How often do you work your legs hard?

[kinney1]

With a 2 year old and an infant child I do not get too much sleep (maybe 5 hours total). If you hit your legs pretty hard, should you do it once or twice a week if you aren't getting proper sleep? (The primary leg exercises that I use and switch up are DB Squats, DB Step Ups, DB Lunge variations, and I need to start including DB deadlifts) Any thoughts ? Thanks.

[Matthew]

All I can say is don't work them less than your upper body.

Can you take naps at all? 30 minutes during your lunch break at work or something like that?

[kinney1]

Unfortuneatley, I really can't take naps with work. Maybe on my days off. I was wondering how others view recovery time for a solid leg workout.

[Lisa~]

Recovery time isn't solely dependant on the workout; it depends on your health, your nutrition, your sleep, and what else is going on in your life. It sounds like you're pretty busy right now!

I am currently working legs every other workout (an upper/lower split), lifting three times a week.

[daraz]

As Cosgrove (I think) has said, when life stresses are high, keep training stress low.

[kinney1]

Thanks guys. Any articles on recovery that you would recommend? Do you think I cn experience some muscle growth only hitting my legs once a week? (I would include mobility work on several of the off days)

[Lisa~]

Excerpts from What is the risk of overtraining?

Overtraining in a general fitness population

Bill Hartman:

Whenever stress > recovery either overtraining or overreaching can occur depending on the duration of the stress inducing stimulus. Overreaching would be considered a short-term (now do we have to define short-term) AND/OR an intentionally induced phenomenon. Overtraining would be more long-term and certainly an unintentional phenomenon.

Periodic tapering is a common application of an intentionally induced form of overreaching although I don't see a point for most casual trainees. The higher volumes of loading followed by reduced volumes usually (hopefully?) results in an increase in performance assuming the length of the increase and taper is appropriate. Competitive swimmers and road cyclists (and rowers??)are usually good examples of intentionally induced overreaching.

Training experience and work capacity certainly have a lot to do with your ability to avoid any negatives associated with greater training loads. But the thing I like about simplifying the definition to stress > recovery is that it can apply to even the casual trainee who has multiple stresses such as work, family, sickness, house payment, kids, etc. Now granted it may not be possible to determine a quantitative value to all that but it can be considered.

FYI...Joe Cole (a sprinter/brainiac from New Zealand) has actually created a pretty amazing computer program (www.LifestyleProfiler.com) that attempts to take all factors into consideration. It took him about 5 years to create. I've messed with it a bit and it's time consuming to enter the preliminary info, but it may have some potential use. Not to sound like a commercial but you can download a free personal form the program to try it out if you're so inclined.

Bill


Bill Hartman:

The reason I think you have to address outside stressors goes back to your original question in regard to the normal gym goer.

I would have to say based on experience that few would address things like inadequate sleep, longer work hours, inadequate nutrition, etc. in the construction or modification of their training programs. I really wasn't thinking such extremes as death or mono.

If I may use one of my clients as an example realizing it is no all encompassing. He recently (about a year ago) left a high level position in a financial company to start his own consulting business and to write a book (among several other things). His sleep pattern changed. His eating patterns changed. His work volume increased dramatically. Then he hit a rather quick plateau in his workout performance.

To resume increases in performance required a reduction in his training frequency and a reduction in the fatigue that was induced each training session. If his plateau wasn't related to a sudden increase in his training workload and a modification in training workload allowed for improved performance, then we can assume that the increased outside stressors are a significant contributor. (I could also concede that it may have been simply adaptation to his current program, but he's been great at following advice and making consistent progress through regular chances in programming)

When we're talking about competitive athletes I would agree that such things are less of an issue assuming the athlete is motivate to excel and doesn't have significant lifestyle issues.

Bill


Alwyn Cosgrove:

I concur with Bill as regards TOTAL stress.

I think the body cannot differentiate between stresses -- it's all just a physiological LOAD on the body. Think about it as different taps (stressors) that are pouring into the same tub (the body). It's not what "taps" are open, it's how much water is in the tub!

If you are having financial difficulties, relationship issues, college finals, family illness all at the same time -- a twice a day heavy weight training routine is more likely to "break" you than if everything else in your life was great. And if you think about it -- it's the only one you can totally control.

It's important to look at the body as a whole. If a client is sick -- some of their resources have to go to fighting off the illness, so their ability to train is reduced. I believe it's the same when other factors (money, relationships, career) are taken into account.

In my experience - any clients with high stressors in their life respond better to higher intensity lower volume routines.

AC


Alwyn Cosgrove:

Incidentally I learned from Ian King and Charles Staley some pretty cool methods of assessing a clients ability to train. Tom Incledon also uses a similar method

Both include things like - sleep quality, mood, appetite, soreness, facial freshness, desire to train etc on a scale of 1-5. It's completely subjective but low scores show that your body is not ready for heavy workouts.

It's just a monitoring system -- but in my experience most coaches pay almost ZERO attention to recovery issues, and almost 100% to training issues.

But you don't get better by training -- you get better by RECOVERING FROM training.

AC


Alwyn Cosgrove:

When I think about it - any of my elite guys who have had recovery issues in training usually have had a ton of other things going on (in particular I can remember one guy's poundages going in the tank when he and his wife were going through fertility treatment - the only thing that changed).

However at the general public level I tend to see guys do too much work for their results. I can eliminate almost 40% of the average guys program and see no drop off in results. Are they overtraining as we are trying to define it? No - but they are doing too much training and thereby limiting training effectiveness. This tends to be a bigger key actually.

AC


Chad Waterbury:

I concur with AC and BH.

It's all about controlling fatigue. Jurgen Hartmann and Harold Tunnemann gave the best visual model I've seen regarding fatigue. It's on page 114 of the text, "Fitness and Strength Training for All Sports." Basically, fatigue is represented by a container, and the container (ie., fatigue) is subsequently filled, or not filled, by: fitness level, type and quality of exercise, volume and intensity of training, mental stress, and the environment. I like this model because it doesn't distinguish between any of the aforementioned variables - they all play a significant role.

[Lisa~]

I've got two excellent articles on recovery, but neither are posted online. I tried to copy and paste them here, but the tables didn't copy correctly.

If anyone wants them, pm an email address to me and I'll send them to you.

[Matthew]

We can't really give you an exact recovery period, there are to many variables. If you're still making gains, for example increasing weight lifted, from one workout to the next then you are getting enough recovery time. If you stop making gains for a few weeks then you might not be getting enough recovery.
If you can workout three days a week you can try a full body workout, or the upper lower split like Lisa mentioned. I'm doing the same thing she is, alternating upper/lower body for three workouts each week. So one week you'll work your legs once, the next week you'll hit them twice.
If you find that set up doesn't allow for enough recovery time try doing a full body workout twice a week. Say monday and thursday you'll workout. That'll give you tons of rest between workouts.

Do your children go down for naps during the day? I don't know what your schedule is like, I imagine it's insanely busy, but the first thing I do if I'm not getting enough sleep is to see if I can move things around in my day.

[Cynic]

Originally Posted by daraz

As Cosgrove (I think) has said, when life stresses are high, keep training stress low.

Must be why I lose motivation in the gym whenever the ex- begins making an appearance.

[GqArtguy]

Originally Posted by Lisa~

I've got two excellent articles on recovery, but neither are posted online. I tried to copy and paste them here, but the tables didn't copy correctly.

If anyone wants them, pm an email address to me and I'll send them to you.

Lisa hit me up with the articles and phone number

[kuri]

The linkmaster strikes again. Thanks for pulling that up Lisa.

We need some activity in that subforum.

[Phaedrus49er]

Originally Posted by Cynic

Must be why I lose motivation in the gym whenever the ex- begins making an appearance.

Hmmm... I find my motivation shifts from lifting to drinking

[Lisa~]

I think when the stresses are emotional that lifting can work as a stress reliever. Volume might need to be reduced, but we know that exercise improves mood and focusing on your program can get you through a tough time.

If the stresses are more physical, like the OP with a new baby and little sleep, the needed energy for lifting might not be there and the total stress you've added to your body can wear you down.

Every situation has to be evaluated individually.