A good friend of mine started a roundtable discussion on Facebook
centering around the phenomena of overtraining and I figured my response would
make a good topic for my weekly blog post.
So Jeremy, here are my thoughts:
I suppose first I should preface that for this article we’re
concerned with the physical aspects of overtraining since there are behavioral
and emotional conditions that can accompany it. For those that may be unfamiliar with it,
overtraining is the end result of a person exceeding their body’s ability to
recover by incorporating too much volume and intensity into their exercise
program. I use the term exercise program
loosely as it can affect all sorts of athletes such as weight lifters, runners,
swimmers, and even golfers. The
individual stops making progress, and CAN even begin to backslide in terms of
their performance in their respective sport.
The reality is that the majority of the population who
“exercise” regularly will not experience overtraining as they simply do not
place strong enough demands on their body.
Conversely, the gym rat or competitive bodybuilder/powerlifter who takes
their exercise programming quite serious because of their extreme goals most
definitely can and at some point likely experience overtraining. This typically occurs unintentionally when a
block of training is too grueling on the body and is typically ignored by the
individual as the line of thinking “more is better” gets perpetuated. Periodization, which is the progressive
cycling of various aspects of your exercise program for specific amounts of
time should minimize the chance of overtraining.
With that said, I personally feel a defined block of
overtraining can be a good thing. I
don’t have any scientific evidence to support this but anecdotally I’ve seen
numerous bodybuilders and powerlifters go through a phase of overtraining and
subsequently end up busting through plateaus.
This may sound counterintuitive so for example, let’s look at a
bodybuilder who diets for 12 weeks leading up to a bodybuilding contest: The individual’s goal is to get their bodyfat
percentage as low as possible while maintaining as much lean mass as
possible. To do this, they will restrict
their calories and/or increase energy expenditure (activity level) to a point
at which the body is in a calorie deficit.
Typically in the latter weeks of a contest prep the individual will feel
lethargic and weak in the gym and rightfully so as a 3 month food restriction
accompanied by excessive weight training and cardio can be grueling on the
mind, body, and central nervous system.
The good news is that the individual can burst through plateaus if they
transition out of this phase properly.
The most important aspect of rebounding from such a depleted state is
adequate rest. I usually recommend 5-7
days away from intense exercise along with a modest bump in caloric intake,
around 500 calories. Once regular
exercise is resumed I suggest slowly adding back in calories and ramping up
intensity in your workouts. The key is
to be patient after the overtraining phase and not go on a one week binge and
eat everything in sight. With that said, I’d like to make a point for the
readers out there that aren’t looking to compete in a fitness contest and just
want to change their body composition and become more muscular and less fat: When the time comes that you make a true
decision to change the way you look and how you feel you will implement similar
practices that a bodybuilder would such as slowly reducing calories and
increasing activity level but do not fear that you will look like a bodybuilder
as these individuals have an extreme goal and have been working towards that in
an extreme manner for most likely an extremely extended period of time.
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