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Avoiding Overtraining - Part 1 by Dr. Jimmie Flores
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Avoiding Overtraining - Part 1 |
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Fitness,Health,Advice
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A problem that plagues many fitness enthusiasts is the tendency to push too hard in a training and diet plan. It’s easy to convince yourself, “Okay, the more I train and the larger my calorie deficit is, the faster I’ll reach my goals.” While the preceding statement is partly true, an approach like it is likely to result in an excessive loss of muscle along with the loss of fat, or worse, leave you injured and unable to train like you want to. In this segment I’m going to cover a couple of ways that people commonly over-train. Next week I’ll give you a few tips to stay on the safe side and allow you to keep your gains (or losses, if weight loss is your goal) consistent. There’s a couple common ways that people over-train: Way #1 – You place too much emphasis on cardio. Are you a marathon runner? Another kind of endurance athlete? Or do you just want to look better without a shirt on? If you said yes to either of the firs two questions, then a lot of cardio (running, biking, swimming, etc.) is obviously necessary to your goals. However, if you said no to the first two questions and yes to the last one then you need to realize that your goal (hanging on to as much muscle as possible while losing fat) isn’t reliant upon a lot of cardio, and can be harmed by it. Studies show that moderate intensity cardio (roughly the intensity of jogging) is stressful on the central nervous system and catabolic (muscle-reducing) in nature, slowing your recovery from intense weightlifting workouts. This, in turn, makes your recovery phase take longer than it would if you had you skipped the cardio. This leaves you weaker at your next workout, which in turn, stops you from training as hard as you could have. The end result is that your muscles don’t get the maximum stimulus that they could have been subjected to, and less muscle is retained in the long run. If you’re trying to lose weight, eat less. Training yourself into a calorie deficit through cardio isn’t the way to go. The most cardio I’d recommend is brisk walking (low-intensity) for 20-30 minutes a few times a week. I believe that training in this range can aid recovery, but anything beyond that is pushing it. Way #2 – You put yourself in too large of a calorie deficit. A large calorie deficit is definitely the fastest way to lose weight, but it’s also an easy way to lose a lot of muscle. When dieting, the ultimate goal isn’t necessarily to lose a ton of weight, but to lose body fat. Therefore, you need to realize where you are in your progress to determine how large of a calorie deficit to achieve. Before you’re in single-digit body fat levels, it’s acceptable to have a large(r) calorie deficit. Because you have more body fat available for energy, most muscle is spared. But, as you achieve lower and lower body fat levels, more and more muscle is used for fuel. So, as you get leaner, you need to make the calorie deficit smaller. For example, when I’m leaning out after a mass-gaining phase, my calorie deficit is usually only 2000 calories per week. This equates to roughly a half pound of weight loss per week, but nearly all of the weight comes from fat, sparing the muscle that I worked hard to build up. That’s it for this week. Next week I’ll give you a couple of strategies to use to avoid overtraining and achieve maximum muscle retention. You can stay connected with me by going here: http://www.nextphasefitness.com/blog/
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