Overtraining occurs when the muscles and the nervous system are not given enough time to recover between workout periods. If this happens long enough, progress will decrease and you will eventually experience loss of performance, muscular strength, and maybe even muscle mass.

Muscle Recovery: Each muscle group requires a minimum of 48-72 hours to fully recover from a workout, and recovery time depends on the intensity of your training sessions and varies from one individual to the next. The harder you train a muscle group, the longer it needs to recover. The larger muscle groups such as Back, Chest, Quads, and Hamstrings generally require more time to recover than the smaller muscle groups like the Biceps, Triceps, and Calves. Keep in mind that when you work your Back, you are indirectly working your Biceps and rear Delts and they will also need adequate recovery. Similarly, when you are working your Chest, you are also working your Triceps and front Delts.

Nervous System Recovery: When you are weight training, your nervous system gets stressed. The greater the training intensity, the more stress you place on your nervous system. As a result, your progress or the quality of your training sessions will greatly depend on how refreshed your nervous system is. When you workout hard four days in a row, do you feel as good and as strong on the fourth day as you did on the first day? Probably not. This is because the nervous system is fatigued, and for this reason, I generally recommend that people not workout three days in a row. For the same reason, it is not recommended that your workout sessions last more than 45-60 minutes. After an hour, low reps are generally a waste of time since your nervous system is too tired and you will not be able to recruit your fast-twitch muscle fibers.

Log your Workouts: Everybody's ability to recover is different and may depend on several factors such as amount of sleep, volume of training, training intensity, nutrition, supplements, drugs, etc. The best way to know if you are overtraining is to log your workouts and keep track of your progress. Your performance for each workout should be better than the last workout, providing that the routine is still the same. If you increase your weight or merely do one extra repetition, then you have made progress. Keep in mind that your muscles will adapt to a particular routine after having performed it 6 times. If you keep doing the same routine, you won't necessarily be overtraining, but you will plateau and your progress will suffer. On the other hand, changing your routine too frequently will make it extremely difficult to monitor your progress.

Overtraining Signs: The key is to keep track of your workouts, and listen to your body. If you experience any of the following symptoms, chances are you may be overtraining:

Conclusion:The best way to treat overtraining is to avoid it. However, if you suspect you are overtraining, you should decrease the intensity and duration of your training sessions. If you are into severe overtraining, you might have to suspend training for several days or even weeks to allow your body to recover. No matter how anxious you are to get to the gym, the muscle or strength building process is a long one and will not be accelerated by training more. Too much training will hinder your progress and performance, and too little training will not bring about the results you are looking for. Train smart and listen to your body; the rest will take care of itself.

Steve Duperre