Is it overtraining for me to do 3 NROWL4W lifting days with HIIT ( M, W, F) then two steady state cardio days ( T, TH) . Am I hindering my progress of muscle gain and fat loss? In the past i've done 1.5 to 2 hour workouts 5 days a week. so I feel like I'm doing pretty good with the one hour total in the gym with two consecutive days off on the weekends (sometimes fridays too).
Depends on your goals. Others who are far more knowledgeable than I am may/will chime in, but steady state cardio will mostly likely hinder (or completely inhibit) muscle gain depending on the time and relative (lack of) intensity of the cardio. What about HIIT on Tuesdays and Thursdays while still lifting MWF? That'd be less taxing on your body (meaning better recovery and less risk of overtraining), and depending on your HIIT setup, it could be complementary to your weight training gains.
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Are you doing it because you think you'll lose fat faster? Or are you doing it because you simply enjoy it? If you are doing the cardio in an attempt to just lose fat faster or accelerate the goals in NROL4W it probably won't help. It will probably just burn you out and maybe keep you from putting on some muscle. But at the same time I would think it depends on what kind of cardio you're doing.. if you're taking a leisurely walk, that isn't too taxing, but taking an hour run seems like it would maybe do more harm than good.
I'm not sure what others will say about this. But I think you need to evaluate the reason why you are doing this extra cardio. If you just want to get leaner, throw in an extra session of HIIT instead of those long SS sessions. It will help you more.
Focus on muscle gain. Do HIIT/intervals on Tu/Th and lift M/W/F and give it your all. Go as heavy as good form will allow. Every once in a while, just for the sake of variety, do one of the longer cardio sessions that you enjoy instead of a HIIT day (if you want to). Spend your new-found time on meal planning and food preparation.
The reason i have been doing the steady state cardio ( 60 minutes on the stairmaster switching speeds throughout to keep it interesting ) is because i am worried that my pants wont fit anymore since I'm used to doing so much cardio. I just thought that since i was cutting down on the cardio so much that maybe i would put on some weight and not the good kind.
my main goal is to become a more healthy exerciser and eater but I would like to do this and keep a healthy body image for myself . This has been going well for me so far on the program but it is a little jolt to my cardio security blanket. I enjoy the workouts and don't feel drained physically (i feel stronger) like I used to but i don't still have this little fear of giving up that cardio that has given me results (or at least maintained ) but took up too much time and energy. Thanks again for the feedback I'm kind of a worry wart if you haven't gotten that impression yet
A lot of us had a fear of gaining if we stopped so much cardio. And a lot of people pretty much told us to get over it, try the program as it is, if we felt we needed to do the cardio, do HIIT a few times a week. It was good advice. I'd say try giving up some of the cardio, see how you feel and look after a month. I'm guessing your pants will still fit. Mine do. In fact, they're a little loose now.
The reason i have been doing the steady state cardio ( 60 minutes on the stairmaster switching speeds throughout to keep it interesting ) is because i am worried that my pants wont fit anymore since I'm used to doing so much cardio. I just thought that since i was cutting down on the cardio so much that maybe i would put on some weight and not the good kind.
my main goal is to become a more healthy exerciser and eater but I would like to do this and keep a healthy body image for myself . This has been going well for me so far on the program but it is a little jolt to my cardio security blanket. I enjoy the workouts and don't feel drained physically (i feel stronger) like I used to but i don't still have this little fear of giving up that cardio that has given me results (or at least maintained ) but took up too much time and energy. Thanks again for the feedback I'm kind of a worry wart if you haven't gotten that impression yet
Point 1: If you're used to doing something, arguably one of the worst things you can do in a physical training environment is to keep doing the same old thing. Our bodies adapt to stimuli very quickly and efficiently, which is why the people doing the same thing day in and day out for months and years on end stop seeing gains (if they had any in the first place) and perhaps even regress a little, especially from chronic overuse injuries. Whatever you're doing, you should probably be doing something different within three months if not sooner (just be careful not to get program ADD and switch every week like some do ).
Point 2: Based on what information? Trust me, as a former fat boy, I have a hard time swallowing down panic attacks when I start to put on weight, which is very easy for me to do, but I know I HAVE to eat a certain amount more than I'm comfortable with for certain training programs to be fully effective. I also know that when I cycle out of the overeating phase, I'll lean out with a little more muscle and strength than last time around. I'm still just very skittish about the process. (For something a little less anecdotal, steady-state cardio has been shown to burn less fat over a given period of post-workout time and even negates some of the post-workout benefits of weight training. Also, excessive steady-state cardio could also likely even make your muscles shrink in order to improve oxygen consumption during exercise, so yeah, you'd keep your weight down, but also not in a good way.)
Point 3: Why not just be a healthier person? While at the gym today, I was in a rest interval between sets and happened to look across the free-weight area where I was: out of the six people plus me, five were doing some kind of bicep curl, and one was doing front dumbbell raises while I was supersetting pull-ups and push presses. Sure, they're all getting better at curls and front raises, but where in life are they ever going to be called upon to excel at those particular movements outside the gym? If you literally live there, I guess that's okay, but I like to go outside and climb things and otherwise be able to move heavy stuff, especially if a more dire situation arises. It's also nice just to be able to, say, jerk up a dog or a friend's nephew off the ground without having to think twice about it. Ya know, everyday living type of stuff.
Point 4: See Point 1 For what it's worth, up until last fall, I'd been running steadily for about two years. I took up running because I found what I thought was a need for endurance training in my repertoire. Before that, I'd been very much involved in weight training, mainly in Olympic lifts and plyometrics (this was before I truly appreciated the need for a good strength foundation to that kind of work). Anyway, really long story short, after two years of running and paying lip service to weight training, my strength had significantly fallen off, and though I had a smaller midsection, it was a bear trying to keep it that way, meaning constant running. I'm now in the middle of NROL Strength II: I weigh about 15-20lbs more than I did while running, my midsection is slightly larger, but I LOOK thinner because I've added and re-apportioned and corrected some things, plus I'm a helluva lot stronger than I was. The best thing I ever did was stop using a scale, which I notice you didn't mention--good. Your clothes may not fit quite right after awhile--you might even have to go up a little in size--but trust the mirror (assuming you didn't boost one from a funhouse). You did mention a time crunch, though. The great thing about weight training is that it takes about the same amount of time to get an effective lifting workout done as it does to take an aerobics class, but your body continues to work hard for a long time after a lifting session; it tends to shutdown almost immediately following steady-state endurance work.
(This rambling brought to you by efforts to get my body back on a normal sleep schedule after a rather insane week at work )
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Focus on muscle gain. Do HIIT/intervals on Tu/Th and lift M/W/F and give it your all. Go as heavy as good form will allow. Every once in a while, just for the sake of variety, do one of the longer cardio sessions that you enjoy instead of a HIIT day (if you want to). Spend your new-found time on meal planning and food preparation.
Listen to this advice from Lisa.
Over training is really not going to happen to someone just hitting the gym a few times a week and doing some HIIT on off days. Over training happens to athletes that are really pushing their bodies far beyond what the average gym goer is ever going to come close to doing.
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Over training is really not going to happen to someone just hitting the gym a few times a week and doing some HIIT on off days. Over training happens to athletes that are really pushing their bodies far beyond what the average gym goer is ever going to come close to doing.
I agree with this, too. Your body will tell you if you're pushing it too hard and not taking enough time to recover - in which case, just take an extra day of rest, make sure you're eating enough and sleeping enough, and you'll be fine. I don't think you're in any risk of real overtraining, which, as jvernacchio said, really only happens to athletes who spend HOURS a day training or at practice.
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ok you guys convinced me I should just suck it up and try something new. If my body changes in a way I don't like I can always go back and do something different but if I don't really give it my all and try the program as is I really have no way of determining why I didn't get the results I was hoping for since i was tetertottering on doing both my old and new routine. I love the feeback and phaedrus4 and Beach Plums its nice to hear that some of you guys have the same fears as I do.
Who knows, maybe I will love the way I look with a bum and broad shoulders like you see on all those athletic girls I'll never know unless I try eh!
thanks again guys I think I'll take this advice
Originally Posted by Lisa~ A H, you're 5'4" and 115 lb, right?
Focus on muscle gain. Do HIIT/intervals on Tu/Th and lift M/W/F and give it your all. Go as heavy as good form will allow. Every once in a while, just for the sake of variety, do one of the longer cardio sessions that you enjoy instead of a HIIT day (if you want to). Spend your new-found time on meal planning and food preparation.
If my body changes in a way I don't like I can always go back and do something different but if I don't really give it my all and try the program as is I really have no way of determining why I didn't get the results I was hoping for
I'm with you on this. I have fears (weight gain, not losing fat, giving up my cardio "addiction", and EATING all those calories) - but if we don't give the program 100%, we won't know if it really works, or if any of our modifications ruined it, right?
I've given myself somewhere in the 1-2 month range to really give it a good shot before I reasses my body - it SHOULD work - it's all scientifically sound. I do train HIIT on at least 2 of my "off" days because I'm afraid to do "nothing" (I'm still in Stage 1), and I still do my martial arts classes at least 2 days/week (some days that's more of a workout than others) - but I'm doing the weights, giving them 110% (oh, I FEEL those weights!), eating clean the majority of the time (hey, I'm not perfect!) and getting my protein in, and more calories than I've allowed myself in 10 years...
Wouldn't it be wonderful if we really could eat more, workout more efficiently in less time, and feel and look awesome?
overtraining?
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