Overtraining question

Sauce

Hi,

I have been training 3 times a week for the past 6 months. Each session lasts between 1.5 hours and 2 hours. My sessions include 30 - 40 minutes of cardio and the rest is weights. I have started to feel a little sluggish lately when im in the gym and yesterday I was having hot flushes. Before any of you say anything, no its not the menopause, im a 23 year old guy

Anyway my question is, Is it possible to overtrain when you are only training 3 times a week?

rubadub

You should be doing weights before the cardio, might be the reason.

tunney

Emmm I'd reckon overtraining is unlikely regardless of the order you do your training in.

Sauce

I do my weights before I do the cardio. I was thinking it wasnt overtraining, but I just felt like I should ask. Maybe I am coming down with something. I have been more tired recently also.

justsomebloke

what is the breakdown of the 3 days you do weights and and with what sort of intensity do you do weights

Dragan

Also what is your diet and sleep like? With the right ignorance to diet and the correct lack of sleep, you could theoretically overtrain by having a ****....daily.

Sauce

Dragan wrote:

Also what is your diet and sleep like? With the right ignorance to diet and the correct lack of sleep, you could theoretically overtrain by having a ****....daily.

Problem solved.....Mental note: Must cut down on the ****

My diet is fairly okay. Porridge in the morning, Tuna salad sandwich using wholemeal bread or a tuna salad for lunch, Lots and I mean lots of Veg + potato + Chicken/Fish/Pork/Lamb for dinner. Snack on things like cherry tomatoes/gherkins/nuts/sultanas (Not sure how good or bad these are). My diet kinda slips at weekends and I may eat some junk food (i.e. chocolate/biscuits) and have a few beers (i.e 4 or 5 on a saturday night). Another downfall of my diet is that i seem to snack late in the evening. I know that going the 5 to 6 meal a day route would be best but with the way I work and then living at home its not really easy. I usually get 7 to 8 hours of broken sleep. I usually wake up 1 or 2 times a night.

The 3 days I go to the gym I do a full body workout:
Warm up for 5 minutes on the threadmill
I do 2/3 sets of 8 - 12 reps, with each set going to failure, of the following:
Leg Extensions (Machine)
Leg Curls (Machine)
Leg Press (Machine)
Flys (Dumbells)
Bench Press (Dumbells)
Lateral Raise (Dumbells)
Tricep Extensions (Dumbell)
Dips
Preacher Curl
Hammer Curl (Dumbells)
Shoulder Press (Dumbells)
Seated Rows (Machine)
Situps/Ab Machine

20 minutes jogging on the threadmill, followed by stretching

justsomebloke

I had a feeling you were probably doing a 3 day full body. If you are doing a full body workout trying to lift as much as possible on each day you could well be over training yourself (actually just reread and you say you go to failure so ye this is a major possibility).

If you are going with a 3 day full body workout drop the weights slightly as the volume of training you do for each bodypart makes up for the fact that you are lifting less then max each session.

side note. Start doing compound lifts and using free weights, instead of just machines, as you will get better results

Sauce

jsb wrote:

Start doing compound lifts and using free weights, instead of just machines, as you will get better results

I do use free weights for all exercises apart from the leg work and seated row. I sometimes do my situps on the ab machine for extra resistance. Other than that its all free weights

thirtyfoot

Even if you only train 3 times a week, regularly training for longer than 60 mins can be a cause of over-training, also it may not be only your training that causing the problem. I use a very simple matrix for attempting to monitor if I'm over training (found it on some Aussie site while back and changed it to suit my needs).

Grading each of these categories 1-5 (1 being excellent, 3 being ok, 5 being crap) Sleep, Energy Level, Muscle Soreness, Work Stress, Other Stress, General Health, Motivation to train, Interaction with Coach, Eating Habits. 9 categories and usually if my score is >27 I have a look at things - usually a crap night sleep will drive the other things, low energy etc etc. While I don't take this as gospel, will still push myslef when wrecked etc etc, it just reminds me to keep an eye on things.

I believe another cause of overtraining is monotony so if this is a problem simply vary your training from week to week.

Degsy

Sauce wrote:

I do use free weights for all exercises apart from the leg work and seated row. I sometimes do my situps on the ab machine for extra resistance. Other than that its all free weights

Is there a free weights alternative to seated row?

Sauce

Degsy wrote:

Is there a free weights alternative to seated row?

Im sure there is but I do not know what it is. Is there?

justsomebloke

sorry ye you are using free weights, however there are still only a couple of compound lifts in there, so try adding some squats/thrusters and chins/pullups into your programme aswell.

But if you are doing a 3 day routine the major point is not to keep going to failure as you will end up overtraining

Sauce

jsb wrote:

sorry ye you are using free weights, however there are still only a couple of compound lifts in there, so try adding some squats/thrusters and chins/pullups into your programme aswell.

But if you are doing a 3 day routine the major point is not to keep going to failure as you will end up overtraining

Ok thanks JSB