taking a week off gym during cycle

[goku_kakarot77]

man this sucks im ON and i need to take a week off, im burned out really badly overtrained, mild headaches flu symptons, loss in fullness , loss in strength and bit in size and no motivation loss in apetite pumps not as strong, anxious, depressed, pretty much all the overtraining symptoms, i blame my self for doing heavy 6x week, im cutting it back to 4x week ,how do you guys cope with not going gym for a week? i know its going to be good for my body but i cant stop thinking about the gym lol, has this happened to any bros here and did you hit the gym like a demon when u came back? changes in strength and size?

peace

 

[10001110101]

dude just chill, by day 4 off you'll start feeling better and you'll thank yourself immensely.

 

[whitemahon]

I'm willing to bet that most of the guys on here are overtrained. A week off will do you good. Two weeks. . . Different story. Just listen to your body bro.

 

[nzrodney]

Too much sex

 

[bw1]

A week won't hurt you bro

 

[goku_kakarot77]

Too much sex

lmao will take a break from that too its too much on my cns

 

[Cardinal Slin]

actually quite a few people will take a week - two weeks off once every 6 months. It isn't such a bad thing and you will probably go back stronger with more energy.

 

[swole]

i took it easy last week - lifted 3 days and i plan to do the same this week

i feel so much better, as a matter of fact i might do 3 days for another week then put it back to 4

 

[bluetoolpaul]

I week is no prob. Keep eating right and you'll feel better and grow more when you get back.

 

[advanced-stealth]

A week off is often a good thing. Return well rested and ready to go.

 

[Crysis6]

I just had to take a week off, and i came back with a light week after that. I was feeling drained, I felt like I wasnt getting good workouts because of it, and my shoulder was acting up again. Ive taken it somewhat lightly this week, but I think by tomorrow I will be ready to go back at it. I do feel smaller and less defined, but thats just the way it goes. I noticed I had almost a sore feeling a day or 2 after some of my workouts when I got back from the week off. Actually felt kinda good. Dont worry too much, listen to your body.

 

[sensational]

Take the week off bro. Listening to your body is the best thing you can do, you will thank yourself!

 

[goku_kakarot77]

bump

 

[needtogetaas]

man this sucks im ON and i need to take a week off, im burned out really badly overtrained, mild headaches flu symptons, loss in fullness , loss in strength and bit in size and no motivation loss in apetite pumps not as strong, anxious, depressed, pretty much all the overtraining symptoms, i blame my self for doing heavy 6x week, im cutting it back to 4x week ,how do you guys cope with not going gym for a week? i know its going to be good for my body but i cant stop thinking about the gym lol, has this happened to any bros here and did you hit the gym like a demon when u came back? changes in strength and size?

peace

A week off even during a cycle can be a good thing. In the last week I only worked out once. I will be back in the gym tomorrow and I know I will crush some weights.

 

[the_alcatraz]

I take a week off every 4 months. It's good for you. Like needto said, even during cycle, it won't kill you. You will not get small in a week lol dnt worry

 

[HAYEZ]

on i couldnt imagoine takign a weeek off...but if i were you and laid around for 2 days or so i bet you would feel 110

 

[Greatercow]

lol i have a hard time not going on my rest days thaat sometimes late at night i cheat and do some pushups cuz im feeling too guilty

 

[goku_kakarot77]

what do u guys do on your time off, it sucks so bad

 

[sensational]

what do u guys do on your time off, it sucks so bad

Golf, clean, do things I typically put off. Think of new ways to make money etc.

 

[airsmith2k]

been trainin 6 yrs non stop now most i ever took off was 2 days and i feel great

 

[Tatyana]

Article on over-training by IronAddict

Overtraining is defined as doing more training than your body can recover from, thus reducing or stopping size/strength adaptations from occurring.

Everyone has a finite capacity to recover from the demands of lifting weights.

What is not usually realized is just how intense these demands are on your metabolism and how much individual response to this varies. Some people are very tolerant of high loads of both volume and frequency.


This means they can go to the gym more often and do many sets and movements and still have the ability to adapt and make size/strength gains from this load. Guess who these people generally are? Yup, they are the huge guys you see in the mags that win the contests. Unfortunately they are the role models that most people base their training on.

What is failed to be understood is that unless you have the same capacity to recover from training as they do you will overtrain badly and not grow. OVERTRAINING IS THE SINGLE BIGGEST REASON MOST TRAINEES MAKE SLOW OR NO PROGRESS!

OK, so now that we know that, what is undertraining? It's simple and quite frankly is not usually the problem. Undertraining is not imposing an adequate stress on your musculature by not forcing it to more than it is accustomed to. Unless you constantly force your muscles to do a task they cannot do you have not provided adequate stimulus for growth. "Pumpers" are most often guilty of this.

They go to the gym and do their 3 sets of ten of three movements and as long as they get their sets in and achieve a good pump they are happy.

Unfortunately they don't send the growth signal to their bod this way. Never attempting more then you are capable of will leave you stalemated. As far as not hitting a muscle often enough, this is just not a factor. Almost everyone hits a muscle at least once a week and this is fine and even hitting a muscle every 9-10 days will work. It takes much longer for adaptation to occur than most people realize. After you work a muscle and provide stimulus for growth two things must occur. First recovery, then adaptation (growth).


So how do you know if your overtraining? Well the real barometer should be your training weights. You should be seeing increases in about every movement from week to week. These increases need not be big but unless they are occurring you need to revisit your program and make some changes. Adding one rep, or 2.5 lbs to a movement is significant but unless it is occurring you just repeated the same workout as last time and as long as you are doing the same weights your gonna have the same body.

VERY LITTLE VOLUME IS NEEDED TO STIMULATE GAINS! Using back as an example if you are doing one movement for width and one for thickness you have it covered. Why add more? If you do your warm-ups and then do 2 all out sets to failure you have surely stimulated growth, why do more? Remember you grow proportionately to the degree you do not overtrain (of coarse without proper nutrition NOTHING will happen but that's another story).

There is a wonderful magazine called “Hardgainer” that is written catering to drug-free genetically typical people. Why would that be of interest to us gear-heads? Well this mag has AWESOME examples that illustrates just how little training is actually needed for growth and how people that NEVER made gains get big by training within their ability to recover between workouts.

If you are not making significant progress on your current training program HOW DO YOU EVER SUPPOSE IT'S GOING TO “MAGICALLY” ONE DAY START WORKING? Everyone can grow off of simple routines done not more than 3-4 days a week (for many people 4 days is too much) but very few can tolerate lots of exercises and lots of sets done many days a week.

Adding more movements and sets is RARELY the answer if your progress is not satisfactory. If it's not working REDUCE, if progress is not forthcoming reduce again, and again until you are growing.

SOME PEOPLE HAVE VERY LITTLE ABILITY TO TOLERATE HEAVY TRAINING! They can still achieve great results but have to abbreviate their training radically to be able to recover.

WHO CARES IF THE APPROACH IS RADICAL AS LONG AS THE RESULTS ARE? OVERTRAINING = SLOW OR NO GROWTH EOD. Don't get trapped in the OT rut.

It is far better to do a program that is basic and allows you to make progress on a few movements than one designed to “hit the muscle from all angles” and not grow.


Iron Addict

 

[cobracock1979]

I have a tendancy to overtrain but when I make the effort I always feel stronger and my muscles feel a lot fuller

 

[goku_kakarot77]

I have a tendancy to overtrain but when I make the effort I always feel stronger and my muscles feel a lot fuller

what do u mean when u say you make the effort? are u talking about taking time off?

 

[nzrodney]

If I dont overtrain, I cant get in all my body parts!!

 

[goku_kakarot77]

If I dont overtrain, I cant get in all my body parts!!

i wish i could cope with overtraining but my CNS dont like it lol

 

[boychimalochi]

I think alot of people have high expectations of how they want to look and they take everything to the extreme, training, diet and juice. Don't get me wrong, its important to eat well and train hard, but I think it is always best to listen to your body, take a break and you will reap the rewards.

 

[goku_kakarot77]

cant wait tomorrow im back in gym, i have gone mush better, sleeping like 10 hours a day witch i could not do before, washed out feeling has faded away. and motivation to crush the weights has gone up just cant wait ..