A recent article ‘wot I rote” entitled “Muscles and Emotions” brought
me a larger than usual post bag, with many trainees telling me of their problems and requesting advice. 
One common factor almost to a man was that nearly all the correspondents were guilty of OVERTRAINING.

Emotions, as mentioned in the earlier article, can indeed be re-educated to be more positive and slanted to better thought patterns, but as anyone can demonstrate if you are constantly tired out and fatigued, then through the normal reasons of physiology, a stress-loaded body will cause the mind to react with depression and despair. Eventually nature will force you to take a rest, whether you want it or not.

Many young, and some no-so-young, weight trainers believe everything they read in muscle magazines. If a certain magazine says that bodybuilding star ”Rocky” trains 6 nights a week on a double spit system, forcing reps, getting the “burns”, overcoming pain barriers, and all the other uncomfortable processes they are supposed to get up to, then that might be THE WAY… well, it ain’t….the only way for Mr. Average, is to the intensive care unit of your local hospital. If in fact ”Rocky” is reading this (and I doubt it), he may well laugh and say, “Well, it works for me.” So it might, especially as you do not work for a living, support a family, worry about kids, have other hobbies, can afford to take ridiculous amounts of supplements and even drugs to stimulate your energy…..then so it may work for you. If, on the other hand, you are like the rest of us, work for a living, often in hard manual work, wish to relate to other people some of the time, have other hobbies, perhaps more worthwhile by helping others in your spare time, then training should take up less of your time and energy.

Feeling “lousy”, having drawn faces, catching every spare germ in the vicinity is not a very good advert for a so-called ‘muscle man’. Dreading workouts, always having aches and pains, getting too many injuries, and a complete lack of progress are all common symptoms of overtraining. The truth is that over-ambition, leading to overtraining, to self defeating, causing more harm than good and eventually becoming the reason why most weight trainers give up the activity in the end.

The answer, like most things, in life, is BALANCE. There is more in life than weigh training, there is life itself. You are not compelled to train so often. If you have recognized any of the pre-mentioned symptoms in yourself, try some of the following…

First of all, re-assess your targets and motives for training. Be honest with yourself. If you are only 5 feet tall, then do not base your goal on that of looking like some 6 foot champion. Remember that there are hundreds of thousands of bodybuilders in the world, yet you hear of relatively a handful of stars, so they are in essence people who have special attributes that make them unique. It is true to say that certain top champs would make progress on ANY system or method. Other people will never be top muscle mean no matter how hard they try. Many trainers exert ten times more effort into training than others but very little reward, so it is not for the want of trying . So to commence with, if you lower your sights to something more obtainable you will become less frustrated with your training. For most people, the end result of obtaining must be to achieve SELF IMPROVEMENT, perhaps overcoming some physical handicap or weakness, or simply to try to own a better than average physique. Fewer users of weight wish to be competitive and enter contests. If that is indeed your aim, good luck to you, but remember, you too will make better progress by not hindering yourself with overtraining.

If you have become tired or stale, try training LESS,. Do less sets, for the average trainer 8 to 10 exercises, with 4 to 5 sets of about 7 to 15 reps is the most results producing combination you will ever find. Training the recognized three nights a week is also plenty. Real life is outside the gym, not gazing into the mirror at your latest attempt at a ‘traps over’. Your main purpose should be to improve your life by being fitter, not to make a career out of lifting weights. Even three times a week is too much for some people when weight training. There is no law about trying to do your schedules even more infrequent. Lots of guys get on better having just two session weekly with the weights. If you are really fed up with your lack of progress instead of training hard, try doing less. You certainly will not come to any harm. The chances are you will make better progress and may even feel better.  

Anyone who feels constantly tired and enervated must first of all approach their own G.P. to investigate possible physical causes. You may discover you are diabetic or anaemic, or even have some glandular problem such as an under-active thyroid, but the chances are 99.9% that you have none of these disorders.   continued

cont'd...
Do not even be surprised if your doctor advise you ‘to get more exercise’, for even today medic opinion is mainly opposed to bodybuilding. Note I said bodybuilding for ego reasons. Medics recognize the unrivalled benefits of training with progressive resistance for rehabilitating atrophied muscles and limbs.

Once you have been re-assured you are physical A-1, you may then search for other causes of fatigue. An important factor to realize is that none of us feel the same all of the time. It is now common knowledge that we have our own unique body clock, or bio rhythms. We all have periods of both high and low energy.

Occasionally we get times when everything seems to go wrong, we have accidents, feel depressed, tired and unwell. These times are related to our aptly called ‘critical periods’ when all our bio rhythms are at a low ebb. Opposite to this occasional drop in our body clock, there are ‘peak’ periods. When you get these, ‘everything in the garden looks lovely’. Simply , you will feel good. This is the time to take advantage of the extra energy and do a bit extra while you may. Add some weights or do a few more sets. Your body is at that time able to cope quite happily with more exertion, and so is your mind. For the interested, you can apply to many addresses in national magazines for personal charts of bio rhythms for a very reasonable sum, and you will then know in advance your own good and bad days and thereby reorganize your schedules to suit your moods.

In another article I gave examples of quickies or abbreviated programs. Providing you exercise the major muscle groups, you can get a good workout from as little as three exercises. For bodybuilders, several sets of squats, press behind neck, or bench presses, and one of the varieties of rowing motion, you will reach most muscles. In real emergencies you can keep in condition and even gain strength and muscle with combination exercise, i.e. squats and overhead presses or with several sets of medium poundage ‘clean and jerks’. For just one exercise for condition I recommend multiple groups of Olympic snatches using split style.

There are several other ways to train less yet still get results. You can either do slightly shorter routines, three nights (or whenever) a week, or you could try training upper body parts on Monday, lower body on Wednesday and back to upper body on Friday. Following on the next week, you would then be doing lower parts on Monday, upper body on Wednesday, and back to the lower body on Friday, and so back to the first week’s arrangement. By the way, the idea is to do less, so do not try to do too long or too many sets at each session. An hour is plenty if you are training and not using the gym for a social evening.

The subject of nutrition of course comes into energy levels. If you eat nothing but lettuce, you will become about as strong as a rabbit, without the benefit of the other pleasures that rabbits are noted for. You must eat sensible foods with plenty of protein to rebuild broken down tissue, and sufficient ‘carbs’ to enable your body to turn the starches into energy fuel. The best tip for someone who suffers from a constant lack of energy is to try eating small frequent meals, about 6 a day, instead of the more normal three heavy meals. Also do not eat too much of white sugar products which will give you a brief energy lift, only to be followed by a more depressing ‘low’. Natural sugars are ideal to consume for energy.

Honey, which can have some remarkable and exotic flavours try some of the varieties easily available in the Health Food Stores), has been known from antiquity as a great energy aid. Dates, raisins fig, and bananas, etc. are far superior to unnatural energizers.

Last word I suppose must be on stimulants. Caffeine is a commonly used stimulant, useful as an occasional ‘pick-me-up’, but can become addictive. All drugs in my view should only be taken under STRICK MEDICAL SUPERVISION. They are after all, only intended for invalids, NOT for the healthy.

Overtraining and Energy Levels
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