Overtrain If You Don’t Want To Gain
8 Rules to get you Growing.
We are a society with a ‘more is better’ attitude. More money, more convenience, more luxury — more, more, more! When looking to build more muscle, however, sometimes more is less. One of the major reasons trainees fail to build the physique they desire is that they do too much in the gym.
They do too many sets, work out for too long or train too many days per week. The result? Overtraining — which brings little to no gains in size or strength and in severe cases muscle loss, illness and/or depression.
What many trainees fail to realise is that every time we work out, we make massive inroads into our recovery abilities. Your body needs to ‘heal’ before it can grow. That goes not only for your muscles but for your central nervous system as well. Not only does your body need to repair the microtrauma that occurs within muscles during training, but it must also restore hormone and neurotransmitter balance, reboot the immune system and clear free radicals from the system.
Think of a workout as digging a large hole in the ground, complete recovery as filling the hole and muscle growth as creating a mound of dirt on top of the filled-up hole. When you overtrain, you’re digging a hole that’s too big for your body to fill, which means you’ll never have the opportunity to pile dirt on top. No extra dirt means no extra muscle.
My feeling is that the root of the problem lies in most of today’s bodybuilding publications. We see the professionals looking freaky and massive and read how they train twice per day, six days per week, and do 20 or more sets per body part. Most readers figure, “If that’s how they got that massive, the same principles will surely work for me.” Wrong.
You need to recognise that because of steroids, growth hormones and a plethora of other drugs, coupled with ideal genetics and quite possibly no nine-to-five job to worry about, the pros are able to train far more than most without suffering any ill effects. In fact, their bodies thrive on it.
That’s not the case for the genetically average, drug-free trainee with a regular job to tend to daily. Trying to follow the routine of a pro bodybuilder will spell disaster for most of us, leading many down a road of frustration and some to quit altogether.
So, what is the ideal way to train for maximum gains in size and strength? To list all the ways goes beyond my scope here. There are, however, some general rules that I feel should be followed by the drug-free bodybuilder in order to avoid overtraining and to optimise gains:
1. Train no more than four days per week.
There’s simply no need to train more than four days per week. In fact, some people with poor recovery ability might be better off with only three training days per week. Train on the days that are most convenient for you, but make sure you pay attention to rule 2.
2. Train no more than two days in a row.
In my experience and with those I have trained, after two straight days in the gym you need to take one to two days off. Time and again I’ve seen strength and muscular endurance take a large dip after two straight days of intense training.
I’ve also noticed that when the average person trains three or four straight days, the immune system becomes compromised, making you more susceptible to illness or injury. Remember, we don’t grow in the gym but at home while we rest.
3. Workouts should last no more than 60 to 75 minutes.
There is scientific evidence that after that period testosterone counts begin to drop and cortisol begins to rise dramatically. That will drag your body down by making it more difficult to achieve an anabolic — that is, growth-inducing — state once the workout has ended.
Besides, there is no reason for a workout to last longer than that. If it does, chances are you’re doing too many sets and/or exercises or are being far too social in the gym. If you’re serious about getting big, get in the gym, do what you have to and get out.
4. The number of work sets you do for larger muscle groups should be between seven and nine.
If you focus 100 per cent of your mental and physical effort on each working set, there’s no reason you need any more volume than that.
Those who do 12, 15 or 20 sets for large body parts are obviously not training very hard; hard-training bodies couldn’t stand that many sets. Once you’ve stimulated a muscle to grow, doing more sets won’t stimulate the muscle any further but will only take away from your ability to recover from your workout.
5. The number of work sets you do for smaller muscle groups should be between five and six.
See rule 4.
6. Use mostly free-weight compound movements.
While I have nothing against machines and cables, there’s no doubt that the best muscle builders are free-weight compound exercises. Huge physiques were built in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s with little more than barbells and dumbbells.
The balance and concentration it takes to lift free weights will activate more muscles and more muscle fibres and ‘excite’ the nervous system more than machines or cables will.
Most of the biggest guys around will tell you that they built their mass with basic exercises like bench presses, deadlifts, squats, military presses, bent-over rows, barbell curls and lying triceps extensions. There’s nothing wrong with using machines or cables, but if you want to get huge, make free weights the cornerstone of your program.
7. Perform most work sets in the six-to-12-rep range.
Studies have shown that lower reps — one to five — tend to build strength and higher reps — 13 to 20 — muscular endurance. That does not mean that they cannot build any muscle, just that those rep ranges are not optimal when hypertrophy is the main goal.
The rep range of six to 12 keeps the muscle fibres under tension for an ideal amount of time and with enough resistance to affect growth. For your work sets you should shoot to reach momentary muscular failure somewhere between the sixth and 12th rep.
8. Strict form is a must.
Using strict form on all of your exercises will ensure that you’re stimulating the muscle that you’re trying to target. Those who ‘throw’ the weights up when doing lateral raises or barbell curls, for example, are only cheating themselves out of growth. The primary reason people do that is to create the illusion that they are stronger than they are. Make anyone who can ‘cheat curl’ 70 kg do the movement strictly, and you’ll find someone who may barely be able to curl 50 kg.
Interestingly, someone who strictly curls 50 kg for six reps vs. swinging up 70 kg for six reps gets much more biceps growth with the lesser weight. Once you reach failure using strict form, then it’s okay to use momentum — to a reasonable degree — to extend your set a bit further.
Combine these guidelines with a proper diet, sufficient rest and a solid supplementation program, and you’ll build the best physique that your genetic capability has to offer. IM
