Overtraining in bodybuilding.

Most young people who come to the gym and start bodybuilding know very little about what this sport actually is. Although those times when it was impossible to obtain information are irrevocably gone. There is a sea of ​​literature. How many magazines are published? How many books have been translated into Russian? Well, there is the Internet. But young people don’t like to read at all. As a result, 95% of beginners treat bodybuilding, and powerlifting too, as a stupid lifting of all sorts of pieces of iron. From morning to evening. Every day. Unfortunately, this perception of this sport is false. It is much more complex than it seems at first glance. Much...

And before you start training, it won’t hurt to study anatomy and physiology, the basics of healthy eating and dietetics. Don't become a doctor, but at least read. To understand that the training process is very important. But this is only a quarter of what is needed for successful muscle growth. Much more depends on how you eat, rest and recover.

It has long been proven that there is no point in training every day. For a muscle to grow, it is not enough for it to receive a load. She needs to be fed properly and given the opportunity to rest. Because during training, some muscle fibers are torn (hence the muscle pain). And they need time to recover. If a novice athlete trains every day, or even 2 times a day, such recovery does not occur. And eventually there comes a moment when he simply has no desire to go to the gym. Many people are familiar with the feeling of “no strength.” Are you familiar? Congratulations! You've met overtraining.

It is not difficult to determine that you have overtrained in bodybuilding, since it has been identified typical signs. Here they are:

1. lack of progress. Full or partial;
2. very rapid fatigue, significant loss of strength. Both during training and during rest;
3. irritability, very often turning into depression;
4. loss of motivation;
5. decreased or complete loss of appetite;
6. muscle pain does not go away for a long time.

Most beginners come to experienced athletes, as a rule, with the same question: I’m training like hell, but there’s still no progress. And he won’t be. Because you force your body to work hard. And he really doesn’t want this. So it turns off automatically. If everything described above happens to you, then you should do the opposite: at the first stage, completely stop training. Give your body a rest. And don’t go near the gym at all for two weeks. Well, or spin the pedals on an exercise bike. Forget about barbells and dumbbells. Allow muscle fibers to fully recover and replenish glycogen stores. When everything returns to normal, you will feel it yourself: you will wake up in the morning, and the strength simply pours out of you. And I really want to go to the gym - I just don’t have the strength. Show some willpower and go train the next day. Just now train smart - giving your muscles time to rest. Otherwise, overtraining will occur again. And everything will start all over again.

Look here. The most famous personality in the world of bodybuilding, Mike Mentzer. The creator of his own training system, thanks to which, in fact, many athletes became Mr. Olympia, starting with Dorian. So, I won’t say exactly which of his books, but he describes an experiment that doctors conducted in America studying the phenomenon of overwork. They studied bodybuilders for several years, and one of the conclusions was this: after intense training with decent weights, muscles grow for another 3 weeks. They no longer need the training impulse. Imagine, 21 days!!! And you train 2 times a day! Naturally, overtraining will occur.