Need your help about working out hard without overtraining

[dawn16]

@frhi

so in order to change my routine to train more moderate like you do what would you do? Lower the RPE generally in all exercises? Remove sets? Change the plan into something else?

I have too little knowledge in that area to help much (e.g. I know nothing about weights lifting), but I believe that you will, at some point, just need more rest days. If needed, remember that hypertrophy happens during those.

Also, if I understand correctly, what you call RPE ~ 9.5/10 in your programme is equivalent to AMRAP. That method is actually not optimal at all to get the best results, and is injury-prone. Here's the best advice I've ever read on RPE, sets and reps.

 

[frhi]

@dawn16 Yes, 9.5-10 means AMRAP, when im doing pull ups I do it until I cant reach the bar. Thats one of the things I will be changing, Im using too much intensity in too much exercises. Thanks a lot for your advice and for linking that comment, is really interesting!

 

[dawn16]

@frhi Internationally certified personal trainer and 7 years give or take training experience here. I don't have time for the largest reply, but ill keep it short and sweet.

Yes it seems like too much, to build on what others have said. You want quality volume throughout the week. Keep the rest periods high for the low rep range stuff. You can get the same or better results sometimes by doing a 3 or 4 day a week routine, vs 5 or 6. Over training can be counterintuitive. If you are more rested and recovered, your quality will be better. If you have quality training sessions, your results will be of more quality.

Get a grasp on what your MAIN goals are. Center your routine around that. This is a big issue many face. The more goals and movements you train, the more slowly each of those will develop. The principal of specificity is one of those training concepts that is very true. For instance, using an extreme example for understanding, you could train NOTHING but pure front lever for 2 months and you will get the quickest progress for that. But if you train FL, Planche, handstand, and have some bent arm stuff thrown in their, all of those movements will be delayed in how much progress they make. Simple.

If your main goals are skill oriented ( front lever, planche, etc) then the rest periods need to be long, and you need to not train to fatigue almost ever, You want to feel fresh when you train. There is a big difference between training for size, skill, and strength. Of course everyone wants both. But size requires hypertrophy style routines. Meaning less rest period, and more fatigue. If your are training for hypertrophy too much, then your skills are going to suffer. Make sense?

Summary : Be specific about your goals and structure your routine around them.

Too many goals= slower progress for each of those goals

Do you want skills, or do you want size more? Because this will help you program better. Skills= You want minimal fatigue. Long rest periods, etc. Size= More hypertrophy style routine, more fatigue.

If you want the best of both worlds, i suggest focusing on alot of skill stuff early in your week, with some long rest period strength sets ( 3-5 x 5 with 4-5 mins rest in between at least) and right before you want to take a day or 2 preferably off, you can do some hypertrophy stuff like 3-4x 8-12 reps. You'll be sore as hell for those rest days, but then you can come back on Monday or whatever and be fresh to do skills with quality. I like this method.

Peace and best wishes!

 

[frhi]

@dawn16 Hey! I have already changed my routine after seeing all the comments, now it looks something like this:

Pull ups 4 sets of 3-6 reps (4-5 min rest)

Handstand push up progression 4 sets of 1-5 (4-5 min rest)

Front lever progression 4 sets of 5-15 secs (4-5 min rest)

Planche progression 4 sets of 5-15 secs (4-5 min rest)

Normal handstand a lot of tries and hand balancing for 30 min aprox (this doesnt need that much strenght).

That routine for 3 days, then 1 day of legs and 1 day of abs.

Im starting to do caloric surplus atm, and I would like hypertrophy, after reading what you said, do you think I should do for example friday oriented on higher reps with lest resting (for example the 3-4 sets of 8-12 reps)?

The effort on my current routine is leaving 1/2 reps on the tank every set or 5-10 sec. Thanks for your answer! highly apprecciated!

 

[dawn16]

@frhi Looks like your closer to the right track now. I would still minus out one of those skills. Whats more important to you, HSPU, planche, or FL? You can train all three that way, but the progress will be way slower than if you just focused on one or two goals. You can keep it that way, just be ready for slowwww and steady progress with all 3 of those skills.

Yes. Lets say you trained monday through friday and took the weekend off. Save your high rep, low rest period, hypertrophy stuff for friday. Also make sure with all your skill stuff, and strength (low rep range stuff) You are not burning yourself out with every set. The skill stuff train between 50-70% of your max hod time, and the strength make sure you always save a rep in the tank, like go to 75 % of your max effort, maybey 80 every set. So that you remain pretty fresh throughout the week, giving more quality to your skill training. Train closer to fail on friday.

I prefer a little abs at the end of every session. You could do it that way, but abs seem to respond best with frequent training, because they also recover very quickly. Not like large muscle groups.

Keep up the good work mate.

 

[frhi]

@dawn16 So you would drop a skill and stay on 3 exercises? The HSPU I dont take it as skill, Im doing it on the wall just to build more muscle, sometimes I do dips, just to hit the vertical pushing, would you still drop it? I would really love to hit the skills fast, im just worried to not build my body compensated, like if I just train for the front lever im not training at all my pushing and stuff like that, what do you think on that?

About the training method, 100% incorporating your advice to my training, I will change the sets/reps to be focusing on strenght monday, hypertrophy friday. The effort that you suggested is 1 rep in the tank for strenght (I'm doing it fine atm) and what kind of effort on hypertrophy (im not experienced at all with hypertrophy on calistenics, I guess 8-15 reps, shorter rest (around 2-3 mins) and effort of failure? or leaving some reps on the tank?)

Thank you so much for your help bro!

 

[longnguyen]

@frhi I've been training on and off for around 10 years. Had more injuries than I can count.

·Do you think being in a caloric deficit can cause more injuries? If so, what changes have you made to solve this problem? And did you notice loss of muscle/performance because of those changes?

Being in a calorific deficit lowers your ability to recover. So if you don't adjust the volume accordingly then it will increase your injury chance.

·Do you think if you do push/pull day and the next day skill day will cause overtraining?

It doesn't have to. It depends on the volume and how much overlap there is in muscle groups.

·How much time do you warm up before working out? And how much time do you think is the most efficient for warming up a part of your body that you are going to use?

10-15 mins. If you half ass the warm up you WILL get injured. If you don't warm up properly you'll end up learning the hard way

·How much time do you stretch after working out? And how much time do you think is the most efficient for stretching a part of your body that you used?

Rarely, but I should probably do it more. I usually stretch if/when my muscles feel tight.

·Do you think having 1 week of calisthenics + 1 week of lifting weights will help avoid injuries? Do you think that plan would delay skill learning a lot on calisthenics or improving weight lifting strength?

It depends on the volume, intensity, and degree of overlap in movements.

·Have you encountered yourself in the situation I described at the start? What changes did you do to avoid general overtraining?

Yes. You need to add in periodisation. You're doing a shit load of volume and it's clear your body can't recover from it. If there's nothing you can do to increase recovery (eg eat more sleep more) then you need to lower the volume and/or take regular deload weeks.

There becomes a point of diminishing returns in terms of volume and it seems like you're well over it. Progress is made by sustained effort over a long period of time. It's not a mad sprint where you need to go balls to the walls. Time and patience are your friends. The most successful athletes are the people that programme to avoid injuries.

You can make great progress with just 10-20 sets per week for each muscle group. If you want to make those sets high intensity, then add deloads.

It takes experience to figure out how much volume your body can handle. It's better to undershoot and gradually add more in than overshoot and have to sit out of training for months at a time.

 

[frhi]

@longnguyen Hey! Thanks a lot for your answer. First of all, im not sure if I did the formatting properly, in the exercise A I only pick 1 exercise. So in total im doing for example 6-8 sets of pull ups, etc.

So you think the best I could do is lower RPE generally and then add some weeks doing exactly the same but with a lot less intensity?

Do you recommend an specific periodisation?

Thanks a lot for your answer, getting an answer from someone that trained so much more time than me helps a ton!

 

[longnguyen]

@frhi Yeah I only scanned your routine. Just re-read it and it's not crazy in terms of volume. 10-20 sets per muscle group per week is a good guideline.

What I've found works for me is to take a deload every 4 weeks. I find that by the end of 3 weeks of high intensity work I'm usually starting to feel some level of fatigue in my tendons (ie my body telling me to back off). Sometimes it'll be 4-5 weeks. Some people can go for longer at high intensity, it just depends on the person.

You can also do periodisation through the week. So for a particular movement I'll have 1 day as a high intensity day, and another day as more of a volume day. I'll do something like 5x5 on my volume day and usually heavy singles, doubles or triples on the other day, followed by some lighter work. Sometimes my tendons will still be a little achy from the last session, if this is the case I'll skip the high intensity stuff in favour of a new exercise I wouldn't usually do. It keeps things fun.

You just have to play around and figure out what kind of volume your body can handle. I do lots of high intensity work so I've had to be very careful with managing injuries. Since I started started taking periodisation and a more intuitive approach to load management about 18 months ago I haven't injured myself at all (at least nothing which takes longer than a couple of days to heal).

 

[frhi]

@longnguyen Woah ye, you are right thats super helpful, what I need to work on is doing that periodisation, creating a plan for the entire week/month, controlling the intensity to not overtrain. In case that doing that cause a little of overtraining, just deload like you do, thanks for the advices bro!