Accelerate Your Muscle Gains: Avoid Overtraining
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It is very likely that at some point during your muscle building program you will fall victim to overtraining. It is a common pitfall that can affect even the most experienced bodybuilders.
Overtraining is a particularly lethal threat since it can can lead to lack of motivation, injury, and even muscle loss. Fortunately, identifying and correcting the most common causes of overtraining is relatively straightforward.
Here are three of the most common causes of overtraining:
- Performing to many sets each workout - Performing an
excessive number of sets each workout places too much stress on your
body, making it difficult to recover from workouts. Try to aim for
about 10-20 total sets per workout (not per muscle group, per workout!).
- Training continuously without time off - Taking time out of the gym seems to be
a tough one for many people to deal with - beginners especially. They
feel as if they will lose all of their hard earned muscle if they take
any time off - but continuous training can do more harm than good.
Most experts agree that 12 weeks of continuous training is as far as
you should take it. At this point taking 1 week off is a good idea.
It will allow the body to top up it's energy reserves and repair any
nagging injuries.
- Performing the same number of sets for all muscle groups - You may have seen or even tried programs that had the same number of sets for each exercise - regardless
of the muscle group. Since certain muscle groups are smaller, and are
some are used much more than others, training every muscle group with
the same number of sets just doesn't make sense. Remember that the
more compound exercises you perform, the more you will use the smaller
muscle groups like the arms and shoulders. When designing your weight
training program, be sure to take this in to account and modify the
number of sets accordingly.
If you think that you may currently be in a state of overtraining,
don't waste anymore time! Take a week off immediately. During this
rest period, go back and assess your entire program and figure out
where the problems are. Then implement the necessary changes when you
begin training again.
Once you have corrected the issues, you should feel refreshed and
highly motivated. Your energy levels will increase, and the rest may
have actually made your muscles stronger.
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