Overtraining - why less is more (2024)

It is often the case that when someone first discovers the gym and really starts exercising, they train for hours on the same body part 3-4 times a week, training 7 days a week. This article explores the reasons behind overtraining. It's easy to hear "Your workout is taking too long" or "You're doing too many sets," but people often ignore this advice. Hopefully, after reading this article, you will understand WHY you are overtraining and make the necessary changes to your routine to gain serious muscle!

What is overtraining?

Overtraining occurs when you overwork your body beyond the point where your body can recover. To make gains, you must overload the muscles and then allow enough time for recovery and growth by resting. Overtraining occurs when the overload is too high or the rest period, or recovery time, is too short.

Training intensity and overtraining

Now you need to train at an intensity high enough to overload the muscles, causing small tears in the muscle fibers. After exercise, these tears begin to repair and then grow back slightly larger than before, when your body has fully recovered from the effort.

Exercising at too low an intensity, for example if you don't complete enough sets or use enough weight, will not break down the muscle fibers effectively, meaning no growth will occur because the fibers will not grow back bigger and stronger than before if they are not effectively overloaded during exercise... If the muscles can easily handle the weight transferred, there is no reason to let them get bigger and stronger. So they don't!

On the other hand, training at too high an intensity will cause the muscle fibers to break down after a recovery point, meaning the tears in the muscles are more severe and require days of rest, or even weeks and months of effort. rest. therapy in some more severe cases of overtraining.

When the intensity of your training is too high, you do not give the muscles enough time to recover and rebuild. Overtraining can occur by training a muscle group before it has had time to fully recover from a previous session, such as by training each body part 2-3 times a week... When you finish the workout, the muscles that you have been training usually somewhere between 24 and 48 hours to recover from the training. Growth only occurs AFTER this recovery period. That is why it is not advisable to train your arms on Monday and again on Wednesday, for example, because even though you may feel good and you are ready to train them again and possibly train them again. The soreness from the previous workout may be gone, but the reality is that the muscles have only just entered the window where some growth will occur and using the same muscles again will break them down again and prevent any growth.

Less is more.

Many people have the impression that more is better, but this is often not the case when you are trying to build muscle mass. To break this down and make it a little more understandable, think of digging a hole. The time you spend in the gym is the equivalent of digging a hole. The time it takes your body to recover from a workout is how long it takes to replenish. the hole, and piling a pile of dirt on top of the hole is growth of the muscle. So you can ONLY pile extra dirt on top after the hole has been refilled, which takes time! If you dig a hole too deep, it will take too long to refill it... and there won't be time to put extra dirt on top... that means no muscle growth!! Training one body part two days in a row would be the equivalent of digging a hole, and then continuing to dig the same hole even deeper the next day... you'll never get a chance to pile dirt on it, which means you will never win anything. muscle training this way... In fact you will go backwards, you will probably lose muscle and almost certainly through exercise!

How many sets should I make?

The key is to find a balance between exercising at an intensity high enough to break down the muscle fibers without exercising so much that your body can't recover from the workout. This will vary from person to person and there is no exact training method that will guarantee the best results for everyone. You have to figure out what works for your own body.

I often see people ask how many sets they should complete for each muscle group, and although each individual is different and there are no exact numbers that will work for everyone, I can provide a recommended set range for each muscle group, this is determined based on that who are training for muscle growth and have some background training under their belt, preferably at least some sort of beginner routine for about 10 weeks.

Larger muscle groups such as the back and legs can of course be trained with more sets than smaller muscle groups such as the biceps, which can receive an intensive workout with just a few exercises. Another common mistake when overtraining is hitting the biceps with too many sets. You can walk into almost any gym and find someone doing twenty strange sets on their biceps under the false impression that "more is better."

Recommended sets per week for each muscle group

The rep intervals for muscle building are 6-12 reps per sets, and you should lift with a weight that you have difficulty completing the last few reps of each set with good form. Once you've reached your rep range in good form, it's time to add weight. It is important that no one under the age of 18 lift heavy weights and/or use low rep ranges. If you are under 18 and looking for exercise advice, visitForum for muscles and strengthwhere you can find articles and routines specific to teen trainers.

The figures given do not include warm-up sets. (Warm-up sets should always be done first, usually one set of very light weight and one set of about 50% of your training weight plus stretching.)

Some muscles, such as the abs and calves, recover more quickly than other muscle groups and can be trained twice a week, but again the effectiveness of training them once a week or twice a week will vary from person to person. The numbers mentioned above are just a general overview for those who don't know how many sets each muscle group can do, or to highlight to some people that they may be overtraining a certain muscle group if they don't see results. I'm not saying that everyone should stay within these boundaries in any way. If you find that 15 sets for your triceps are the most effective for you and give you the best results, stick with it! However, most natural trainers will find that the most effective number of sets they can complete during their training is within the ranges mentioned above.

As I just explained, rest is important and you only need a maximum of 3-4 exercises per muscle group per workout. The ideal rest between sets is now 60-90 seconds and 2-3 minutes between each exercise. If you do the calculations, these numbers should mean that your workout can easily be completed within an hour. If you train 2 muscle groups and then also the abdominal muscles, it may take a little longer, but should never exceed 90 minutes, as this is again overtraining. .

Without warming up and stretching I would advise you to keep your training time under 60 minutes, after this time your body starts to break down its own muscle tissue to use as fuel. This is due to the stress hormone Cortisol, which is released in large amounts after you spend so much time lifting.

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The muscle building routine

Now that I've told you how to avoid overtraining and, more importantly, the reasons why you should avoid overtraining, I'm going to show you an example of a muscle-building workout routine I created. The routine is a 4-day split and follows all the guidelines above. Never use this routine for longer than 60 minutes:

You can find more training programs into work outsection. You can find my complete 4-day split muscle building routineher.

Monday - Chest and triceps

Notes: Alternate between DB and Barbell for the incline bench press exercises. Alternate between flat bench and incline DB Flyes. Superset: DB press with DB flies.

Tuesday - Legs

Notes: Superset leg press with leg extensions. Triple drop set on leg curl machine.

Thursday - Shoulders

Notes: Military pressure for the head, use full range of motion straight for the shoulders. Superset Olympic bar shrugs and Plate shrugs for 10 reps per 3 sets.

Friday - Back and biceps

Notes: Try negatives if you don't have a spotter or assisted pullup machine. Dropset: Lat pulldowns

Full training here:Shaun's 4 Day Muscle Building Split Routine.

So remember to train hard, but it's the quality of your training, not the quantity, that will give you the best results.