Over Training Will Derail Your Building Muscle Program. Your Muscle Fitness Goals Will Be Compromised!

Who will gain more muscle and build a beautiful body? A or B?

A: "I workout with weights 6 days a week and spend 2-3 hours in the gym for each weight training session".

B: "I workout with weights in the gym 2-3 times a week and train less than an hour each time when I am there".

If your answer is A, you are Wrong! Let me explain.

One of the greatest pitfalls in bodybuilding is overtraining . This mistake is most prevalent among bodybuilding beginners who are brimming with enthusiasm during their initial quest to own the physique of a bodybuilder . While I applaud them for their motivation and discipline, I do feel a tinge of sympathy when after working out so much and so often, they will probably see little or even no results. Overtraining is the result of the common misunderstood notion that "more is better". Well, in this sport of building muscles, more is not necessarily better.

Overtraining is the quickest way to slow down or even put a screeching halt to your muscle fitness development. Ahhh ! I can almost imagined your surprise when you read this.

You see, your workouts should be very demanding and intensive to force your muscles to grow and to burn fat calories at the same time. With this intensity comes an intrinsic need for your muscles to rest and recover from the damages inflicted on your muscles during your weightlifting training . Muscle growth is achieved by progressively overloading the muscles. After each intensive workout, you "damage" your muscles so much that your muscles are forced to adapt by growing bigger and stronger to pre-empt future stress.

During this adaptive-recovery phase, your muscles will be weaker than before and further training will negate any growth. Therefore, it is prudent for us to train smarter rather than just harder.

I cringe each time a client comes up to me and asked, "Can I increase my weight training sessions with you from thrice a week to six times a week?" or "Can you extend my workout routine sessions to 2 hours per session instead of just under an hour per session?" When I explained to them about overtraining, most of my clients would express cynical disbelief. I have since discovered that this is a normal reaction because we have always been taught that more is better. However, in our sport of building muscle fitness , this is hardly the case.

So how can you avoid overtraining? Simply keep the following fitness tips in mind!

• Keep weightlifting workouts short but intensive.
  Weight training workouts do not need to be long to be effective. Instead, they should be intensive. Maintain a lower rep range to force your muscles to grow . Use the right weights. By the 6th rep, you should have max-ed out and be unable to lift another rep no matter how you try in strict form. Think quality, not quantity. By doing this, you will also cut your time spent in the gym.
  
  
• Rest about 2 minutes between sets for your ATP to recharge your muscle strength.
  Otherwise, you will be lifting the next set less than your full capacity and that will not work your muscles to its full potential. Heavy and intense weightlifting produces thousands of microscopic damage to muscle fibers. It is this damage and rebuilding of the damage that makes your muscles grow bigger and stronger.
  
  
• Listen to your body.
  Train each muscle group only once a week at most or twice only if you are the type whose muscles recover faster.
  
  
• Watch out for these over training symptoms :-
  
  

  a) You seem prone to minor illnesses such as coughs and colds.

  
  b) You're not looking forward to hitting the gym and making up excuses to avoid going for your weightlifting workouts.

  
  c) You feel lethargic and sluggish more often.

  
  d) You noticed that you are more easily irritated.

  
  e) You noticed that you have difficulty lifting more than or the same weight compared to your last session. You may have hit the dreaded bodybuilding plateau.
  

f) You seem to be losing appetite and your favorite food just doesn't taste as good.

If you have been hitting the gym regularly and you noticed these symptoms, it is time to take a break! Let your muscles recover. Go for a stress-free vacation and have plenty of rest. Stay away from the gym for 2 weeks and refrain from cardiovascular exercises or any other strenuous activities. Increase your protein intake to help your muscles recover.

You may lose a little muscle mass during the 2 week break but it will not be significant so you should barely notice it. The upside is that your muscles will be "shocked" to astounding new growth when you return to the gym after the break.

I understand that gym rats like you and I may feel uneasy breaking our gym routine, but did you know that all professional bodybuilders take breaks between 1 to 4 weeks after every 4 or 5 months of intensive weightlifting training? SFO

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