How much exercise is too much?

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fervor

New member
I've been doing a lot of research lately and updating my exercise regimen accordingly. But I think I'm getting confused by the deluge of information out there, some of which is probably incorrect.

I'm willing to exercise 2+ hours a day but some people say that might be counterproductive (reduce muscle mass/testosterone) or it might lead to overtraining. I'm getting confused because most athletes (even high school athletes) exercise 2+ hours a day. I don't see why I can't do the same thing.

My primary goal is fat loss. Secondary goal is to maintain/gain muscle mass and improve my general fitness/cardio.

The core of my exercise regimen is the following cycle.

Day 1 - 20 minute HIIT on elliptical/cycle/row, with warmup/cooldown
Day 2 - Weight lifting - upper body
Day 3 - 20 minute HIIT on elliptical/cycle/row, with warmup/cooldown
Day 4 - Weight lifting - lower body
Day 5 - rest or yoga

Would I run into any problems if I add 30-60 minutes of steady state or moderate intensity interval cardio, especially on weight lifting days?

Instead of sitting on a couch to watch TV, I thought doing some additional cardio might be a better idea.
 
Hi,

I've been researching this subject for a long time. There is so much information out there it's confusing. I find that when I exercise less I lose more weight. Which means I'm probably over exercising for me.

I see more success when I follow a plan similar to yours:
Sun - cardio 60 mins .. abs and stretching
Mon - upper body .. abs and stretching
Tues - cardio 60 mins
Wed - lower body .. abs and stretching
Thurs - cardio 60 mins
Friday - upper body and/or yoga
Sat - rest
 
lace_mayhem, what do you find with that sort of program ? I'm just starting my final push, and it's quite similar:

Mon: Upper body + light cardio
Tue: Lower body + light cardio
Wed: Interval running (1min) followed by a uphill walk back home
Thur: Upper body + light cardio
Fri: Lower body + light cardio
Sat: Interval running (1min) followed by a uphill walk back home
Sun: Interval running (1min) followed by a uphill walk back home (Best replaced with a light walk?)

I'm pretty scared of overtraining on this, even if it's only for a month.
 
PinkRoses said:
lace_mayhem, what do you find with that sort of program ? I'm just starting my final push, and it's quite similar:

Mon: Upper body + light cardio
Tue: Lower body + light cardio
Wed: Interval running (1min) followed by a uphill walk back home
Thur: Upper body + light cardio
Fri: Lower body + light cardio
Sat: Interval running (1min) followed by a uphill walk back home
Sun: Interval running (1min) followed by a uphill walk back home (Best replaced with a light walk?)

I'm pretty scared of overtraining on this, even if it's only for a month.
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Too much work.
 
PinkRoses' regimen could be too much because there is high intensity training on every single day. Sore muscles need time to recover. But I think the overtraining limit depends on a person's individual fitness and how hard they are actually pushing themselves. If the interval running in PinkRoses' regimen isn't maximal effort (HIIT), it could be fine.

How do you know whether you are overtraining? In terms of weight lifting, sore muscles gives you a pretty easy indicator. But for cardio, especially low or moderate intensity cardio, it's not so obvious.

When I used to do sports competitively in high school/college, I did have times when it was clear to me that my body was complaining; Muscles shaking, feeling lethargic, soreness taking too long to fade away, etc. But I can't imagine reaching that point doing moderate intensity cardio.

The majority of my day is spent sitting at a desk and I'm burning minimal calories. But there are plenty of physical jobs that are almost like doing cardio for hours each day. Doing additional cardio on top of my core regimen seems like a good way to make my day to day more active.
 
fervor said:
PinkRoses' regimen could be too much because there is high intensity training on every single day. Sore muscles need time to recover. But I think the overtraining limit depends on a person's individual fitness and how hard they are actually pushing themselves. If the interval running in PinkRoses' regimen isn't maximal effort (HIIT), it could be fine.

How do you know whether you are overtraining? In terms of weight lifting, sore muscles gives you a pretty easy indicator. But for cardio, especially low or moderate intensity cardio, it's not so obvious.

When I used to do sports competitively in high school/college, I did have times when it was clear to me that my body was complaining; Muscles shaking, feeling lethargic, soreness taking too long to fade away, etc. But I can't imagine reaching that point doing moderate intensity cardio.

The majority of my day is spent sitting at a desk and I'm burning minimal calories. But there are plenty of physical jobs that are almost like doing cardio for hours each day. Doing additional cardio on top of my core regimen seems like a good way to make my day to day more active.
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Over-training is more systemic than what you make it out to be. Meaning, don't isolate cardio and resistance training when discussing "over-training." Heck, you can even add energy balance into the "systemic bundle."

I wouldn't use "sore muscles" as the primary indicator of over-training either. Rather, a reduction in performance is the real indicator. For instance, in the weight room, if you find yourself incapable of lifting weights for reps that were once "doable" for you, chances are you are hitting an over-reached state.

Over-reaching isn't necessarily a bad thing. It is simply a "build-up" of fatigue. Training with weights, running, dieting.... these are all stresses. As you continually stress the body, you certainly accumulate fatigue.

Over-reaching is inevitable in a properly designed program. And it is good if you take advantage of it. In order to do this, you need to modify aspects of your "method" in order to allow time to supercompensate.

Think about when you are sick. Illness is a systemic stress to your system. You feel run down. Eventually, as the illness fades, you usually feel better than before you were sick for a period of time.

Or, if you have been weight lifting for any appreciable length of time, you may have taken a break from the weight room for a week or two. Upon returning, you find that your strength has actually increased.

This is supercompensation.

The problem occurs when people don't manage their fatigue properly. They push far past the point of over-reached. This is when you see the over-trained state, which is ultimately a crappy place to be as it can take months to years for your body to recover. Another term for this is under-performance syndrome, because that is one of the major symptoms of it, you under-perform.

This is a holistic point of view, where ultimately there is central, peripheral nervous system changes, and local muscular changes. I don't think you are thinking in terms of this. You are thinking only muscular changes, which is a minor variable in the equation.

You are correct in that it does matter how intensely you are pushing yourself. And what is intense for one, might not be intense enough to lead to an over-trained state, immediately. I would guess that most people on this forum are not pushing themselves to the point where managing fatigue is as important a concept as it is to the serious strength athlete or competitor.

But I still like to get the facts straight.

As for your exact program, you could do moderate cardio every single day. Would I recommend it? Certainly not to most. If you can comfortably fit it into your schedule and enjoy doing it.... have at it.

And over-training aside, your body still needs breaks.
 
Thanks for the writeup on overtraining. Clear and informative.

I agree with you that most people aren't pushing themselves hard enough that managing fatigue is a huge issue. I think this is where some of the confusion lies for me. There are so many variables and advice that might be true for an athlete isn't quite true for an average person.

I remember how hard I used to exercise when I was competing. I find it extremely difficult to muster up the same level of intensity now. I say I'm doing HIIT training, but I'm sure the intensity pales in comparison to the HIIT training of a real athlete.

At this point, I guess all I can do is try out my regimen, see how it works for me and make modifications as I go.
 
I don't have a problem with your program, aside from the fact that you are training each muscle group only once per week wrt resisting training.
 
I agree with you, but I added HIIT training to my regimen fairly recently. Some of my muscles are taking longer than expected to recover properly for another weight lifting workout.

I like using different machines for my HIIT workouts. Similar to a weight lifting workout, I have to factor in muscle recovery for the next day. For example, I did a HIIT workout on my rower a couple days ago and my lower back muscles are still complaining a bit.

Once my body gets used to it, I'll be able to adjust my regimen again to allow for more heavy resistance training.
 
fervor said:
I agree with you, but I added HIIT training to my regimen fairly recently. Some of my muscles are taking longer than expected to recover properly for another weight lifting workout.

I like using different machines for my HIIT workouts. Similar to a weight lifting workout, I have to factor in muscle recovery for the next day. For example, I did a HIIT workout on my rower a couple days ago and my lower back muscles are still complaining a bit.

Once my body gets used to it, I'll be able to adjust my regimen again to allow for more heavy resistance training.
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I understand but you are still wrong. If weight loss is your goal, this is primarily driven by your nutrition. So that is of highest priority. Next in line is a PROPER resistance training program to preserve as much muscle as possible. This also adds ot the energy deficit nicely with it's effect on EPOC. Lastly is cardio, HIIT being part of this.

As you can see, you have moved cardio up the ladder of importance replacing resistance training. Not sure about your nutrition.
 
Sorry, I'm not disagreeing with you at all. I agree with you 100% about what my priorities should be.

But I'm not quite sure what you are suggesting I do right now. I didn't think I was prioritizing cardio higher than resistance. Resistance is my priority. It comes first in my cycle, when I'm the most rested. Resistance, HIIT, resistance, HIIT, rest.

I wasn't considering the moderate intensity cardio I was talking about in the beginning of this thread as making that much impact.

What do you suggest I do instead of what I described in my first post? How do I change what I'm doing to make it proper? Resistance, resistance, HIIT, rest?
 
fervor said:
I agree with you, but I added HIIT training to my regimen fairly recently. Some of my muscles are taking longer than expected to recover properly for another weight lifting workout.

I like using different machines for my HIIT workouts. Similar to a weight lifting workout, I have to factor in muscle recovery for the next day. For example, I did a HIIT workout on my rower a couple days ago and my lower back muscles are still complaining a bit.

Once my body gets used to it, I'll be able to adjust my regimen again to allow for more heavy resistance training.
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This post is why I said I said you are re-arranging the order of things. Read your words again and you should understand. :) Particularly the bolded.

And I might add, I don't like what I originally said to you. I believe I said, "you are still wrong" in my previous post. I apologize. There really isn't a right or wrong. But there is certainly an optimal, which is what I am trying to describe to you.

Lastly, it seems like you are trying to get a "program" out of me, which I really hate prescribing. I more like to teach theory and explanation and let you use that to build a "method" that suits you.

With that said, you would be better served in terms of muscle maintenance and optimal recovery periods by utilizing a full-body approach to your weight training. Right now you have it down as one upper day and one lower day.

Instead, do 2-3 full body workouts each week. If you want to stick with two, that is completely fine. It doesn't take much to preserve muscle mass.

These parameters will suit your goal, assuming you are choosing the right kinds of exercise and concentrating on strength more than anything.

And one last point, then I will shut up! You said above that you do different kinds of HIIT that serve as "weight training" sessions. Not so much. Weight training facilitates muscle maintenance while dieting. That is it. It also adds a bit of energy expenditure too.

This muscle maintenance is optimally achieved by lifting heavy. HIIT would not be equivalent to heavy resistance training.
 
Oh, heh. The problem was my very poorly worded post. Reading my post that you quoted, I can see how you thought what you did. The way I wrote it, it made it seem like I was referring to my HIIT workouts as resistance training, which I am not. Sorry about that.

I can understand why you'd be wary of giving out a specific program recommendations. No problem. Since you thought mine was suboptimal, I figured you had some specific reasons why.

Doing full body workouts is a great suggestion. I'm so used to doing 2 day splits that I didn't consider it.

Thanks for all the great advice and information.
 
fervor said:
Oh, heh. The problem was my very poorly worded post. Reading my post that you quoted, I can see how you thought what you did. The way I wrote it, it made it seem like I was referring to my HIIT workouts as resistance training, which I am not. Sorry about that.

I can understand why you'd be wary of giving out a specific program recommendations. No problem. Since you thought mine was suboptimal, I figured you had some specific reasons why.

Doing full body workouts is a great suggestion. I'm so used to doing 2 day splits that I didn't consider it.

Thanks for all the great advice and information.
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You are welcome. :)
 
I love this discussion.

I have gone to quite a few weight loss sites and they say you should work do cardio 6x a week and lift weight 3 x. To lose weight work outs should be60-90 minutes. That is too much for me! I end up burnt out.

At first I would quilty taking a rest day, but now...I'll even take 2.

I have lowered my cardio to 40 mins instead of 60. With occaisionally longer jog/walks just because I feel like it that day. I find I can maintain a better intensity at 40 mins and I just feel better.

Thanks for the cool discussion,
lace
 
lace_mayhem said:
I love this discussion.

I have gone to quite a few weight loss sites and they say you should work do cardio 6x a week and lift weight 3 x. To lose weight work outs should be60-90 minutes. That is too much for me! I end up burnt out.
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Anytime someone is telling you that, "You must do it like this in order to lose weight, tell them to shut their traps." There is no set right or wrong way and the "set program mentality" is a trap in and of itself.

Sure, some consistency is required, but assuming that it is a rigid guideline that is not "moldable" to you is a huge trap. What works for you is what works for you.

At first I would quilty taking a rest day, but now...I'll even take 2.

I have lowered my cardio to 40 mins instead of 60. With occaisionally longer jog/walks just because I feel like it that day. I find I can maintain a better intensity at 40 mins and I just feel better.
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I lift weights 3 times per week, no consecutive days, and do 3 steady state cardio sessions per week, currently. That is it.
 
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