On the efficency of working out

Factual Questions
1

As I’ve noted in a few posts around here, I love to lift weights. I’ve never really done it to get in incredible shape, to become a bodybuilder, or to get super healthy. I just think it’s fun and like to do it. I did get a little healthier, lose a little weight, and gain a little muscle as a side effect, but I never really went out of my way to be super-buff.

Well, I haven’t been inside a gym consistently in 18 months now, and I feel like crap for it. There have been injuries, scheduling problems, family illnesses and deaths, and whatnot that have kept me down to furtive workouts around the house once or twice a week. However, I’m finally settling down, I think my job hunt is going to take a turn in a positive direction, and I am really really excited about being able to get back into the gym.

At this point, I’m in very bad shape. I weigh more now than I have at any point in my life, so I think I’m going to need to focus on the results of my workout rather than just the fun of it all. I think this means that I’m going to have to work out a little less than I used to. Before my current all-too-long hiatus from the gym, I worked out five days a week for three hour stretches at a time. I usually did two hours of weightlifting and an hour on the stationary bike.

Now, is this overdoing it? Am I actually damaging my ability to lose weight/gain muscle by working out at this pace? For whatever reason, I can’t solve the disconnect in my brain – working out an hour a day, three days a week should simply yield slower, fewer results than three hours a day, five days a week. But from what I’m reading now, unless you’re taking steroids to increase your ability to recover, that’s just too much.

The question, then, is this: is there such a thing as “overworking” your body to the point that it resists losing fat and gaining muscle? How can one tell when they’ve reached that tipping point?

2

Your body is a wearable item.

Generally, unless you are a young pro athlete, you might want to do cardio 2-3 times per week and resistance training 2-3 times per week. Shoot for working out 5 days/week max.

Opinions are going to vary greatly! THREE HOURS in a gym!!! What?! 30-45 mins of resistance training and/or 30-45 of cardio is ENOUGH.

If you create a reasonable schedule, and reasonable goals, you are much more likely to feel good, stick with it AND accomplish those goals. What good is a goal which is unrealistic, painful and unachievable, and seems to take forever?

Really…one thing no one should be able to argue with is that you need to take a modest pace right now. Maybe 2 cardio week for 30 mins and 2 weights/resistance.

Take it from there.

3

Yes. You do not build muscle at the gym. You tear the muscle fibers which then grow back stronger (or more numerous) when you rest between sessions. Basically, your body needs time to regenerate between workouts. Otherwise, you are just wearing down muscle which can lead to injury.
And I don’t know how you lift weights for two hours. What do you do like fifty sets?

4

I think I did about 45 sets, yeah. But like I said, I wasn’t doing it to become uber-bodybuilder, I just did it because I thought it was fun. There is something incredibly satisfying and head-clearing about focusing all of your energy on picking up a heavy thing and putting it back down. I didn’t have any particular goal other than to have fun. That’s why I started this thread – I know the proper form and muscle groups worked by a slew of exercises, but I don’t know how to do them in a way that maximizes their efficiency.

5

Missed the edit window, but I just found my old workout notebook. I alternated between workout A and workout B on a daily basis (Monday A, Tuesday B, Wednesday A, Thursday B, Friday A, Monday B, etc.) I should point out again that I know this is way too damn much stuff to do realistically all at one time, and that the arrangement I have here is set up as it is because it allowed me to do the exercises I found most fun the most often. However, as an effective workout, it was less than ideal. I’m just including this since you guys seemed to wonder just what the heck I was doing in there for three hours, anyway :stuck_out_tongue:
Rotation A
CHEST:
DB Bench Press
DB Incline Press
DB Flys

Back:
Pullups
T-Bar Rows
Bent BB Rows
Deadlifts

Thighs:
Squats
SLDL
Leg Curls

Calves:
Standing Calf Raises
Reverse Standing Calf Raises

Abs:
Cable Crunches
Decline Crunch-Twists

Cardio: Stationary Bike, one hour

Rotation B

Shoulders:
Arnold Presses
Reverse Overhead DB Lats
Shrugs

Upper Arms:
Standing BB Curls
Standing Hammer Curls
Incline DB Curls
Triceps Cable Pressdown
SOTP
Skullcrushers

Forearms:
BB Wrist Curls
DB Wrist Curls
Reverse Curls

Calves:
Seated Calf Raises

Abs:
Cable Crunches
Decline Crunch-Twists

Cardio: Stationary Bike, one hour

6

[IANA personal trainer…just a perpetual gym rat]

There’s a common adage in the world of fitness that says you can workout hard, or you can workout long, but you can’t do both. I can’t seriously imagine that you’re putting in a lot of effort at the end of your workout if you’re doing all those exercises you’ve listed in one shot (as a corollarly, my entire leg workout often consists of just doing squats).

For maximum results, you want to workout hard, but generally (YMMV, naturally) for no longer than about 45 minutes to an hour, and never more than 2 days in a row. As stated upthread, your body recovers when you rest, and doesn’t grow during the workout.

Signs of overtraining (a very real phenomenom) are those symptoms you might associate with being sick, such as fatigue, loss of apettite, or reduced strength. One key way to offset this phenomenon is to be sure you eat well (small, frequent meals, each balanced with quality carbs, protein, and fat) and get plenty of sleep (at least 8 hours a night).

My recommendation, if you really enjoy physical activity for long stretches of time, is to add some cross training to your workouts. Maybe you lift weights for an hour 3 days a week, but on the weekend you might consider going for a long bike ride or running a few miles. That way, you’ll get the endorphin rush of working out you crave, but you won’t be sabotaging your efforts with endless time in the gym (seriously, three hours?! How much of that time was spent bullshitting with people?)

7

I do this. It’s a mix of everything; weight training, cardio, and gymnastics-influenced movements. I did straight weight training and traditional cardio in the past to get in shape, lapsed, and got back into fitness through Crossfit. There’s no question that Crossfit got me into better shape faster than anything else I’ve done.

While this is probably nothing compared to many people, I’ve gone from a body weight of 85 kg to my current 76.5 kg since last year, and I’ve gone from a previous max dead lift, squat, shoulder press, clean, bench press of 85, 80, 35, 50, and 65 kg respectively, set at the peak of my previous training to 145, 115, 60, 80, and 87.5 (by some fluke I managed 90 kg once, but haven’t been able to repeat it) after doing Crossfit an average of 3 days a week. There aren’t many long runs, but my performance on the few long runs that have been assigned is pretty darn good. I cranked out my first 5 k (first time in at least 15 years that I’d run that far) in about 23 minutes. That was a while back. I’ll probably run my next one somewhere around 20 to 21 minutes.

Some of the training sessions are over in less than ten minutes, if you can actually go that hard and fast. Believe me, one of the named workouts like Fran will utterly kick your ass. There are people who can power through that in less than 4 minutes. I have yet to break 10 minutes. Assigned weights (assuming a fit 170 lb. male) are either 95 lbs. for normal, or 135 lbs. for a heavy Fran. I still have to scale the weights to about 80–85% of the recommended weight for most sessions, but I’m working on getting up to the standard.

Variation is one of the watchwords. You’ll go from doing 60 pull ups and 120 body-weight squats one day, to doing seven sets of heavy singles on one exercise, to doing a metabolic conditioning day like the Filthy Fifty. That’s one of the things that makes it cool; you don’t get bored doing the same thing every time, and your body never gets a chance to stagnate. If something looks easy on paper, beware, that’s the day you’re going to be hating the coaches for ever thinking up that devious little piece of exercise torture.

While the information you need for doing the exercises and the daily workouts themselves are posted for free on the website, I highly recommend seeking out an affiliate in your area. If I had access to one, I’d go. I’ve had to learn this stuff on my own, which in the case of Olympic lifts is definitely not ideal. I’m sure I’m not lifting as efficiently as I could be, even though my athletic background in diving and gymnastics has made me pretty good about maintaining good form.

8

There’s such a thing as overtraining (you can Google it) to the point where you can’t or don’t want to train anymore, which is just as bad as training to ineffectiveness. Also, the heavier mileage you put on your muscles, the more you risk injury, which can cancel your workout entirely. If you were putting in 3-hour sessions at the gym, I’m going to assume you’re fairly young, maybe yet to reach 30. Trust me, those days will end. It’s not a question of when they will end, but how - will you be lucky and just listen to the fatigue, or will you blow out a knee joint or shoulder ligament and have no hope of ever lifting what you did before?

9

Yep, I’m 22 and have already injured myself once in the gym – that kept me out for about six weeks, and then, well, circumstances are wont to conspire.

AtomickTom, I worked out alone (the gym at UGA had a few employees wandering around that were happy to act as spotters when necessary) at about five in the morning, so there wasn’t anyone around to bullshit with :smiley: But you’re right: while I did put in as much as intensity on every exercise as I could, by the end of the workout that intensity was sometimes reduced to looking at an olympic bar and panting.

Sleel, Crossfit looks fun! I think Lady Soul and I are going to start the “Couch Potato to 5K” soon, but I’m definitely going to bring this program up with her as well and see if we can’t work on that.

Thanks for the input, guys!

10

Yes, there is certainly such a thing as over-training, and your old routine as published seems rather excessive to me. It depends on how heavy you are lifting, how long you rest between sets, and some other variables. If you are 22 and already injured, that is a sign that you are over-doing it. When you are over-tired, you tend to lose concentration, and that is when you get hurt.

One good test for over-training is to take your pulse rate every morning immediately upon awaking. Don’t get out of bed, just take your pulse. Do it every day until you can tell what your baseline is.

On days when your resting pulse rate is more than ten beats per minute higher than usual, you should rest on that day. Frankly I don’t see how you managed such a routine for any length of time without getting horribly stale, but maybe you were not going very heavy.

It is easy to add more sets. Adding more intensity is harder. My rule of thumb is, if you feel the itch to do more than five or six sets per body part (not counting warmups), you aren’t going heavy enough, or not using strict enough form.

I’d say, up the weight and do full reps. If you still are eager to add sets, either you are simply a freak when it comes to recovery, or you are suited to circuit training.

Regards,
Shodan

11

A side question:

I understand the logic of working a muscle to fatigue, tearing the muscle tissue, and then giving it a 48 hour+ recovery time to rebuild the muscle.
How does this work for military basic training?
I’ve never been but from what I’ve heard it sounds like daily multiple sets of push-ups non stop. How does the body ever recoup from the constant strain on these muscles if they are never given a rest?

12

I’m going to agree with the general sentiment. It sounds like you were over-training. I use to work out similarly (3-4 hours 3-4 times a week plus REALLY intensive cardio). I found that I quickly plateaued and, in some cases, actually started to get weaker. I still probably work out too much, but when I lessened the exercises a bit, I got fewer injuries and got stronger.

The key point to remember is that you don’t get muscle while working out, you build muscle while you’re resting. The point of working out is to fatigue and tear the muscle, and if you go too far beyond that, you’re just doing extra damage.

To answer your question, it’s really not something that’s easy to tell without actually watching it, but I can give you some personal anecdotes. When I was first starting some cardio training, I was of the philosophy that the harder I went the more progress I’d see. I’d get my heart rate WAY up there (as in 190-200+) and keep it there for a while. When I was done, I’d be utterly exhausted. And even after doing that for weeks, I never improved how fast I could go or how long I could do it and I never saw any difference in my physique. I got discouraged and quit cardio for a while. When I picked it up later, I tried again hitting it easier but longer with my heartrate in a much more reasonable zone. It was no longer something I dreaded, and I saw quick and substantial results.

You haven’t been to the gym in a while, so the most important thing is to err on the side of caution. You can always increase the weight or the reps or the sets later, but if you go in and try to get back into it too quickly, you’ll greatly increase your risk of injury and, quite possibly see lessened results. Most importantly, listen to your body. If you’ve lifted like you say, you should intuitively know the difference between sore and hurt, fatigued and exhausted, etc. Those are the signals that tell you when you’re over-training

13

It really doesn’t. The purpose of physical conditioning, at least in the beginning, is secondary. The main purpose is to keep you worn out and (for lack of a better word) controllable. As time goes on, the punitive exercise diminishes, seldom reaching more than 15-20 reps, and you’re left with more reasonably alternating days of strength/cardio.

Even at its best, I found military physical conditioning to be lacking in effectiveness and efficiency due to an emphasis on macho-man forced bouts aimed at the center of the bell-curve. The most trained of us lost a bit of conditioning, the worst-trained gained only a little. The biggest benefit we all received was some fat loss. It was a waste of time for all concerned, but as I said, conditioning was not the only purpose of the exercise.

14

I would imagine the purpose of military training is to condition recruits to function while fatigued mentally and physically. Not necessarily to turn them into world class athletes.