OVER-TRAINING

Ric 'The Equalizer' Drasin

Ever since I can remember - back to the mid 60's - bodybuilders overtrained. I can remember spending 2 1/2 to 3 hours on just one training session...20 to 30 sets per body part was not unusual. And it was also not unusual to remain sore all the time. It was believed that if you weren't sore, you didn't train hard enough. It's a vicious cycle..You train too hard and the following day or two the muscle looks flat or smaller - and your body fat has increased. What happened?

You have killed the muscle temporarily. You wiped it out, so it retracted - almost like a turtle's head. This causes the muscle to hide under a layer of skin and body fat. The illusion is that you got fatter, but really the muscle got smaller. So in your mind you feel that you must not be training hard enough, and the next work out is even harder and longer. The next day the muscle is smaller and you look even fatter and flatter! Then the cycle begins again. Train harder, etc., etc., you know the rest. It's almost a sickness, not unlike anorexia. You have to find a happy medium. When I trained with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 70's, we would do split sessions. Chest/back in the morning and stomach, calves and forearms in the afternoon. Then we'd hit the beach and sleep the rest of the day. What a life! Yeah, we overtrained, but we made up for it by sleeping on the beach. And we didn't work either - Joe Weider was paying the bills and I was wrestling at night. Not many have that luxury.

One summer we trained so hard and it was so smoggy that Arnold rented an oxygen tank and kept it in the office at Gold's Gym. We would breath it in between heavy sets of squats. Steroids were a big factor in those days (and now), but that's another story later... When I think back of all the unnecessary hours we spent in the gym that could have been used more productively, I'd like to go back and redo them. These days, I hit the gym for 45 minutes to 1 hour tops. I do one body part a day and stomach, calves and forearms with different parts on different days. I've made the best progress ever, even at age 52. This schedule allows me plenty of time to recover and feel good for the next work out. You just want to stimulate the muscle not kill it. I once went to Hawaii for a week while I was wrestling, so I took a week off the weights. I came back more muscular and tighter because my body had a chance to catch up with itself and grow.

Take one body part for 3 or 4 exercises, 3 or 4 sets each and hit it for one work out. The next day take another body part, the third day another, and then take the fourth day off. On day five, pick it up again on the next body part. You will see a difference. You'll be stronger and get a better pump. You will be excited about your work out, not dreading the drudgery of having to be there (a sure symptom of overtraining). Take a look around the gym at people you see there everyday almost all day, or at least most of the day. Do they really ever change physically? NO! They don't know what they're doing so they're overtraining, thinking more is better.

Just remember an old saying "LESS IS MORE". That can apply to a lot of things in life, but it definitely applies to training.

Ric Drasin 'The Equalizer'