Some people who have a training foundation often ask: I go to the gym every day, but it seems that the more I practice, the more tired I get. Is this the platform period? What should I do? My answer is generally: if I go to the gym less often, maybe the training effect will be better.
The reason involves two important kinematic concepts: "overtraining" and "overtraining".
Overrecovery and overtraining
At the beginning of the 20th century, physiologists found in experiments that glycogen in muscle was consumed when receiving electrical stimulation. After the stimulation stopped, the glycogen in the muscle gradually recovered, not only to the level before contraction, but also to the original level. This phenomenon is called excessive recovery. Later, it was further studied and found that in a certain physiological range, the more substances consumed during exercise, the more obvious the excessive recovery in recovery period will be. People widely apply this law to sports practice, and think that excessive recovery means "the material energy reserve exceeds the original level, thus improving the working ability of the body". Over-recovery I have briefly popularized science in my previous article: "Over-recovery refers to the situation that people's physical fitness level will gradually decline after a training session, and after diet and sleep recovery, their physical fitness level will gradually increase, even exceeding the original physical fitness level."
This is also the theoretical basis that the more we exercise, the better our physical fitness will be. (See: Chen Bailing's Excess Recovery-Theoretical Basis for Better Practice)
As shown in the above picture, our physical fitness will decline after training, and it will take some time for our body to recover to its original physical fitness. Then it will gradually surpass the previous physical level and obtain "excessive recovery". If we don't continue to apply the training amount, our physical fitness level will return to the previous state and lose the effect of "excessive recovery".
However, if we train again before the body recovers to a sufficient degree, then our physical fitness level will only decline further.
The most important difference between overtraining and overtraining is recovery.
Second, insufficient recovery: the root of overtraining
When we constantly and regularly exercise our bodies and fully recover, our physical function will gradually rise. As shown in the figure below:
(Source: Tudor O. Bumpa, G. Gregory Huff, Cycle)
When we exercise our bodies constantly and regularly, but we don't recover enough, our physical function will not gradually increase, but may gradually decrease.
For example, Xiao Qiang, the trainer, made a training plan of 12 weeks for himself. Xiao Qiang trained as planned in the first week, but due to overtime and entertainment, Xiao Qiang failed to get a good diet and sleep, and his body failed to recover. If Xiao Qiang didn't reduce the training intensity according to the actual physical condition at this time, or didn't wait until the body fully recovered before implementing the training plan for the second week, it is likely that Xiao Qiang's physical fitness level and sports performance will decline in the second week, which will directly affect the training and recovery in the third week, and even affect the training for the remaining ten weeks. In this case, it is easy to get weaker and weaker with practice.
(Source: Tudor O. Bumpa, G. Gregory Huff, Cycle)
The curve changes of a coach's physical fitness level/sports performance (Y axis) and time (X axis) are often shown in the above figure.
Third, the external performance of overtraining.
The general external manifestations of overtraining are: loss of appetite, inattention, fatigue, lack of excitement during training, decreased sports performance, decreased sexual desire and poor sleep.
Even high-level athletes are prone to overtraining.
If you encounter the above situation in the process of fitness, you should think about whether you are overtraining.
(Image source: Richard B. Clyde, Andrew C. Frye, Mary L. Authour, "Athlete Overtraining")
How often do you train? It is not easy to overtraining.
Theoretically speaking, when the peak value of over-recovery effect reaches the highest after one training, the second training is the best. However, various systems and substances in our body have not reached the peak of excessive recovery at the same time. The recovery time of energy supply system, muscle, nervous system and endocrine system is different, and the recovery time required under different training intensity is also different.
For example, the recovery time of ATP-CP is faster, only 8- 15 minutes. Muscle glycogen recovery time 1~46 hours, protein recovery time 6~48 hours, fat needs more than 48 hours. Muscle recovery time is 24~96 hours. The endocrine system needs to consider the recovery of testosterone, testosterone/cortisol ratio, growth hormone and leptin (different from person to person), and the recovery time of the central nervous system varies greatly according to the intensity of strength training.
Judging the peak of excessive recovery is a complicated matter.
For ordinary people, under the condition of normal diet and no supplement, most substances in the body's motor system can be restored in 48 hours. So for the average trainer, it is more appropriate to train once every two days.
Many friends who have just started fitness are very active at first, practice hard, go to the gym every day and run every day, then after a week or two, they feel very tired and can't eat anything, and then they stop. Many people have got a fitness card, but after several visits, they will not go. Exercise is very important in the process of gaining muscle and reducing fat, strengthening body reserve and improving health, but rest is equally important!
If you don't give your body enough rest time, the accumulated fatigue will make you stop exercising sooner or later, and once the inertia of this kind of exercise is broken, it may mean that it is difficult for a person who has just started fitness to continue exercising. This is not only determined by your will, but also by your body. Don't be too confident about your figure without a sports foundation.
For beginners, delayed muscle soreness (doms) is the most common. Beginners had better wait until the muscles are no longer sore before starting training in the same part.
If you are a fitness enthusiast with a good diet and various supplements such as protein powder, BCAA, creatine, ZMA and OMEGA-3, you can adjust your training plan according to your training intensity.
Five ways to reduce overtraining.
Overtraining mainly comes from two reasons: excessive training stimulation and insufficient recovery.
Therefore, the way to avoid overtraining is to improve your recovery ability and reduce training stimulation.
1. Improve flexibility
Overtraining is closely related to insufficient recovery. The variables related to training recovery can be divided into: diet, sleep, lifestyle and recovery means in order of importance.
(training pyramid. Image source: Notes of Tian Tian, a second student of Introduction to Action)
Diet includes the proportion of three major nutrients, the intake of trace elements, and supplements. People who do a good basic diet will definitely have stronger recovery ability than ordinary people, and they can also withstand higher intensity and more intensive training at the same physical level. So is sleep.
In terms of lifestyle, ensuring regular work and rest, a good living and working environment and a happy mood will help us speed up our recovery after training.
Warm-up, relaxation and stretching before and after training, as well as reasonable foam shaft rolling, massage, ice compress and hot compress are all recovery means, which can also help us improve the recovery speed of the body.
2. Reduce training stimulation
The second way to reduce overtraining is to reduce your training stimulation.
There are three ways to reduce the training stimulus, one is to reduce the training intensity, the other is to reduce the training density, and the third is to reduce the total training.
Reducing training intensity refers to reducing the counterweight used in training in strength training and reducing the pace used in training in displacement training such as running.
Reducing training density means reducing training times.
Reducing the total amount of training, in strength training, refers to reducing the total amount of training (see the notes in the first lesson of Introduction to Action), and in displacement training such as running, refers to reducing the number of kilometers of displacement.
6. Summary of information points in this article
1. If we have enough rest after training and do the second training, our bodies will only get stronger and stronger. If you don't have enough rest, it's easy to get weaker and weaker.
2. The general external manifestations of overtraining are: loss of appetite, inattention, fatigue, lack of excitement during training, decreased sports performance, decreased sexual desire and poor sleep.
3. For general trainers, it is more efficient and appropriate to train once every two days. If you have a good diet and some training experience, you can try a more intensive training program.
4. Ways to avoid overtraining: improve resilience and reduce training stimulation.
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