immune system, your body’s main defense against bacteria and viruses.
Overtraining will decrease the level of both anti-bodies and lymphocites in your body, thus making it very susceptible to disease. You will simply get sick more often. Obviously, as you get sick, you need to skip workouts, which will definitely lead to the muscle building process getting much slower.
The Effects of Overtraining on the Metabolic System
I have prepared a small list for you of the effects that overtraining will have on your metabolic system. These symptoms can not be ignored. They are among the most common discussed symptoms of overtraining nowadays.
- Your muscles will get micro tears
- Your glycogen levels will be chronically depleted
- Your muscle contractions will be slow and weak
- Your creatine phosphate stores will be depleted
- You will accumulate lactic acid in excess
- You will experience tissue and tendon damage
I am sure you get the point by now. Overtraining will affect all of your body and will impact their results of the program that you’re trying to follow very seriously.
Let’s not look at various types of overtraining and see what we can do to prevent it.
Which is Worse? Overtraining with Cardio or Weightlifting?
It’s very bad to overtrain with both cardio and weight training
Although neither form of overtraining is good for your body, from personal experience, I can tell you that the overtraining in the weight room is probably the worst type of overtraining you will ever deal with. It is also much more prevalent than overtraining through cardiovascular training.
Here is why:
- You probably know that in order for your muscles to grow, they have to completely recover from the previous workout. This has to happen every single time. If you happen to overwork your muscles, and make them grow before they recover, you’ll break the muscle tissue before it actually rebuilds, thus making the muscle growth become impossible.
- If you overtrain with weights, you’ll be more susceptible to the immune system issues as well as nervous system and hormonal issues. I probably don’t have to tell you that all of these are very dangerous to your health.
- It may lead people who are just starting to spend time and money on supplements that they don’t need, or worse, steroids.
I believe that only the athletes which very competitive - runners, bikers, swimmers and etc. - will run the risk of reaching a cardiovascular overtraining, as they have a tendency to train for 2 or more hours every day.
It is much easier to overtrain for an average person while doing weight training than while undergoing cardiovascular training, and I personally believe that the effects of it might be very much more serious.
So Am I Overtraining or Not?
It is relatively simple to tell if your overtraining or not. You will be able to tell that you overtraining before it gets any serious if you’re in tune with your body. If you notice that you’re having a hard time sleeping, losing interest in your workout and feel weak or become easily irritated, you might be in the state of overtraining and should take a couple days off, if not a full week.
If you feel that you’re experiencing 2 or more of the above-mentioned symptoms, you’d really have to start becoming cautious.
You can also tell if you overtraining by constantly tracking the progress you make as you work out.
Are you getting better each and every time you workout?
Let’s say you were able to perform eight pullups last week but this week you’re only able to do six. This means that you have not outdone your previous workout, might have not fully recovered yet, and are very likely to be in the state of overtraining. You have to make sure that you see progress at every workout that you do. If that’s not the case, you might have to think about resetting your workout program.
So What Can I Do to Prevent Overtraining?
You have to take a multifaceted approach towards training if you want to avoid overtraining. You will need to determine what the correct volume and intensity of your training is. You have to eat carefully and make sure that you eat healthy foods, as well as get enough rest and leave plenty of time for recovery. Make sure you consider all those factors when setting up your training program.
Let’s now have a look at each of the above mentioned factors in little more detail, shall we?
Volume
It is very important, although difficult, to determine what training volume is appropriate for you, especially if you’re new to working out. You need to know how much weight you should lift, how many repetitions you should make, as well as determine how many sets of those repetitions you should do at each workout.
What you have to do is use your own judgment, based on your own recovery ability, and also your recovery methods. You have to remember that it is your goal to improve at every single workout you perform. If this is not happening, you should probably think about decreasing the intensity of your workout.
Very many people do the wrong thing at this point. You might start your workout and recognize that you’re not fully recovered yet. You might have to skip your workout or continue to work out less intensely.
It is okay to skip workouts sometimes, although it may seem hard. What you have to do is just turned around, say goodbye to your friends, and go home. Your body might be telling you that you need more rest and you have to listen to it!
It is totally pointless to train at lower intensity, because this will cause even further breaking of your muscle tissue. You will then increase the risk of injury, and will make it harder for your body to recover before you need to start your next training session
Diet and Nutrition
When you build your muscles, your diet is very important. It will help you regulate your hormone levels and provide you with all you need to build the tissues in your muscles.
The following are a couple recommendations that will greatly limit the chances of future overtraining:
- You should never get hungry. If your goal is to build your muscle, you need to feed your body with varied quality foods so that you don’t risk catabolizing your muscle tissue.
- Always eat your breakfast. Breakfast is one of the very most important meals of your day. If you skip breakfast it will cause you to lose muscle, and that’s what you definitely don’t want.
- If you’re not trying to build muscle and lose fat at the same time, make sure you always eat before you train and are not hungry.
- Be careful to have the biggest meal of your day right after you train, and do everything to make sure that you do it every single workout.
- Take a proven supplements such as antioxidants to fight free radicals and increase your performance
- Try to eat every two to three hours to make sure that your body is constantly in an anabolic state.
Proper Rest and Recovery
When you’re trying to avoid overtraining you have to get enough rest. Be sure to get at least seven hours of sleep every night and ensure that your schedule is as consistent as possible. As far as your recovery time goes, it is very important to take days off in between your weight training sessions. Be sure to have at least one rest day between workouts and matter train the exact same muscle group on two consecutive days.
Vince Delmonte is the author of No Nonsense Muscle Building - Skinny Guy Secrets to Insane Muscle Gain. He specializes in teaching skinny guys the secrets to building muscle and gaining weight efficiently and quickly without using drugs. Visit his website here to check out the #1 rated muscle program on the net.
