Over-training is pushing the body system beyond that from which it is able to recover—to the point of negatively effecting performance. Common symptoms include: altered psychological state (insomnia, depression, lethargy, irritability, etc.), altered cardiac function (elevated and/or irregular heart rate, palpitations, etc.), increased susceptibility to illness, loss of motivation, increased injury, and decreased performance. It is a serious thing. Is it a serious concern for the average gym-goer? Not likely. (For the serious athlete? Most definitely.)
It is my opinion that over-training is quite rare. More often, it is a case of poor recovery management and programming. Most of us can do substantially more exercise than we are currently doing. Unfortunately, we do too much of some things and too little of others. We also tend to try to cram too much into one workout.
Overload (i.e., doing more than that to which the body is accustomed in order to stimulate an adaptation of a specific body system) is essential for improved performance. Moreover, overload must be progressive—and it needs to be carefully managed.
Overreaching—more specifically, “functional overreaching”–is the planned overload beyond one’s short-term ability to recover. This may seem like a bad thing, but when it is intentional and followed by a planned deload (i.e., reduced training load) it can actually accelerate progress. Continued (mismanaged) overreaching, however, can easily lead to overtraining.
A key to understanding overreaching v. over-training is the understanding of maximal recoverable volume (MRV). MRV is “the highest volume of training an athlete can do in a particular situation and still recover” (Drs. Mike Israetel and James Hoffman, How Much Should I Train?). This can be considered from workout to workout, as well as by the next training timescale or cycle.
It is important to understand that to maximize gains, one must maximize the recoverable training volume (and, of course, the recovery strategy—e.g., diet and rest). If one is exercising three times a week, it is highly unlikely that he or she is overtraining. Indeed, one may actually be able to increase the volume of training by simply partitioning training into shorter, more frequent sessions.
The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM’s Guidelines for Exercise Testing and Prescription, 8th ed., 2010) suggests 8-10 exercises (ideally, multi-joint or compound) that feature the major muscle groups (chest, shoulders, abdomen, back, hips, legs, arms) be trained with two to four sets 2-3 days per week. Splitting these into 4-6 (or more) sessions per week will actually permit one to lean more toward the four sets per exercise at a higher training intensity, thus increasing the training volume without excessive fatigue or overtaxing recoverability.
Finding one’s MRVs is a matter of testing the waters with a variety of training schema until one finds the most optimal volumes. This can be overwhelming, perhaps, but need not be—especially for those of us with more general fitness goals. The simplest approach is to begin with the maximal possible time available for exercise (and realize that while more than three one-hour sessions might be impossible, 5-6 (or more) thirty- to forty-minute sessions might be quite doable). Begin with the low end of possible sets (e.g. 1-2 “working” sets—sets beyond warm-up sets—per exercise per session) and add a set per exercise per session every week until the load seems to be too much (i.e., you feel you are overreaching) and back off for a week—deload. Find the progression that works for you and cycle through repeated mesocycles (3- to 6-week training cycles of progressive ramping followed by a deload). I trust you will find you can do more work that you were previously without feeling “overtrained”. The key is to do as much as you can handle as often as you can handle it. Avoid trying to do more than you can handle more infrequently. [I will share more thoughts on repetitions, sets, and training frequencies in days to come.]
Be your best today; be better tomorrow.
Carpe momento!
