Under-Recovery, Not Overtraining

The current fitness culture around overtraining leaves nothing to be desired, in my book. Over and over again, people will say to me "How much of xyz am I supposed to do? I don't want to overtrain myself." "Won't it be too much if I do this, that, and the other thing?" Or there's the inverse personal trainer's nightmare "If this much programming will work, than if I do TWICE as much, it should work even faster!"

No, no, none of that. Addressing the first questions, you have to first train in order to be overtrained. That means that your workout should involve powerful intensity. I saw a video online of Tom Platz, the owner of the best legs in bodybuilding, doing a bit of personal training. And that training was unlike most of what you will usually see in the gym: lots of huffs and puffs while moving weights with more momentum and kinetic energy than actual muscle strength. No, Platz had his trainee doing a rather simple exercise, curling, with incredible intensity. The trainee curled the weight until he no longer could, then Tom Platz gave light support so that the trainee got a few more reps in, and when he could no longer curl it, he had the trainee isometrically hold the weight for a powerful time under tension exercise until his arms we ready to fall off.


That is an arm workout truly worthy of recovery; were you to do that everyday, you would destroy your best chances of getting any benefit from the workouts. It would be like taking a healing wound and slicing it open again so that it will heal faster. But that is exactly my point; you can feel absolutely free to train so hard that your motor skills seem non-existent, if you so choose. However, you have to take the time to recover properly, with the appropriate nutrition to fuel the muscle as it should be. Under-recovery is the true risk, not overtraining.


But if you are only working out with ¼ the intensity as the workout above, then taking three days to a week of rest in order to recuperate and "not overtrain", you are not working out, you are feeling it out. Stimulate your muscles, grease the groove, leave them fresh, or traumatize your muscles, but at the end of the day, know what level of intensity you have put in, and leave the appropriate amount of recovery time.


Jarell Lindsey

Isometric Exercise Trainer, Physical Culturist

Owner, http://www.leanfunctionalmuscle.com

Expert Trainer of 7 Seconds to a Perfect Body

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