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Natural Bodybuilding: How to Avoid Over-training

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Overtraining in Bodybuilding

Over-training is especially common amongst bodybuilders, as they are inclined to believe that training as much as possible or with too much intensity will lead to faster muscle gains. Training like this will reduce your ability to build muscle, however.

While it's true that you need to train hard and with consistency, to get the most from your genetic make-up you need to progressively overload your muscles by increasing the intensity and weight used in each of your bodybuilding workouts. You need to find the correct balance between your training and rest/recovery. Here are some of the effects of over-training and how you can prevent them...

How Over-Training Affects the Nervous System

Both the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems are negatively affected in the following ways:

* Raises your blood pressure
* Weight loss
* Increases your metabolic rate
* Fatigue easily
* Higher resting heart rate
* Weak appetite
* Trouble sleeping
* Irritability

If you happen to be experiencing more than one of these symptoms, it could be because of over-training so you should assess your bodybuilding program as soon as possible.

How Over-Training Affects Your Hormone Levels

Studies indicate that over-training negatively affects hormone levels as well as hormone response in your body. Since hormones play a vital role in the process of muscle-building, this can severely compromise your training progress.

Over-training has been shown to:

* decrease thyroxine levels
* decrease testosterone levels
* increase cortisol levels

The latter two form a deadly combination as this causes protein tissue breakdown, ultimately leading to loss of muscle tissue.

The Effects of Over-Training on the Immune System

The negative impact on the immune system is one of the most alarming results of over-training. It can drastically decrease the levels of antibodies and lymphocytes in your body. In plain language, if you are in a state of over-training, you'll be more likely to become ill. You wouldn't want to slow down your muscle-building progress by missing workouts!

The Effects of Over-training on the Metabolic System

These are the most commonly discussed:

* Micro-tears in the muscle
* Chronically-depleted glycogen levels
* Slower, weaker muscle contractions
* Depleted creatine-phosphate stores
* Eccessive lactic acid accumulation
* Tendon and connective tissue damage
* Extreme delayed-onset muscle soreness

You can see that over-training affects your whole body and can seriously impact your muscle-building program results.

What are the different types of over-training? How can you prevent them?

Whether cardio -training or weight-training, any form of over-training is bad. Those who have experienced both these types say that over-training with weights is much worse and is also more prevalent than over-training with cardio. Here's why --

Muscles need to fully recover from their last workout before they are worked again or else you will break down muscle tissue before it has been re-built, making it impossible to grow muscle!

Over-training with weights makes you more vulnerable to hormone, nervous system and immune system issues.

Over-enthusiastic beginners, especially, could be led down the wrong path, perhaps wasting money on useless supplements or, even worse, steroids

How to determine if you're over-training

It's fairly simple. If you are in tune with your body, you should become aware of signs of over-training before they become serious. If you find that you are losing interest in working out, feel weak or irritable or are having trouble sleeping, you may be in a state of over-training and should take a week or so off. Don't be alarmed at doing this, your body will spring back to your benefit.

An alternative you can use is to consider your workout performance. Has your physical performance improved since your last workout? For example, if you were able to perform 8 pull-ups last week, but could only manage 6 this week, means that you have not "improved on" your previous workout, have not properly recovered, and are probably in a state of over-training. Modify your program so that you see progress at every training session.

How Can You Avoid Overtraining?

There are several factors to consider here: eating the correct foods; determining the correct volume and intensity of your training; getting the correct amount of rest and recovery. Let's examine them more fully...

Eating correctly

What you eat is vitally important in your muscle-building program. It provides energy, regulates your hormone levels and provides building material to create new muscle tissue. You can limit the chance of over-training with these dietary recommendations:

* Never skip breakfast. This is vital. Skipping breakfast is very catabolic and can encourage loss of muscle tissue.

* Don't allow yourself to become hungry. If you're trying to grow muscle you have to constantly consume quality foods so that your body never gets the chance to catabolise muscle tissue.

* Make sure you have eaten prior to your training session and are not hungry, unless you are trying to build muscle and lose fat.

* Have your largest meal of the day within an hour of your workout -- do this every single workout!

* Consider taking recommended supplements like creatine, and anti-oxidants to fight free radicals and increase performance.

* Eat every 2-3 hours to keep your body in an anabolic state.

* Keep glycogen levels high to prevent muscle tissue breakdown.

Rest and recovery after exercise

This is essential in avoiding over-training. Ensure that you get at least 7 hours' sleep every night, and keep your schedule consistent. Regarding recovery time, it's important to have days off between your workouts. Try to have one rest day between weight-training sessions and never train the same muscle groups on consecutive days.