Training & Nutrition - How to deal with weight training when overtrained

Well, I'm not overtrained. However, I'm just wondering what happens to your weight training program when you are overtrained? We have heard to reduce intensity but that is for the cardiovascular system. How about the muscular system? Do we reduce the weights, the repetitions or the number of sets? What are we supposed to do?

"I would rather be Overtrained than Undertrained" -Bruce Lee-

I read a very interesting article on Overtraining a couple of months back. The guy who written it was a German sports scientist/phycoligist<<< Regarded as one of the best in the world. He stated there was no such thing as Overtraining. Your CNS (Central nervous system) would soon become accostomed to the weights, reps and sets over a period of time. It is the exact same thing with cycling, your legs will soon become accoustomed to riding long distances as long as you keep to your riding. The story's of Bruce Lee being able to do 500 chin ups in 1 set :eek: Thousands of Press-ups :eek: Sit-ups etc pays homage to this.

Bloody hell, 500 chin-ups... I love doing that exercise for my back. I can do 10 reps for 10 sets (Bodyweight) and I'll tell ya, I'm really happy with that. To get to a mind-blowing figure of 500, you have to keep hitting the chin up bar day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year... Insane fitness... Lee's and Armstrong's CNS must be on par with each other but under different circumstances...

Hi,
overtraining is a stressor. There can be a wide variety of responses. Gave myself pneumonia in June once. Training wasn't the only cause, but it was the trigger. The first thing to do is to stop. Brutal advice, but you need a break. Start recording your HR every morning before you get out of bed. If it goes down when you stop training you are definitely overtrained. Stop for at least 2 or 3 days, then ease back into at half the volume and intensity you were exercising at. You can add wight and reps at twice yiur normal rate until you get back to your previous peak.
Find a periodised training program, it can help.

Originally posted by Vitamin X
I read a very interesting article on Overtraining a couple of months back. The guy who written it was a German sports scientist/phycoligist<<< Regarded as one of the best in the world. He stated there was no such thing as Overtraining.

Does that mean overtraining for weight training only? I believe that there is overtraining, but what you raised up seems pretty interesting. Mind posting the article?

Guess when you ride a horse to death, the horse simply forgot to read the good Doctor's paper.....

Originally posted by late
Guess when you ride a horse to death, the horse simply forgot to read the good Doctor's paper.....

Could not have said it better myself. :D :D :D

Originally posted by Vitamin X
The story's of Bruce Lee being able to do 500 chin ups in 1 set :eek: Thousands of Press-ups :eek: Sit-ups etc pays homage to this.

Bloody hell, 500 chin-ups... I love doing that exercise for my back. I can do 10 reps for 10 sets (Bodyweight) and I'll tell ya, I'm really happy with that. To get to a mind-blowing figure of 500, you have to keep hitting the chin up bar day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year... Insane fitness... Lee's and Armstrong's CNS must be on par with each other but under different circumstances...

Jesus is there any truth to that??? even if he could do half of that

OMG

Originally posted by chaztrip
Jesus is there any truth to that??? even if he could do half of that

OMG

This is in reference to the Bruce Lee doing 500 pull ups.

The thing here is that the smaller you are the easier it is to lift your body weight. That is because muscle strength is proportional to its cross sectional area but the weight of something is volumetric. As one gets bigger, your strength to weight ratio goes down.

This is one reason why elephants are not good at climbing trees that and the fact that there are not many trees that could hold an elephant anyway. But seriously, a similar measure is jumping ability. As far as I know, elephants can not jump. However squirrels can jump very impressive distances especially when you think in terms of body lengths. It all has to do with squirrels being small and light and they have enough muscle to give themselves a good launch. At their weight, they don't need much muscle. And we can carry this one even further. Fleas make squirrels look downright poor at jumping.

I recall reading somewheres that the world record holder for chin ups is a small woman.

Bruce Lee was not that big. I bet you that there is absolutely no way that Arnold Schwartenegger could ever do 500 pull ups. He just weighs far too much.

When I was into rock climbing I at one time could do 41 chins with the overhand (not the easier underhand) grip. This was at a bodyweight of 170 lbs. Also at that time I worked out with 300 lbs for reps on a lat machine which of course is much easier than chins. The thing that failed first for me was the ability to hold onto the bar. My back muscles could have gone further.

I cannot imagine having the endurance and grip to hold onto the chin bar long enough to do 500 but if anyone could have done it my vote would go to Bruce.

Overtraining is as prevalent in weight training as it is in endurance training, maybe even more so. Due to weight trainings' intensity, the volume needed to approach over training is much smaller than that of endurance training.

The first sign of over training is that you ask about it.

Other signs:
Irritability
Sleeping problems
Increased DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness)
Depression
Decrease in strength and strength stamina
Decrease in appetite

Recovery is more important than physical side of training.

Oh, and about Bruce Lee... The stuff running through his veins was half blood, half chemicals. When on gear, the overtraining issue can almost be removed.

Oh, and about Bruce Lee... The stuff running through his veins was half blood, half chemicals. When on gear, the overtraining issue can almost be removed.

Half chemicals?? What chemicals. Furthermore, on gear?? What gear. haha, sorry that I don't understand ..

Half chemicals?? What chemicals. Furthermore, on gear?? What gear. haha, sorry that I don't understand ..

It is well known Bruce Lee went to any extreme to make his body the ultimate weapon. This included extensive chemical and steroid use.

Bruce Lee weighed 135 or something. About most of what he did was train. And, his arms and upper torso were already quite suited for pullups.

I guess he was a strong guy.

If, like Bruce Lee, you want to be overtrained vs. undertrained, don't quit the weights, by any stretch, except to avoid death or something similar like major or minor injury. To get good at cycling, though, I would discontinue use of the weights, because weights are different from lifting just your body weight while riding a bike.

In one of the online forums is an online Bruce Lee martial arts video and sound package you can watch, btw.
:)

Jacob