Is this overtraining?
I have been exercising regularly for the last 5 months - starting out pretty slow, treadmill, weight machines, etc., and working up to more intense workouts. I have lost 40 lbs in that time and I am starting to get into decent shape.
My weekly routine now consists of an intense full body lifting workout (New Rules for Lifting), 30 minute swim sessions, and 60 minute spinning classes. I don't push hard with the swimming and spinning as I consider them recovery day activities.
My week consists of 9 workouts -
Monday AM - full body lifting (A)
Tuesday AM - swim and PM - spinning
Wednesday PM - full body lifting (B)
Thursday AM - swim and PM - spinning
Friday PM - full body lifting (A)
Saturday AM - swim followed by spinning
Sunday - golf (6 mile walk)
My concern is that I am not giving my body enough recovery time. I enjoy all of these activities and don't want to give anything up but if it looks like too much, where should I cut back?
Thanks!
Congrats on the weight loss! I do think you should take one day off for recovery. I know when I was hitting the gym hard every day I would get an injury or sick or just exhausted and bam be down for a week or more to recover. I now make sure I take at least one day of rest. I will still walk my dog but it's not as an intense walk that day just a stroll.
I guess your gold day would be your active rest day, but I think maybe choosing either spinning or swimming on non lifting days, maybe one day do the spin next the swim or something like that.
Yep, thanks, I guess I just need to listen to my body and see how I feel. My thinking is that my workouts are varied enough that I should be OK. The way life gets in the way sometimes, I usually miss a workout here and there anyway.
Perhaps as the intensity of my workouts continues to increase, I may need to force some cut backs.
Thanks!
Original Post by saucyaussie:
Yep, thanks, I guess I just need to listen to my body and see how I feel. My thinking is that my workouts are varied enough that I should be OK. The way life gets in the way sometimes, I usually miss a workout here and there anyway.
Perhaps as the intensity of my workouts continues to increase, I may need to force some cut backs.
Thanks!
As long as life gets in the way once every 10 to 12 days I think you will be fine. Like you I don;t schedule days off, I take them when life gets in the way and I never feel bad about taking a day off because I know the importance of them. But I don't want to take a day off today because that's what one my workout schedule and then have life through me a curve ball that keeps me from being able to train tomorrow. Unlike you, I'm less diverse in my training regime so I do have hard and easy days built into the schedule.
My opinion, there is no magic formula for how much work will lead to over-training. I think it's highly personal. Everything your don't before determines what you can do today. But I do think you need to listen to your body and allow for rest and recovery when it is needed. It's good to have a schedule but you need to know that it's okay back off or miss a workout totally when you are behind in recovery.
Or get a golf cart.
I think you are lifting excessively. Other than that you're not overtraining I don't think.
That looks fine. And I wouldn't consider 3 days of lifting excessive.
3 days of full body lifting seems pretty excessive to me. You can make the same gains with 2 days. Or by breaking it up into groups of muscles.
Original Post by armandounc:
3 days of full body lifting seems pretty excessive to me. You can make the same gains with 2 days. Or by breaking it up into groups of muscles.
Most full-body lifting programs are designed to be implimented three days a week. Starting Strength, the New Rules series, Stronglifts and even the programs like Female Body Breakthrough.
Three days a week isn't excessive.
I would think of the golf day as "active rest" as opposed to exercise. Yeah, it's a lot of walking but it's not as demanding as lifting, swimming or spinning.
Original Post by armandounc:
3 days of full body lifting seems pretty excessive to me. You can make the same gains with 2 days. Or by breaking it up into groups of muscles.
It depends on the specifics of the program. I wouldn't go in and try to max out my deadlift 3x a week. But if you are on a sensible program with periodization, most people can handle 3 days a week. I do it at 47 years old and I don't have any problem with recovery.
Fair enough. I still think you can make comparable gains by going 2x a week. If you lift heavy enough that should be all you need.
But what do I know. I also wasn't saying it would lead to injury or you wouldn't have time to recover. My only point was that I personally think you can do in 2 days what the OP is doing in 3.
Just my opinion.
Yep, with this New Rules program it splits the full body workouts into A and B routines so it's not like you are doing the same exercise 3 days a week. And, in reality I do miss the occasional lifting workout so I am probably doing more like 2.5 days per week on average.
Thanks for all the opinions!
