Fitness Tips Body Blog

As I discussed in my previous post, I had been going full bore with my new weight training program for longer than I should have and it finally caught up to me. What I needed was to let my muscles rest, recover and grow.

So, I did manage to stay out of the gym for an entire week. I worked out on a Friday and then didn’t hit the weights again until the next Saturday.

I also revamped my training split. While I added a day to my schedule so that I was now going to hit the weights four days a week instead of three, I was changing my body part split so that I was now going to hit each body part only once every seven days instead of once every five days as I had been doing for awhile.

My new weight training split looks like this:

Monday

• Chest
• Calves
• Abs

Tuesday

• Back
• Forearms

Thursday

• Legs (Quads and Hamstrings)

Friday

• Shoulders
• Biceps
• Triceps

Last Saturday I started with a break-in workout for my shoulders, biceps and triceps. This would normally be a Friday workout but I wanted that extra day out of the gym before starting again. This past week was my first full week back in the gym after taking that week off. It was a very solid break-in week with my strength actually going up after taking that week off.

Obviously, I needed the recuperation time for my muscles.

Everything feels great, except for my chest. I’m going to take a little longer to break in my chest exercises before going all out again. My chest has always been quicker to overtrain than any of my other muscle groups.

As I discussed in my previous post, I had been going full bore with my new weight training program for longer than I should have and it finally caught up to me. What I needed was to let my muscles rest, recover and grow.

So, I did manage to stay out of the gym for an entire week. I worked out on a Friday and then didn’t hit the weights again until the next Saturday. I also revamped my training split. While I added a day to my schedule so that I was now going to hit the weights four days a week instead of three, I was changing my body part split so that I was now going to hit each body part only once every seven days instead of once every five days as I had been doing for awhile.

My new weight training split looks like this:

Monday

• Chest
• Calves
• Abs

Tuesday

• Back
• Forearms

Thursday

• Legs (Quads and Hamstrings)

Friday

• Shoulders
• Biceps
• Triceps

Last Saturday I started with a break-in workout for my shoulders, biceps and triceps. This would normally be a Friday workout but I wanted that extra day out of the gym before starting again.

This past week was my first full week back in the gym after taking that week off. It was a very solid break-in week with my strength actually going up after taking that week off. Obviously, I needed the recuperation time for my muscles. Everything feels great, except for my chest. I’m going to take a little longer to break in my chest exercises before going all out again. My chest has always been quicker to overtrain than any of my other muscle groups.

First off, it’s been awhile, I know! The hectic pace of the holidays has finally slowed and I can go back to making regular posts to the blog. If you follow my newsletters Fast Mass Tips , Fat Loss Secrets Revealed you know all about my big charity bike ride at the end of September each year. And you probably know that I weighed 161 pounds at the beginnig of October, 2006, when I went into muscle building and weight gain mode with my weight training program.

I’ve gone full bore for about 3 and a half months.

In that time I’ve taken my weight from 161 pounds to 186 pounds, almost all of it muscle.

Even still, there’s a difference between what I did and what I should’ve done.

After about 6 to 8 weeks, I should’ve had a really light week or even taken a full week off from the gym. But I didn’t because I was making such great progress.

Hey, it’s much easier for me to tell my clients to take time off than it is for me to follow my own advice. I’m human after all, and I let my motivation and enthusiasm get the best of me. So now, it’s time to dial things down. I finally hit that proverbial wall. If you’ve been training any length of time, you know the difference between having a bad day and not being motivated and actually being ovetrained. I’m clealry in an overtrained state right now. I feel it deep in my chest, back and legs.

I tried going a little easier this past week but my body is past that. I need to get out of the gym for a full week. It will be tough to do as I love working out but my body needs the time to rest and recover. It’s going to be a long week. I’ll keep you posted as to whether or not I manage to take my own advice and stay away from the gym for a week.