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You are here: Home / Blog / Daily SGPT Content / Overtraining – How Much is Too Much?

Overtraining – How Much is Too Much?

April 29, 2015 by Brad 7 Comments

By Doc Goody
Knowing our audience of PT animals, this is probably one of the most important topics we’ll be covering. It has been engrained in your head and heart to push beyond pain, crank out the last few reps, then add a few for good measure and to strive for greatness no matter the cost. Hey, don’t let me stop you, get in line and give me some repetitions! I’m simply going to help you help yourself by providing some guidelines to avoid overtraining and becoming counterproductive.

So, PT phenoms, I hope you enjoy this read and benefit from the advice. 

The PT cycle is pretty simple, we push ourselves, recover, push harder, recover, increase reps, recover, get stronger, recover and simply repeat this process. But how much is too much? At what point am I hitting the benefit side of the spectrum and at what point am I simply hurting my progress by going too hard with certain exercises? If I’d only read this years ago when I was in my 20’s maybe I’d have made more progress, but instead I was a numbers guy. I would go to a field and crank out push-ups, pull-ups and other calisthenics until I couldn’t move, then I’d do a few more and I repeated this almost daily. If only the now me knew the then me and educated me!

When you conduct an exercise there is a certain amount of muscle tissue damage you incur. When the muscle tissues are damaged, satellite cells found on the outer layers of muscle tissue get to work by fusing together in an effort to biologically repair your damaged tissue and proliferate to the injury site. This often results in cross layering and of course, hypertrophy. After this occurs, some of the satellite cells remain as organelles and some will convert into muscle protein strands (myofibrils) creating new, thicker muscle tissue or a little something we like to call gains.

In other words, pushing yourself and damaging the muscle tissue is a necessary part of making progress and gains. That being said, the healing process is vital to making progress and pushing through the healing or over exerting your muscle tissue will harm the recovery process resulting in the exact opposite of your desired result and could potentially lead to rhabdomyolysis, a condition resulting from rapid destruction of muscle tissue and the release of protein into the bloodstream resulting in acute renal failure. Unless you’re a big fan of hospitals, excessive bags of sodium bicarbonate and not hitting your fitness goals, try and avoid this one and simply avoid overtraining.

Here is some expert advice from a man that needs no introduction, our very own Navy SEAL fitness guru, Mr. Stew Smith:

 

How Much Is Too Much?

When it comes to calisthenics (aka bodyweight exercises), too many people make the same TWO mistakes:

1 – Calisthenics every day of the week (same muscle groups / exercises).

2 – Way too much volume, too fast.

Ca.  For instance:

If you can do 20 pull-ups, 80 pushups, 80 sit-ups – a good and challenging calisthenics workout would be 100 pull-ups, 400 pushups / sit-ups.  That may sound like a lot of reps to you – well it is!  And when you hit this kind of volume in a workout, you need to recover.  It is all relative, however.  So if you can only do 10 pull-ups / 40 pushup/sit-ups it is too much to do 50 pull-ups / 200 pushups / 200 sit-ups day after day after day.

I do have a TEN Day plan that works very well if you are trying to increase your max rep 2 min testing in pull-ups, pushups, sit-ups.  See links:

10 day Pull-up + 3 days rest = Day 14 Test

10 day Pushups + 3 days rest = Day 14 Test

10 day Situps + 3 days rest = Day 14 Test 

Calisthenics at a low volume several days a week is not a bad idea if treated like a dynamic warm-up for 5-10 minutes a day.  But, when people do hundreds of repetitions of pull-ups, pushups, dips, sit-ups, lunges, even flutter-kicks and other hip / abdominal exercises, there is such a thing as TOO MUCH.  Here is an easy way to fix both problems of daily PT and too many reps for your own good:

I call it the 5TIMES test.  Take your max 1 set repetitions (2 min time limit pushups / sit-ups) and multiply by FIVE.  Whatever that number is – that is a sufficient workout total repetitions for a day BUT not repetitive day after day after day

All are TWO -WEEK overload / specificity training programs that will help you increase your testing numbers.  Some have seen 100% increase is scores in 2 weeks.  You should only do this ONCE – then go back to a normal every OTHER day training program with calisthenics.

Still Too Much – Now if you are well above your 5x Max rep during a total workout too often, you will pay usually with some form of tendonitis of the elbow, shoulder/chest connections, or bicep connections (pushups, pull-ups, dips).  So take it easy on the 1000 rep workouts and 250 pull-ups workouts.  I am not saying you cannot push yourself every now and then and test those numbers but be smart and recover, rest, and go back to normal numbers / split routines of moderate reps in your workouts for a month of so before doing TOO MUCH again.

Your joints will thank you for it.

Doc Goody
doc goodyBIO: Shawn Goodwin, HM2 Navy Corpsman of 7 years with multiple deployments in both hostile and non-hostile zones. Deployed ISO 5th Group SF & 98th Division “Blacksheep” as medical augment.
Duty stations include:
-II MEF CBIRF (ISO Presidential Operations)
-Guantanamo Bay Cuba ISO HUMINT / Detainee Ops
-Command Fitness Leader

RELATED ARTICLES:

Navy SEAL Nutrition Tips

Nutrition for Hard Workouts

 


 

QUESTION: Coach, what do you like to add to your workout shakes?

ANSWER: I use Athletic Greens in our shakes. It’s got tons of great nutrition—vitamins and minerals. Plus it mixes up easy in milk or water.

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Comments

  1. jack says

    April 30, 2015 at 9:39 am

    Brad what advice can u give ur followers that want to be navy seals about over training? I was under the impression at buds you are constantly doing high volume . It seems like to handle it ur 5x max value should be extremely high.

    Reply
    • Brad McLeod says

      April 30, 2015 at 10:29 pm

      I would follow Stew Smith’s advice to a “T”. You don’t have to over train to get ready for BUDS. You have to train smart. Re-read his advice and follow it.

      Reply
  2. Isaac Bice says

    April 30, 2015 at 3:15 pm

    Thank you for posting this! Great points.

    Reply
  3. Ryan Trillo says

    April 30, 2015 at 7:05 pm

    Great read coach. Did my re-test for freak frogman and felt the effects of my workout from yesterday today (perfect example of this article) but regardless felt good today and saw results

    1st test at beginning of month:
    500m row: 1:41.5
    Max push-ups: 60
    Max situps (did crunches): 70
    Max pull-ups: 11
    1.5 mile run: 10:47

    Retest
    500m row: 1:37.4
    Max push-ups: 65
    Max sit-ups (again did crunches):82
    Max pull-ups: 12
    1.5 mile run: 10:18

    I should of toned down the previous days workout but I could tell mentally and physically the benefits I got out of the program. I felt more focused and ny cardio was 100x better than the beginning of the month. I plan on doing this test once a month to help track my progressw. Thank you for a challenging program and I look forward to completing your accountability workouts this month!

    Reply
  4. Heather C says

    May 4, 2015 at 7:51 pm

    Stew Smith is a freakin genius……

    I had a diagnostic PT test this past Friday ,I passed barely, but I changed the way I did sit-ups. I did 25 in the first 35-40 seconds, rested 15secs did 10 more rested 10secs then did the last 10……. It was so much easier mentally to do them that way!!!!

    Brad,
    Thank Stew for me and thank you for posting this article!!!!!!!

    Reply
  5. John Smith says

    February 4, 2016 at 8:12 am

    Hey coach, Got a quick question for ya. When is to much to much ? I was doing weights every day then taking the weekend off, Now i’m doing two days on and one day off. The day off im doing cardio. I know everyone is different, but when does it become not enough time for the muscles to heal. I feel good, No fatigue and my muscles feel good, But i’m still pushing hard. I just don’t want to over do it and have an injury. What is a normal recovery time before i hit the same groups of muscles again ?….Can i get some feedback or thoughts on my situation ? Thank you.

    Reply
    • Brad says

      February 8, 2016 at 1:03 pm

      Check out the tips above. Follow our daily workouts as we schedule yoga recovery every fourth day. Are you getting 8 hours of sleep a night?

      Reply

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