Can you REALLY over train easily on cycle?

[goingtowin]

Say you're doing rep ranges of 8-12 on all movements with a LOT of volume each day (1-2 minute rests on smaller muscles) (2-3 minute rests on larger muscles) for 60-90 minute workouts 5-6 days a week.


I'm sure 60 minutes wouldn't be overkill but what about 90??

I'm going to attempt to write a routine for myself but I need to know where I should draw the line on volume.

Thanks for the help guys!!

 

[Roush]

over training is extremely difficult to ever get to , 98% of us don't need to ever worry that we will over train.. 'over reaching' a bit, maybe. Olympic athletes training 8-10 hours a day, Navy Seals training 20 hours a day with little sleep and little food can get to a state of 'over training', , but your average gym goer will never get there. If your worried about the 'over reach' then just increase your food intake and sleep.

If your training 90 mins with weights in the gym , then that means your workouts are not high intensity. Its impossible to train with super high intensity and go for that long, maybe an hour tops.

so you have to decide, do you want moderate intensity with high volume (thus a longer workout) or do you want high intensity with lower volume (thus a shorter workout) . It depends on which one may work for your body type and genetics.

a simple guideline in regards to volume is to pick a number of working sets per muscle group per week. So lets say you want to shoot for 20 working sets for chest.
that could look like this
5 sets flat bench press
5 sets incline dumbbell press
5 sets flies
5 sets cable cross over
** this is just your working sets, not including any warm up sets

that may take about an hour and 20 mins to complete.. that can be your chest day that gets hit once per week, or you can break that down in half and mix it with another muscle group (like making it a 'press' day and hitting chest and triceps on the same day) and end up hitting the muscle twice a week.

once you get that nailed down you need to think about rep ranges. its best, imo, to mix it up. one set might be a heavy set and your doing 6-10 reps. One set may be a light set and your shooting for 12-15. Or you could pyramid up where you start light and keep adding weight until you get to your heavy heavy set 5-6 reps, then you start removing weight and go back down and lift to failure.
** and of course rep ranges are going to vary depending on body part as well. example, for me my arms do not grow by using heavy weight and low reps , I have to use rep ranges from 12-30 with the strictest form possible. but with chest and shoulders I can go heavy with low reps.

after that your going to have to think about the Time Under Tension. that is the amount of time the working muscle is under the load with the weight . the more time under tension you can get the more stimulation of the muscle you get.
example, if you do bench press and you do 10 reps and its one second up for the positive and one second down for the negative and your just simply moving the weight from point a to point b, for essential '20 seconds' of 'time under tension', well that is not near as much stimulation as you could achieve using the same weight, set and rep range. instead really concentrate on contracting and squeezing the muscle you are working, shoot for 4 seconds for the negative and 2 seconds for the positive motion , that results in 60 seconds of time under tension for the exact same set that would have just been 20 seconds, that is 3 TIMES THE AMOUNT OF TUT (you get way more bang for your buck when you concentrate on TUT).
so imagine how much more gains you will have over a period of one year if you have focused on Time Under Tension, your muscles will have hours and hours of more time under tension then if you don't use it,, that means more growth (without ever increasing the amount of volume or reps you are doing)

just a few things to think about

 

[jozifp103]

Overtraining is much harder than you think. The human body is very resilient and will adapt to increasing workloads. I think you're more likely to overwork your nervous system before you overtrain to the point of losing muscle. I've had weeks where my body tells me to take a break. I feel fluey and run down. I suppose you could consider that overtraining when you overwork the nervous system, but when most people talk about overtraining they are concerned with recovery.

The theory is that you cause "too much" damage to the muscle tissue for the body to repair before your next session. Thus causing a net loss in muscle mass over time. IMO opinion this is much more likely to happen to natural lifters and typically only if they are not eating enough.

Overtraining? Not so much....under eating? More likely the case.

 

[Anon44]

over training is extremely difficult to ever get to , 98% of us don't need to ever worry that we will over train.. 'over reaching' a bit, maybe. Olympic athletes training 8-10 hours a day, Navy Seals training 20 hours a day with little sleep and little food can get to a state of 'over training', , but your average gym goer will never get there. If your worried about the 'over reach' then just increase your food intake and sleep.

If your training 90 mins with weights in the gym , then that means your workouts are not high intensity. Its impossible to train with super high intensity and go for that long, maybe an hour tops.

so you have to decide, do you want moderate intensity with high volume (thus a longer workout) or do you want high intensity with lower volume (thus a shorter workout) . It depends on which one may work for your body type and genetics.

a simple guideline in regards to volume is to pick a number of working sets per muscle group per week. So lets say you want to shoot for 20 working sets for chest.
that could look like this
5 sets flat bench press
5 sets incline dumbbell press
5 sets flies
5 sets cable cross over
** this is just your working sets, not including any warm up sets

that may take about an hour and 20 mins to complete.. that can be your chest day that gets hit once per week, or you can break that down in half and mix it with another muscle group (like making it a 'press' day and hitting chest and triceps on the same day) and end up hitting the muscle twice a week.

once you get that nailed down you need to think about rep ranges. its best, imo, to mix it up. one set might be a heavy set and your doing 6-10 reps. One set may be a light set and your shooting for 12-15. Or you could pyramid up where you start light and keep adding weight until you get to your heavy heavy set 5-6 reps, then you start removing weight and go back down and lift to failure.
** and of course rep ranges are going to vary depending on body part as well. example, for me my arms do not grow by using heavy weight and low reps , I have to use rep ranges from 12-30 with the strictest form possible. but with chest and shoulders I can go heavy with low reps.

after that your going to have to think about the Time Under Tension. that is the amount of time the working muscle is under the load with the weight . the more time under tension you can get the more stimulation of the muscle you get.
example, if you do bench press and you do 10 reps and its one second up for the positive and one second down for the negative and your just simply moving the weight from point a to point b, for essential '20 seconds' of 'time under tension', well that is not near as much stimulation as you could achieve using the same weight, set and rep range. instead really concentrate on contracting and squeezing the muscle you are working, shoot for 4 seconds for the negative and 2 seconds for the positive motion , that results in 60 seconds of time under tension for the exact same set that would have just been 20 seconds, that is 3 TIMES THE AMOUNT OF TUT (you get way more bang for your buck when you concentrate on TUT).
so imagine how much more gains you will have over a period of one year if you have focused on Time Under Tension, your muscles will have hours and hours of more time under tension then if you don't use it,, that means more growth (without ever increasing the amount of volume or reps you are doing)

just a few things to think about

Nice post. Very informative.
I've never heard of TUT before and that makes so much sence. I'm looking forward to applying to my routine.

 

[Ghost124]

Hmmm on a cycle I would say it's hard to.

I have over trained once. I made a stupid decision to lift with my meathead friend while I was on week 3 of PCT. I had very low test levels and I felt it. The reason I refer to my friend as meathead is because he goes very hard in the gym but has a low IQ. I tried explaining to him I cannot try new maxes on the preacher curl but he talked me into it. So I did 145lbs on curls with him spotting me which is 25 pounds more than my max when I was in the middle of my cycle. Now I was doing these forced reps with his help with low T levels. I ended up doing 4 sets of 12 with his help AFTER already destroying my biceps on other workouts.


The next day I woke up at 4am because my arms hurt so damn much. I never felt muscle pain like that EVER. I literally could not move my arms or extend them our straight. If I tried to move them a centimeter, it felt like a hundred piranhas violently biting my biceps at 100 miles per hour. In the afternoon it got much worse. After laying in bed all day because I could not do anything else(had my roommate bring me and serve me food in bed, and roomate helped me get up to go to bathroom), it got much worse in the afternoon. Even just sitting there my arms began to ache very badly. I could not deal with the pain so I had my friend go find me pain pills. An hour later he came back with Vicodin. I popped that and 4 Benadryl's to knock myself out.

Woke up next morning better but still sore as shit. Pain fully went away 4 days later.

 

[oldmusclemike]

You have to know your body. Take a look at this article on the Thread I posted on site below and think about this...


Best way to train for building more LMM size...

 

[luckypaul]

AAS allow you to train harder and recover sooner unless nutrition needs work. I the day when I ran high dosed cycles, it was hard to over train. Those were 3 hour workouts balls to the walls 6 days a week.

 

[sLd]

As all guys above said, if you eat right and your on good cycle, there is no chance of overtraining, unless you training 10 hours every day. great example are olympic athletes or mma fighters, their workouts are way much harder and longer and actually usually more than once a day. And they still dont over train.

Those I can consider that my be in danger of over training are usually guys who want to became navy seals or rangers. those camps are just insane, getting kicked their asses all day long without proper nutrition. I really admire those who can go through


And also longer your train [more years u lift] the harder is to over train

 

[oldmusclemike]

Overtraining is much harder than you think. The human body is very resilient and will adapt to increasing workloads. I think you're more likely to overwork your nervous system before you overtrain to the point of losing muscle. I've had weeks where my body tells me to take a break. I feel fluey and run down. I suppose you could consider that overtraining when you overwork the nervous system, but when most people talk about overtraining they are concerned with recovery.

The theory is that you cause "too much" damage to the muscle tissue for the body to repair before your next session. Thus causing a net loss in muscle mass over time. IMO opinion this is much more likely to happen to natural lifters and typically only if they are not eating enough.

Overtraining? Not so much....under eating? More likely the case.

I really like what was said here ^^^^. It really explains what OVER training the muscle means. I have when I was young and of course now that I'm much older , trained ay I and day out even with the days off and with the high intensity gotten over tired. Going a few weeks lifting to extreme overload and going past failure with a spotter / partner to doing negative lifts and to the point that the weight just had to be lifted up for me would take me out for a few more days needed of rest. I would work a 3 day on 1 day off schedule. And instead of 1 day I would sit out 2-3 days.

When on cycle I would go to that extreme that AAS lets us and then some. After 4-6 weeks of this my body would need a break. I would take 2-3 days off from the gym. Then well rested and nurtured I would go back to it but however after time and experience my body would tell me day in and day out how I was pacing myself. I never hold back, but there is a difference between holding back and just knowing what is enough and that is the overall fatigue I am talking about. Not the fatigue of a single muscle or group.

 

[soldier74]

Nice post. Very informative.
I've never heard of TUT before and that makes so much sence. I'm looking forward to applying to my routine.

It works for sure!! I first heard about TUT when I did some research on Ben Pakulski. He has a pretty solid program on this topic. Worth checking, imo.

 

[sqidd]

No matter how many drugs you take, how much food you eat or how much sleep you get if you smoke your nervous system you will "over train". Luckily most people are actually pussies and they can't put the effort in to actually tax their nervous system.

IMO, even on drugs if you're working out more than 60min 4x/wk you train like a girl.

 

[oldmusclemike]

No matter how many drugs you take, how much food you eat or how much sleep you get if you smoke your nervous system you will "over train". Luckily most people are actually pussies and they can't put the effort in to actually tax their nervous system.

IMO, even on drugs if you're working out more than 60min 4x/wk you train like a girl.

Got any pics for us kiddo ?

 

[Roush]

IMO, even on drugs if you're working out more than 60min 4x/wk you train like a girl.

really? Look high intensity dorian yates style training works great for plenty of people, but there are a ton of other guys, IFBB Pros that train high volume 1.5 hours a day 6 days a week, and are beasts . these beasts train like a girl according to you, but get hella results

 

[Southernfish]

Is over training EASILY done on OR off cycle. Its not easily done. But, it most certainly can be done. I am a firm believer that is why a lot of people struggle to really grow, is they train too much. Whether that be too many days in a row or for too long each workout (provided intensity is up AND EXERCISES ARE PERFORMED CORRECTLY WITH THE INTENDED MUSCLE GROUP ACTUALLY WORKING) or not giving enough days rest between, for example, one chest day and the next chest day if they hit chest how I wrote in bold the first day.

Another thing too. And Ill just use this as an example. You hear guys talking after a leg workout about how they can barely walk or sit down or need crutches to walk etc etc because their legs are that sore. That is overtraining. There is no need to get to that point for growth. When we get to that point the body thinks it has undergone trauma and instead of the muscle fibers repairing they build scar tissue to quicker repair the damage that has been done. That is not what you want and most certainly overtraining. You can not eat yourself out of that situation.

An easy way to look at it is this. Go into your gym and train arms with high intensity for 2 hours and obilerate them (which I see guys do) youve just overtrained. Now your arms still arnt growing so go back and do the same thing again once more that week to spark growth. Youve just overtrained again, and now twice in one week and are going to make any steps forward doing this.

Somewhat of an elementary way of explaining it. But, as you can see doing that would most certainly be over training and no amount of food or sleep is going to repair them fast enough.

 

[Roush]

Another thing too. And Ill just use this as an example. You hear guys talking after a leg workout about how they can barely walk or sit down or need crutches to walk etc etc because their legs are that sore. That is overtraining. There is no need to get to that point for growth. When we get to that point the body thinks it has undergone trauma and instead of the muscle fibers repairing they build scar tissue to quicker repair the damage that has been done. That is not what you want and most certainly overtraining. You can not eat yourself out of that situation.

this reminds me of a Lee Haney quote "Stimulate don't Annihilate" ***8230; get in the gym stimulate the muscle for growth , but don't needlesly destroy it

 

[Southernfish]

this reminds me of a Lee Haney quote "Stimulate don't Annihilate" ***8230; get in the gym stimulate the muscle for growth , but don't needlesly destroy it

Exactly man. I would venture to say most people think it requires WAY more work (in the gym) to grow then it actually does.

 

[Southernfish]

Evan Centopani make an interesting statement in one of his videos I watched. He said something along these lines....... 'You hear guys all the time saying their arms wont grow no matter what they do, no matter how hard they train them, they train them twice a week and they still wont grow. Well, you know what I do when my arms wont grow? I stop training them'.

People always think more, more, more. And that is most peoples first reaction when they arent growing right? 'I need to train more'. But, thats not the best approach when it comes to making your muscles grow.

Kind of like losing control of your car in a snow storm. What is the last thing you want to do but what most peoples first instinct is?.....Hit the brakes. Nothing but a disaster comes from doing that.

 

[Anon44]

It works for sure!! I first heard about TUT when I did some research on Ben Pakulski. He has a pretty solid program on this topic. Worth checking, imo.

Damn that guy is a fricken animal!
I've been going over some of his routine and i will definitely be adding some of his ideas.

 

[Southernfish]

Damn that guy is a fricken animal!
I've been going over some of his routine and i will definitely be adding some of his ideas.

He is an Ace when it comes to training and biomechanics!!

 

[Anon44]

My body lets me know when I'm overtraining. When I'm eating plenty and getting plenty of rest and lots of water. Then when I wake up in the morning and all I want to do is go back to bed.For me that's when I know I've been over doing it.

Thats when I take several days to a week off. For me it's hard to bounce back with only a day or two off after overtraining.

I'd say it definitely isn't easy to overtrain when you do your best with nutrition,rest and hydration.
I've definitely had my fair share of overtraining over the past 25 years. Especially when I was younger and thought more was better.