Don't
Overtrain for Faster Muscle Mass Gain
By Gregg Gillies
Weight lifting programs and bodybuilding are based around
the idea of progressive resistance or overload. The idea
being that in order to build muscle and increase your strength
you must constantly increase the stress on your muscles.
Then
you must give your muscles adequate time to recover and
rebuild so that you can again increase the overload and
continue to build muscle.
The
following weightlifting workout won't do you a darn bit
of good if you don't adhere to the overload principle of
progressive resistance.
Overload
doesn't necessarily have to mean an increase in your training
poundages. You can also do more reps on a set with the same
weight. Another way to bring about overload in these weighlifting
workouts is to decrease the amount of time you rest between
sets.
Doing
more work in the same amount of time or doing the same work
in less time is a great way to overload your muscles without
increasing your workout poundages. This is the cornerstone
of Escalating Density Training by Charles Staley.
Clearly,
to make great muscle building gains, you can't get complacent
in your weight lifting workouts. You need to constantly
strive to do more. And, as stated above, this does not mean
working out more often or making your workouts longer.
You
must make your workouts progressively harder and more intense.
However,
this type of weight training routine is very hard on the
recovery process so you must make sure you get enough rest
between workouts to allow the muscle building process to
take place.
Otherwise,
you end up overtraining and instead of bigger muscles, your
muscles will get smaller and weaker.
When
training this intensely, it's very important to take time
off from your workouts. You should consider taking a week
to ten days off every four to eight weeks to keep your mind
and body fresh.
If
you don't recover from these weightlifting workouts you
overtrain. And if you overtrain, you don't get stronger
and your muscles don't get bigger.
The
core of these power-mass workouts is the big compound weight
training exercises like the following:
Squat
Deadlift
Bench
Press
Chin
ups
Dumbbell
Press or Upright Row
Shrugs
Following
is a sample weighlifting workout for developing power and
building muscle.
Day
1
Chest,
Triceps, Shoulders
Decline Bench Press 3 x 10, 8, 6
Decline Flyes 2 x 8 - 12
Incline Flyes 2 x 8 - 12
Dips
3 x 12, 10, 8
Tricep Pushdowns 2 x 8 - 12
Dumbbell
Upright Rows 3 x 12, 10, 8
Incline Dumbbell Laterals 2 x 8 - 12
Day
2
Back,
Biceps, Abs
Curl
Grip Pulldowns 3 x 10, 8, 6
Machine or Dumbbell Pullovers 2 x 8 - 12
One Arm DUmbbell Rows 2 x 8 - 12
Incline
Dumbbell Curls 1 x 8 - 12
Dumbbell Concentration Curls 1 x 8 - 12
Barbell Curls 1 x 8 - 12
Weighted
Crunches 2 x 15 - 20
Reverse Crunches 2 x 15 - 20
Day
3
Legs
Squats
3 x 10, 8, 6
Leg Extensions 2 x 8 - 12
Stiff
Legged Deadlifts 2 x 12 - 15
Leg Curls 2 x 8 - 12
Standing
Calf Raises 2 x 12 - 15
Seated Calf Raises 2 x 12 - 15
This
routine involves working each muscle group once per week.
The idea is to keep the overall training session short but
intense to avoid overtraining.
If
you can recover from it, you may want to replace the Curl
Grip Pulldowns and the Pullovrs with 4 sets of deadlifts
instead.
If
you feel you recover sooner than that, you may want to change
up the split to something like the following:
You
definitely don't want deadlifts on the following split because
you would find yourself doing deadlifts and squats on consecutive
days.
Monday:
Chest, Triceps, Shoulders
Tuesday:
Legs
Wednesday:
Back, Biceps, Abs
Thursday:
Off
Friday:
Chest, Triceps, Shoulders
Saturday:
Off
Sunday:
Off
Monday:
Back, Biceps, Abs
Tuesday:
Legs
Wednesday:
Chest Triceps, Shoulders
Thursday:
Off
Friday:
Back, Biceps, Abs
Saturday:
Off
Sunday:
Off
Monday:
Repeat at the top
If
you haven't been training, or haven't been training very
intensely lately, you'll want to start out by avoiding training
to failure for the first week or two. This will help you
build up some momentum, as well as avoiding extreme soreness
that will keep you out of the gym.
Gregg
Gillies is the founder of Build Lean Muscle.com
His
articles have appeared in Ironman Magazine. He has written
two books and is a regular contributor to Body Talk Magazine.
He publishes a free fitness newsletter available at his
site that includes lots of weight training tips, fat loss,
nutrition and exercise program information to help you build
your best body as quickly as possible. You can develop your
own muscle building nutrition plan at http://www.mynutritionjournal.com
Article
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