Over Training

If you want lots of muscles and very little fat, you have to work out, but are you working out too much and sabotaging your progress? In order to build muscle, your body actually goes through a tearing down and re-building process. Every time you lift weights, you put small tears in your muscles. This may sound like a problem, but it is really not. After each workout, the real work begins. Your body rebuilds those muscles, adding a little more to make the muscles stronger and less likely to tear. But what happens when you don't give your body enough time in between workouts to rebuild and regenerate? That's where overtraining comes into play.

If you train the same muscle groups too close together, then you don't get as much out of the workouts because you haven't actually built any muscle, just broken it down. After repeatedly doing this, you may actually see decreases in muscle size and strength. There are other signs of overtraining as well. Tiredness, lack of motivation, depression, soreness from previous workouts, etc. may not seem like they are caused by your workout, but if you are overtraining, they are.

How do we prevent overtraining? First, don't work the same body parts two days in a row. If you are still mildly sore from your previous weight workout, don't work that body part again. Some people take longer to heal these microscopic tears then others, and may need to wait 2 or 3 days in between working the same muscle groups. The best advice I can give is to break down your program into several workouts, focusing on specific body parts each time, so you can still workout on days when you are still somewhat sore from your previous workout. Don't do total body workouts unless you allow at least a day in between them and other workouts. Break down your programs into sections such as lower body workouts one day, upper body the next; or back and biceps on day one, chest, triceps, and shoulders on another day, and legs on a third day. By alternating between the different workouts, you allow enough time for the muscles to regenerate between workouts.