Theres a lot of chest excercises: flat, decline, incline benchpress, flyes, etc. I work the chest 2-3 times a week. Usually Incline one day, decline, flat different days. How should I spread out the excercises without overtraining? Is 3x8 press and 3x8 flyes too much the days i work the chest? Ok? Suggestions?
Working the chest
- Thread starter xmkatx
- Start date
You are overtraining. All of your chest exercises should be done on the same day. Lift heavy and go hard, but do not work chest again for a week. Your muscles grow when you rest, not when you are working out. There is no way your chest muscles are having enough time to repair and therefore grow. If you are lifting chest while the muscles are still sore from a previous workout, this could be damaging. More is not better. Without proper rest you will:
-not allow your elevated cortisol levels to return to normal
-not allow your suppressed testosterone levels to return to normal
-not allow your immune system to get stronger
-not allow your muscles to fully recover
-decrease your metabolism by suppressing T3 production
All of these things will lead to muscle loss and strength loss. No joke.
-not allow your elevated cortisol levels to return to normal
-not allow your suppressed testosterone levels to return to normal
-not allow your immune system to get stronger
-not allow your muscles to fully recover
-decrease your metabolism by suppressing T3 production
All of these things will lead to muscle loss and strength loss. No joke.
Some senior members on this site have said that 48 hours is sufficient for the muscles to recover. I usually give an extra day and im only usually sore the day after, not any later. Was i given wrong advice? I usually do full body workouts and a few mags I read said 2-3 times a week as well, and chad waterbury. Did i completely misinterpret the info?
whaaaat?..... Is this wrong information or something..... I am doing intense workout on my chest everyother day nonstop for the past 1 months..... So what your telling me is that if i drop it to 2 time a week instead of 3 i will get better results...... In that time i have increased my bench by 40lbs. So if i do 2 days per week on my chest i could increase faster??? I thought 48 hrs was good enough.....Toly, if you are used to working out each bodypart 3 times a week, then your body is conditioned to do this and the things that pw listed won't affect you like it would someone starting higher frequency training.
Cortisol levels and all that change depending on work capacity of each individual and are also related to nutritional/caloric intake, etc.
I will give you this...it's not always good to train balls-to-the-wall every single session of every single week. And you should not also have super high frequency and super high volume at the same time...one has to give with the other.
Typically 48-72 hours (relating to protein synthesis and all that fun stuff) is enough for a muscle group to recover. Remember, sometimes it's good to push yourself to promote a higher work capacity and sometimes it's better to back off a bit.
Cortisol levels and all that change depending on work capacity of each individual and are also related to nutritional/caloric intake, etc.
I will give you this...it's not always good to train balls-to-the-wall every single session of every single week. And you should not also have super high frequency and super high volume at the same time...one has to give with the other.
Typically 48-72 hours (relating to protein synthesis and all that fun stuff) is enough for a muscle group to recover. Remember, sometimes it's good to push yourself to promote a higher work capacity and sometimes it's better to back off a bit.
Try this...
pick one main pressing movement and work up to a heavy triple over 5 sets. For example, if my 1RM bench is 300, I might do
200X5, 220X5, 240X3, 255X3, 275X3
Then pick an assistance movement for 2-3 sets in the 8-12 rep range (ex:inc db press)
Then pick an isolation for 1-2 sets at 15-20 reps (ex:db flyes)
Come back 72 hours later and use this but change the movements, ex:
Push press as main, flat db bench as assistance, cable flyes as isolation
pick one main pressing movement and work up to a heavy triple over 5 sets. For example, if my 1RM bench is 300, I might do
200X5, 220X5, 240X3, 255X3, 275X3
Then pick an assistance movement for 2-3 sets in the 8-12 rep range (ex:inc db press)
Then pick an isolation for 1-2 sets at 15-20 reps (ex:db flyes)
Come back 72 hours later and use this but change the movements, ex:
Push press as main, flat db bench as assistance, cable flyes as isolation