Over-training

Over-trainingInterestingly enough, most people I know who are disappointed with their bodybuilding results are suffering from over-training rather than under-training. Its a hard concept to grasp that sometimes you can increase your strength and gain more muscle by working out less! I don't think there is any such thing as under-training, if you only have 30 minutes a week that is a lot better than nothing - you just need to use very strict form to avoid injury.

If you workout a muscle intensely, it can take up to 5 days to recuperate and rebuild it completely. If you work out that muscle again before it has fully recuperated then you are wasting time and effort because you are tearing it down again before it has had time to rebuild. Bear in mind, overtraining is normally just a problem for advanced bodybuilders, not beginners, because advanced bodybuilders have developed the ability to do those grueling workouts where they give 110% effort.

So what constitutes over-training and how do you know if you are?  It will vary widely with age and body type but here are some guidelines, I would say if you are lifting weights (excludes cardio and abs) for more than six hours a week you are probably overtraining.  Beginning bodybuilders can workout their entire body 3X/week because they are doing light weights and their bodies are just getting used to the exercises but after the first year or so this is way too much.  An experienced bodybuilder will probably only work out a given body part once every seven days. 

If you have ceased to make any progress in terms of reps and strength, don't be afraid to cut down your workout time down or increase the time between workouts - give it a try for a month and see what happens, it won't kill you.  Working out too much or too little will result in less muscle gain than optimal, bodybuilding is not an exact science and you need to experiment and see what is the right amount of time lifting to maximize your results.

Another point to remember is that when you do lats, you are also doing some biceps and when you do your chest workout you are also doing triceps. The reason this is important is that you need to be really careful when setting up your workout plan not to overtrain arms. For example, if you do biceps on monday and lats on tuesday your biceps will definitely suffer from overtraining and your lat workout will suffer. Best would be to separate your back workout and your biceps workout by 3-4 days. Similarly with chest, try to separate your triceps workout from your chest workout by 3-4 days to keep from overtraining arms.