Advice on Workout Plan

[balalla]

Hi everyone,

I hope you're all doing well. I started weightlifting for the first time 2 months ago using equipment at the apartment gym. Based on recent posts here, I'm wondering if I'm doing too much ("overtaxing my nervous system") on my upper body days.

• Equipment: the gym has dumbbells (5-50lbs), Smith machine, a Precor FTS Glide cable machine, and a bench (e.g. for dumbbell bench press).
  
• My stats: 30s, 5'8", 170lbs
• Goal: primarily strength, secondarily hypertrophy

I'm just doing kneesovertoesguy exercises for lower body and lower back.

For my upper body days, I do 3 sets of 6-12 reps (all sets to RPE 8-10, which determines how many reps/set) and do the following supersets:

• Standing cable bench press & standing crossbody cable row
• Dumbbell overhead press & inverted row (aka Australian pullup)
• Dumbbell bench press & dumbbell hip hinge exercise (from kneesovertoesguy)
• Standing cable chest fly & dumbbell shoulder shrugs
• Bicep/hammer curl & dumbbell skullcrushers
  • For these 2 exercises, I'll also do a drop set after the 3rd set (at half the weight)

My strength is progressing each week and have only mild soreness throughout the week. Am I doing too much on the upper body days? How do I know if I'm overtaxing my nervous system?

Thanks!

Tl;dr - read the bolded parts

 

[dawn16]

@balalla I ain't advanced, but when I'm so tired that I need naps and to sleep ~12 hours at night just to feel "rested" is when I think I'm over-training. I used to train 4-5 days per week though. Now I'm going just 3 days per week. I think that manages my fatigue better, and facilitates better recovery.

 

[pinetowntree]

@balalla

How do I know if I'm overtaxing my nervous system?

I wouldn't worry about this too much.

There are a bunch of general types of fatigue. Muscular soreness, cardiovascular fatigue, sleep status/lack of sleep, stress from activities of daily life, small nagging injuries, and "central nervous system fatigue." They all factor in to your performance potential on a specific day and you can't really isolate any one.

What I would watch out for is just the overall presence of fatigue, soreness, feeling tired, feeling weak, or just feeling poorly in general. If you experience those things and it's combined with a drop in performance in the gym, you're probably overly fatigued and you need to do a deload week or change your programming.

 

[ccc2018]

@balalla If youre progressing then youre doing fine. You know you may be doing too much (under recovery) if you start regressing.

 

[dawn16]

@balalla Don’t worry, you’re doing fine.

 

[balalla]

Thanks for the responses; it's reassuring to see the comments.

If anyone has feedback regarding in changes to the exercises, I'm all ears I suppose I'm unsure if there's too much repetition or better alternatives. For example:

• Cable bench press, dumbbell bench press, cable chest fly
• Crossbody cable row, inverted row
• Shoulder shrugs: better exercise for the trapezius?