 Ladies and gentlemen, Salamac back with another video. Today we're covering a couple topics online. I do this often on Twitch, we're streaming all the time and what I'll do is I'll take different articles or different topics that I find online and we'll just open the discussion, talk about it. I'll give you my thoughts. Sometimes they're as specific as this one, sometimes they're more general and we chat, we have a good time. So if you wanna get involved with that, I'm Twitch streaming five times a week, Sunday through Thursday. Be sure to give this video a thumbs up. Today we're gonna talk about kind of the age old question of over-training, under-training, over-recovering, under-recovering, whatever it might be. This article is 10 signs that you're probably lifting too much. Let's dig in, let's straight dig in, my fam. Here are some signs that you're lifting too much. Number one, your form is off. Lifting weights can be tiring on your body and as you lift more often and heavier weights, your form might suffer. Your form can start to suffer if you're lifting too much because your body will be completely fatigued so you will not be able to move properly. Therefore, movement patterns will start to suffer. Yes, that is possible. I think this is obviously very general and it depends on your goals and when I coach people or hopefully you guys that have followed me for a while or if you know anything about training, if we're focusing on lifting a heavier load, getting stronger, progressive overload, whether it be for the goal of overall strength and performance, athletics or aesthetics, I think when we're doing a more complex movement like a deadlift squat, let alone a clean and jerk or a snatch, what we're trying to focus on is that movement, not the shorting the rest periods and really pushing ourselves to the limit. If we do shorten the rest periods, we'll have a more controllable weight, maybe 60, 70%. But if we're going heavy, right, a heavy training day and we're trying to cause a stimulus and adaptation to strength training, we're gonna take longer breaks. What I recommend for most people, right, if we're handling 70, 80, 90% and our overall goal with a heavy deadlift session is five sets of three. In between those sets of three, we're taking as long as it needs for you to perform the next set perfectly, right? There's no rush in the gym when we're focusing on performance. When we're talking about a bicep curl, a more simple movement, a single joint movement, not a compound movement, sure, we can kind of speed up the rest periods. One, because our bicep can probably recover a little bit faster than a whole lift like a deadlift. And two, it's not that big of a deal if I fail a bicep curl. One, they'll still be able to recover. It's a smaller muscle. Two, the repercussions of failing it are a lot less and the injury of doing a bicep curl on a preacher curl machine go way down. So I do agree to some extent, although I think most people don't know those simple factors of progressive overload, of compound movements, and when we should do set of 100 deadlifts, I just think there's no real point. The risk to reward is not there for me. If we're trying to get our heart rate up while simultaneously stimulating some muscle hypertrophy or some strength training, I think you're better off separating those. I think you're better off rather than doing 100 deadlifts in a row in as few sets as you can with 50%. Although the load is light, again, they are right in the article. The more fatigue you get, the less likely you are gonna have good movement patterns and good technique on that lift. So why don't we just do five sets of three heavy deadlifts and then afterwards, if we want, we could do some kettlebell swings or we could do a sled push or something else loaded conditioning. That's a lot safer. It's a lot less likely you're gonna injure yourself doing a loaded push on a sled than it is doing high, high, high rep deadlifts. And that's just my personal opinion and my personal philosophy of training. So number one, I think we can take out of here because we can just x-nae that and we can work around it. And that's the kind of the idea of having a big old tool set and programming differently. Number two, you aren't giving your body enough time to recover between sessions. If you're constantly going to work at the gym or lifting at home, it's almost a guarantee that your body isn't getting the recovery it needs to rest and perform at its optimal level. It's important to give yourself enough complete rest days between very strenuous workouts. If you're overtraining, your body will have gone through so much stress, it'll warn you to allow yourself up to three weeks of full resting recovery. Now, another one I probably disagree with. Overtraining or not giving yourself enough time to recover between sessions is all based on the fitness level or what you've been doing over the last couple of months. If we haven't trained at all or we're training, let's say we're training one time a week, full body workout. And now all of a sudden, we try to go seven times a week. Yes, you're probably gonna get injured or you're probably gonna overtrain, which the repercussions or the results of overtraining are large and vast and depend on the individual. But this is true. This is 1000% true. But if you follow a good program progressive overload and get your fitness to a level that you need to get to before you do this, I think it's unlikely. There's Olympic weight lifters that are doing 12 sessions within seven days, if not more. And that's not that they went from zero to 12 a week. That's not that they automatically went to double days. It's that they slowly progress there. Maybe they're doing three times a week training for six months. Then they're doing five times a week for six months. And then now they're doing one, two a day a week and six other days during the week. And then eventually they built up their fitness, what the stimulus adapted to the stimulus they're giving themselves in the training that they can now handle that workload. And also within a session, you have to handle the workload via how much volume you're handling and the intensities you're lifting at. But I kind of think that that's just also wrong. I thought we were gonna be more on the same page based on the first time I read this, but they're actually just wrong. Football players are doing plenty of two a days. NBA players are playing full games every other day, let alone training weights in the weight room a little bit, plus the travel on airplanes, hotels, lack of sleep, and they're still not breaking down all the time. Sure, injuries can happen no matter what, but they don't necessarily over train. Over train is kind of a serious thing and it is possible. But again, if you have some kind of plan progression, you're not gonna over train that simply. Here's another one, your heart rate is changing. Have you noticed yourself holding your breath while you exercise? Specifically, do you hold your breath while lifting? When someone lifts a heavier weight than they're used to, they'll hold their breath. It can feel almost natural, like a coping mechanism. Holding your breath while lifting can actually lead to serious health problems referred to as the valesalva maneuver that can cause various changes, including changes to the heart rate and blood pressure. Boys, girls, I'm a little confused. They're saying valesalva's result of naturally holding your breath and being not ready to lift the loader about to lift. I hate that even this is some kind of professional trainer being interviewed here. I hate that there's so much misinformation. Wherever this person got trained or learned on the internet that valesalva is not a positive. I mean, the valesalva maneuver is okay. It's a movement we use to stabilize the spine under a heavy compound load or any load really to protect our spine and stabilize our midline during exercise. It's okay. They says it causes changes to the heart rate and blood pressure. This is also okay. If you've been cleared by a doctor and you're totally healthy, yes, your blood pressure will raise on the micro during training, right? It's chronic high blood pressure that's unhealthy. If your blood pressure's high all the time for years, now we have issues. If it raises for an hour while you're training, that is totally normal if you have a healthy lifestyle and you're a healthy individual. Same with your heart rate. It says it causes various changes in a negative term that your heart rate goes up while you're lifting weights. Yes, your heart rate goes up while you're lifting weights. Yes, your heart rate goes up when you do any activity. That's the point of the heart, right? We're sending more oxygen to our blood because we're using more energy. Like that's yes. That's not negative. That's why it happens. That point is the worst point I've ever read in any article on the internet. And this is a reputable website. I don't want to put them on blasts but this is a very reputable website almost as famous as Google. It's almost as famous as Google where I'm reading this just to put you guys in a concept of or a perspective of where I'm getting these things. I'm not on some obscure no-name website. I'm on arguably top 10 biggest websites on the internet. Just went to the health section and found this article. And that's kind of upsetting to me. Actually, it's very upsetting to me that these buzzwords and they just turned Valsalva to be this negative thing and they just turned heart rate and blood pressure. They don't understand basic exercise. Man. That's wild to me. You've become so focused on point number four or whatever on. None of those points, all those points suck, especially that last one. You've become so focused on fitness that you started to neglect other aspects of your health. Greasy potato chips, candy and even your favorite breakfast seal contain ingredients your body struggled to digest. That's because overly processed packaged foods contain many additives to keep the products palatable and shelf stable. However, these chemicals, nitrates, fats, substitutes and phosphoric acids can be indigestible and potentially irritating to your gut lining. Exercise is an important of one's health but things like a well-balanced diet and getting enough rest factor into your overall well-being too. When you start to over train and focus less attention on nutrition and sleep. See, I just think that's unlikely. Yeah, should we not eat tons of processed food? Yeah, probably for general health, longevity and feeling better, we probably shouldn't eat tons of processed food. Having some here and there, I don't think it's that big of a deal. But I disagree with, I think if someone's consistently and I'm not talking about for a week, I'm talking about weeks and months and years of focusing in on their training and becoming better in the gym, a healthier person by lifting weights and doing cardiovascular exercise that they're more likely to then focus in on their nutrition and their sleep. I don't think it goes the other way. I don't think that even makes sense logically. And even if it did, let's say all of America eats this processed food that's so bad for your gut lining and digestion. But then 10% of them decide to argue, excuse me, 10% of them decide to exercise. They're still better off eating all the processed and junk food, but exercising, then this group that's not exercising in the processed foods, right? That is complete illogical to say that. And like I said, I do think if you really spend time to maybe get a trainer or do some research on lifting, do some research on strength training and programming and what's healthy and you're dedicated to the gym and you've built it into your schedule now that you've done it for a couple of months, you are more likely to focus on your sleep and focus on your nutrition. None of these points so far have won me over. Don't assume that because you're lift, oh, sorry, example number five or whatever we're doing. Medical emergencies that can also be the result of overtraining. This is true, but it's just such a low percentage and I'll explain why. Don't assume that because you're lifting a lot and often that your muscles are going to thrive. The opposite is true. Aggressive overtraining can break down muscle rather than build it up. This is a condition referred to rabdomialysis. Maybe you guys have heard of this of rabdo, rabdomialysis. The product of this is excessive breakdown of the muscle tissue can overwhelm the kidneys and lead to damage or even failure and it can cause significant pain and swelling in the affected area. This is true, rabdomialysis is a real thing and rabdo happens through working out and working out too aggressively. But again, this goes to the example of I've never done a chin up in my life and now I'm trying to do a hundred chin ups in a row out of nowhere. I might get some rabdomialysis potentially in my lats, in my arms, whatever it might be. But if you think logically about anything in life, my 15-year-old needs to learn to drive, right? My 15-year-old needs to learn to drive and I'm gonna teach them how to drive. I'm not gonna throw them in a Ferrari and tell them to go 200 miles per hour, right? Because no risk goes up of this kid crashing because he's never driven before and now he's in a high performance vehicle and he's trying to go 200 miles per hour. Rather than, I'm gonna teach this kid how to drive. I'm gonna put him in a safe, slow car and a controlled environment in a parking lot and we're gonna see if he can even just steer straight. Less likely to get injured and that's kind of the same with training. If we go zero to 100, yes, injuries are gonna happen and rabdo is a real thing and it is potentially possible. But if you train and slowly progress, if you've never worked out in your life, go walk twice a week for 10 minutes and then a couple weeks later, walk three times a week and then four times a week and then five times a week and now you can do half an hour, now you can do 45 minutes. Rather than, I've never walked in my life, now I'm gonna do 1,000 push-ups a day. Yes, something could happen and that is technically overtraining. That's a very extreme form of overtraining. Point number, whatever. You're exhausted mentally as well as physically. You expel a ton of energy when you lift so it makes sense that your entire body would feel exhausted as a result of lifting too much. Your energy levels may be extremely low and your body is not able to function and add it optimally. What I don't like about this article is that they're trying to, it sounds like they're trying to deter people from training. It literally sounds like they're trying to deter people from fitness. Yes, you're gonna be fatigued when you train. Yes, you're gonna be sore when you train. You're going to be tired when you train. You're going, these things happen. But the issue only arises is, now say we've already trained for six months and we have a really good schedule. We're training three times a week. We're going for a walk once a week. Now all of a sudden, we're exhausted. We've been doing fine and now we're exhausted. Now, yeah, something might be up. A drastic change might come and now you might need to check with your doctor, check your schedule if something's wrong. But if you have never worked out, you've never worked out and we started on a nice three-day program and you're feeling a little bit tired for the first month, that is normal. You went from doing nothing and eating potato chips to now training three times a week. You may be tired. That's okay to be tired. It's okay, it happens. I'm tired. I had a really hard squat sessions yesterday. I squatted the heaviest weight I have in a very long time. I am tired and that's okay. My legs are a little bit sore and that's okay. That is normal. That shouldn't deter you from working out because the more you do it, the more you adapt and the less tired and sore you get. This is starting to upset me, boys. I didn't want to get into this, but now I'm upset. You're having trouble falling and staying asleep. Research says exercise is good for sleep. Too much exercise can actually ruin your sleep cycle. If your body produces an overabundance of stress hormones, this can interfere with your ability to relax and fall asleep. Stress hormones are designed to keep the body alert in an excited, t-t-t-tory state and as you can imagine, this does not bode well for sleep. Yeah. If you take a bunch of caffeine and you do a max effort deadlift at eight o'clock at night and your adrenals are through the roof and stresses through the roof, it's gonna be hard to sleep at night. And I do agree. Some fatigue, you know, after a hard day of training and work, it may be a little harder to sleep, but the more you do it, the more you'll get used to it. And I don't think that having an inconvenient couple nights of sleep means that you should just not train. If you're severely over-training, again, let's say you're training five times a week, you're a competitive power lifter and then you really turn up the notch on the volume and the intensity and now you can't sleep at night, that's something you need to look to. That's different. That's actual over-training in the context of being an athlete, an elite you trained for five years, five times a week, now you go through a real hard training session, now you should look at sleep and some of these things as feedback on how to control your programming. But for the average person reading this, it literally just sounds like a deterrent from the weight room. Your muscles are starting to break down and making them prone to injury. By lifting heavy weights all the time, you end up damaging your joints. Your joints act as a hinge when doing the movements while working out so you're constantly putting heavy stress on your joints. In other words, when you lift too much, you overwork your muscles and joints and they become weaker and susceptible to injury. This literally is in a fitness and health category of a huge, huge, huge website and they're telling people not to lift because it's too much stress on your joints. That is absolute garbage. If you've never lifted and now you're trying to pull 500 pounds, that's probably too much stress on your muscles and joints and you'll probably get injured. If you slowly progress your joints, your ligaments, your bones, resistance training is great for bone density. It's great for muscle hypertrophy. It's great for your ligaments and tendons. Those will slowly adapt with smaller phases of stimulus so that they're all stronger and all feel better. This is the opposite of what these people are saying. Last one, you're a plateauing. Many in the field believe that one of the symptoms of overtraining is a plateau followed by subsequent decrease in performance. The reason why being that when an athlete overtrains a group of muscles is being worked in the same exact ways and your body is no longer reaping the benefits. No, we need to train our bodies in the same ways with a controlled stimulus so that we can overload it, so that it can adapt and so that we can progress. They basically hint at, if you're doing bench press and you plateaued, maybe you should go and do pushups instead. That's gonna help your bench press. It doesn't work that way. We need to control as many factors and variables as we can. We need to control the frequency, the exercise selection, the sets, the reps, the volume and intensity. And then we can pinpoint what we need to progress on adding to one of these, slowly adding to one of these so that we can progress. If you've doing two days of three sets of five on the bench press at 70% and you no longer are gaining muscle or strength, let's go to three sets of six on one day, three sets of four on the other day, lower the load on the three sets of six, up the load on the three sets of four or add an extra bench day and now we're starting to progress. Sorry, that article sucked, but it just blows my mind still that all these buzz words and fitness professionals are spewing arguably garbage out to the world to some of the biggest websites and this just reaffirms why I do what I do here on YouTube. I'm trying to give you guys the best knowledge that I can from my experience in the strength conditioning, powerlifting, weight loss, nutrition world over the last 10 years, I've been lucky enough to train multiple level athletes from the very beginner, high school students, soccer mom to the elite powerlifters and professional athletes. I've been lucky enough to rub elbows with, interview, lift, hang out and be mentored by some of the best minds and athletes in the strength conditioning world and I'm gonna continue to do so until the real information ends up on these huge websites. I truly appreciate you guys. Give this thing a thumbs up, new videos every Monday and Wednesday and I'll catch you in the next one.