How pre-overtraining feels to you?

Wayne_Cowdrey said:kirkynick - pretty much, yes. It stems from laziness, but feels natural and has served me quite well. When I've tried to increase my work load I've found it counter-productive. I think the mind (i.e. belief in what you're doing) adds a dimension, on top of all the biochemistry stuff, but I think scientists might dismiss that.

Steve said:
A long hill marathon/ultra leads to exactly the same kind of muscle soreness and legs unable to take your weight you'd get after a heavy squat session, just many times worse.

Wayne_Cowdrey said:I'm not going to understand the answer, but what's the biological difference between an easy gainer and a hard gainer?

PaulSavage said:
I dont know about a hill marathon but theres no way it can be many times worse as long distance runners often run long distances daily but if i went and did even one single high rep squat set to failure now i would have absolutely zero chance of repeating that same set for at least 10 days, if i trained legs often, maybe 6-7 days, but never anything close to every day. Running pains are simply over doing it, too many times doing the same thing, but the squats would be tearing my muscles up so bad that it would be like they are on fire and being stabbed, massage would be so painfull i would need to bite down on something, like a raw burn almost.

AMH_Power said:
Can be lots; sometimes purely psychological...but usually fibre type.
But, that aside, adaptation is an auto-immune function to a stress/demand.
If someones tolerance is lower, the auto-immune response will be greater. The pro to this is, train less and gain more. The bad news is, the CNS can be held back. If your CNS needs lots of heavy work to gain, it can be hard to get the work in. I am yet to do 5x5 with 80% on bench...I just can't do it! Squats I can though.
I read a study on this ages ago, and they found many traits in fast gainers and other auto-immune functions and reactions. Can't remember them all, but there was positive correlation with fast gainers and:
Prone to excessive swelling when knocked/bumped
Crohns/Collitis/IBS/Celiac and digestive issues
Hayfever and allergies
Reactive Arthritis
Higher probability of side effects from hormone replacement therapy
Thicker left ventricle of heart (this might be wrong, I forget)
Basically....the case study correlated training progress with over reactive auto-immune functions, which makes sort of makes sense.
Here is a table to help you gauge your own tolerance (fast/slow gainer) to find some optimal (within reason of course) rest/volume etc.
http://drsquat.com/content/knowledge-base/finding-ideal-traini...

This is interesting stuff.

So someone who has low exercise tolerance needs less work in order to progress (good) but may not make as much progress as others due to being able to handle less volume and therefore having a lower magnitude of adaption (bad)?

Luke82 said:
This is interesting stuff.
So someone who has low exercise tolerance needs less work in order to progress (good) but may not make as much progress as others due to being able to handle less volume and therefore having a lower magnitude of adaption (bad)?

HUGE_GUY said:
I think this is where i went wrong. I used to be able to lift twice a week, do a max clean and press, max triple on squats and improve a lot. Since training my girlfriend. i've been trying to do the same volume with no success whilst she keeps getting stronger. Seems women in general can handle more volume.
AMH, I don't understand this greatly, but this scar tissue build up, is it possible my fibres aren't free to contract as fast due to being constricted? When you said you shouldn't rest, but active recovery, this is where i've been slacking a lot since January. I always did 2 hard days followed by sauna/massage and bike tempos to recover. I haven't done this in a long time, but still doing the 2 hard days.
Also if you don't mind answering, are your muscles supple, or very hard? I thought the most powerful guys were very dense and hard to massage, but some therapists have told me it's not a good thing and that i should feel like 'dough'.

Luke82 said:
This is interesting stuff.
So someone who has low exercise tolerance needs less work in order to progress (good) but may not make as much progress as others due to being able to handle less volume and therefore having a lower magnitude of adaption (bad)?

kirkynick said:
That table doesn't seem to open for me.
EDIT: I found the table somewhere else. According to it I have:
squats - very low tolerance
bench press - low/very low tolerance
chins - low tolerance
deadlift - low/mean tolerance
Maybe this is why I feel like I am overtraining(?) constantly (and making slow progress)?

kirkynick said:
Out of interest, how would you train strength endurance on the big lifts ie squats/strict/chins for example?
I've often thought it would be better do multiple sets of 1-5 reps with say 75-80% with minimal rest between sets or decreasing the rest between sets on a weekly basis.