This principle has been starting to get some momentum finally, but I know there are still some nay-sayers, so I want to hopefully bring light to what "overtraining" is since people take that word out fo context.

Overtraining isn't training until your body starts to feel excruciating pain. Granted, you'll be the sorest you ever possibly have felt before, even days after, but it's basically training your muscles to their ABSOLUTE limit! The focus is not on sets, or reps, or even time (little to no rest periods). The focus is more of trying to reach your 1RM, and pushing that 1RM so by the next workout, you can do 2 or 3 reps of your 1RM, creating decently fast progress and a new way to shock your body into growth. 

"So what do I do, if I don't count reps or sets or rest periods?" You may be asking. What your shooting for is listening to your body. Lift that weight until you can't anymore! Starting out, I started with lifting 50% of my 1RM until I couldn't anymore, and kept upping the weight till I reached my 1RM, and worked my way down the weights again (classic pyramid set). I eventually worked my way down to 30 pounds and just kept lifting it till I couldn't anymore. If you did the previous sets correctly, even the 30 pounds won't take long to burn out the muscle group. There's also a finisher set called the "5-5-5", where you do 5 bottom-range reps, followed by 5 top-range reps, and finally 5 full-range reps. Sounds easy, but when you been lifting all the weights until you couldn't lift anymore, it's a challenge!

Anyways, a lot of people confused by how this works, and to be specific, it focuses on TUT. Time Under Tension has been proven to build strong, functional, and fast muscle. The slower the tempo on your lifts, the more TUT there is. Less rest periods ALSO mean more TUT, since the muscles don't have time to recover completely and are still under tension. Also with no rep ranges, your not restricting how far your muscles can go, making them a LOT stronger and more durable. Overtraining is about pushing yourself to the absolute limit, which means not putting a number on what you do.

I do it, and it helped me gain 3 inches on my arms alone, and I can't wait to phase in chest, then finally legs. If you asked me how many sets I do, I'll answer, "I dunno, but I worked out for almost an hour and a half, and I'm BEAT! Probably will be for a few days too."

This sort of routine will make you do more reps than you normally did in a week! Last week I did over 550 reps just with biceps! I have no injuries, I was SORE a few days, but I went right back at it a few days later. You can either put this sort of routine in your regimen, or not, but it wouldn't hurt to try at least before you shoot it down, right?

This principle has been starting to get some momentum finally, but I know there are still some nay-sayers, so I want to hopefully bring light to what "overtraining" is since people take that word out fo context.

Overtraining isn't training until your body starts to feel excruciating pain. Granted, you'll be the sorest you ever possibly have felt before, even days after, but it's basically training your muscles to their ABSOLUTE limit! The focus is not on sets, or reps, or even time (little to no rest periods). The focus is more of trying to reach your 1RM, and pushing that 1RM so by the next workout, you can do 2 or 3 reps of your 1RM, creating decently fast progress and a new way to shock your body into growth. 

"So what do I do, if I don't count reps or sets or rest periods?" You may be asking. What your shooting for is listening to your body. Lift that weight until you can't anymore! Starting out, I started with lifting 50% of my 1RM until I couldn't anymore, and kept upping the weight till I reached my 1RM, and worked my way down the weights again (classic pyramid set). I eventually worked my way down to 30 pounds and just kept lifting it till I couldn't anymore. If you did the previous sets correctly, even the 30 pounds won't take long to burn out the muscle group. There's also a finisher set called the "5-5-5", where you do 5 bottom-range reps, followed by 5 top-range reps, and finally 5 full-range reps. Sounds easy, but when you been lifting all the weights until you couldn't lift anymore, it's a challenge!

Anyways, a lot of people confused by how this works, and to be specific, it focuses on TUT. Time Under Tension has been proven to build strong, functional, and fast muscle. The slower the tempo on your lifts, the more TUT there is. Less rest periods ALSO mean more TUT, since the muscles don't have time to recover completely and are still under tension. Also with no rep ranges, your not restricting how far your muscles can go, making them a LOT stronger and more durable. Overtraining is about pushing yourself to the absolute limit, which means not putting a number on what you do.

I do it, and it helped me gain 3 inches on my arms alone, and I can't wait to phase in chest, then finally legs. If you asked me how many sets I do, I'll answer, "I dunno, but I worked out for almost an hour and a half, and I'm BEAT! Probably will be for a few days too."

This sort of routine will make you do more reps than you normally did in a week! Last week I did over 550 reps just with biceps! I have no injuries, I was SORE a few days, but I went right back at it a few days later. You can either put this sort of routine in your regimen, or not, but it wouldn't hurt to try at least before you shoot it down, right?

Kevit07,

 

i grew  up in Boston (congrats to the Red Sox 2013 champs!) and lived in the San Jose, CA area for 10 years and experienced East coast and West coast training.   I understand your post and I respond by saying do what gives you results.  Personally, I need some sort of routine with set reps, sets, and poundages as goals and to track progress.  The only comment I would make is the amount of volume to train each muscle depends on the muscle group and if you use no anabolics.   I rotate in periods of 6-8 weeks of German Volume Training (GVT).   GVT uses one or 2 compound exercises per muscle group and you do 10 sets of 10 or superset 10 sets of 10 per exercise and that is it for each workout.  You are doing a maximum of 100 or 200 reps depending on if you do 1 or 2 exercises.   I can't see doing more than that especially for small muscle groups like arms.  When I did GVT, I did 200 reps for legs and sometimes back and chest but never for arms/shoulders and I found this was plenty to totally destroy the muscle fibers.  I think everyone needs to experiment with high volume training because for some it will lead to overtraining in the other sense of the word and limit growth.   If this is working for you, I say more power to you and you must have a high pain threshold :-)

 

John

Agreed. The only thing that I dont like about GVT is that there isnt a lot of variety in the workouts. I am a firm believer in high volume and targeting each muscle group from multiple angles which stimulates more growth. I am not knocking GVT what so ever, its just I love variety. Lately I have been doing FST-7 training which is very similar to GVT, except instead of 10 sets of 10 you do 7 sets of 10-12 reps with only 30 seconds rest in between sets. You do FST-7 for the last exercise of each routine.

Maybe this is my problem, I haven't made a name for my routine yet. Maybe I should name the one I'm working on now, how about.....GMG (for Greater Muscle Growth) v3.52 EXTREME! Just saiyan, I just use basic information to make my own routines. I never know how many sets I'm gonna do, I don't know how long it's gonna take me, I just know I don't stop until my muscles are so sore, I'm still experiencing DOMS about 48 hours later! I have an idea now of how many sets I need, but my body always tends to surprise me by pushing at LEAST a few more sets than it was before (and my sets are of 10 reps, so it's in the muscle gain range, and it's a nice round number).

You could call it "KEVIT" - Kevin's Extreme Volumized Intensity Training which would kinda be like your forum handle :-)

 

Seriously thought, you don't need to call it anything.  I love this forum because everyone freely shares their knowledge and routines for everyone's benefit.  This promotes not only knowledge but also experimentation as to lifting and eating.  

 

John