To which I reply, “Overtraining? What means this…overtraining? SHENANIGANS!”All kidding aside much evidence currently suggest the human body is capable of resisting TREMENDOUS stress (WAAAY more than the typical gym rat creates in a workout setting) before succumbing to the perils of overtraining and his diabolical minions central nervous system (CNS) and adrenal fatigue! As for injury, as always use your head and don’t do boneheaded exercises you are incapable of performing. In other words, seek professional help and find a good trainer to work with (I cringe as I say that seeing how most so-called ‘trainers’ aren’t worth the paper their much heralded certificates are printed on!)
I don’t want to spend too much time on the how and why this all works but sufficed to say it works very well. And I cannot overstate the importance of exercise selection, placement order and the rest period timing. I’ll explain more when I provide a sample later.
TBT Cons:
As I mentioned above, exercise selection is extremely important. If all you did was choose your favorite movements, or only ‘pulling’ lifts for example you’d rapidly suffer from the aforementioned ill effects. To avoid this I like to use a simple strategy of push/pull or contrasting lifts. In other words my workout might look something like this.
1(A) – Deadlift
1(B) – Bench Press
2(A) – Chin Up
2(B) – Skull-Crusher
3(A) – Shoulder Press
3(B) – Calf Press
[Editor's Note: All (A) and (B) combinations of exercises included in the above denote a superset and should be trained one after the other]
To be clear I offer these only as examples. Feel free to mix it up with movements you might prefer. I only offer these points to consider in turn:
- Try to place the more difficult or involved movements earlier in the queue. Remember, no wrist curls you jack-ass!
- Use variations of each movement from day to day. No one says you have to stay with the identical movement every workout. In fact the system works better when you strategically vary stimulus and motor neuron recruitment from one workout to the next. You might want to try a template of two or three similar workouts you can switch up day to day.
As mentioned, I’ve worked up to as many as two total body workouts a day. The trick is to vary some of the loading and volume variables throughout each day and the entire week. For example I might train heavy narrow stance deadlifts in the morning, then I switch up to lighter sumo stance style of deads in the evening.
I hope I’ve provided enough of a template to work with here. As always don’t stick to this verbatim, use your head and go for it.
M.