Seems I've been overtraining the past few weeks.... What should I do?

[TheFitnessLife4ever]

So yesterday I did shoulders and traps for almost 2 hours and woke up today and my shoulder joints fuckin killed me. I am glad that I took today off though and reflected on my training these past couple of weeks. Yesterday I probably did 50 sets of shoulders and realized these past few weeks ever since I ramped up the sets, my lifts have stayed the same. Btw, it's week 4 of my test e and dbol cycle(got done with dbol couple days ago). I talked to several people(pros) who told me that since im on anabolics that i can train twice as hard. I realize now that thats a false statement for the majority who arent genetic freaks. So what should I do now that I've established I've been overtraining?

[China_Wall]

So yesterday I did shoulders and traps for almost 2 hours and woke up today and my shoulder joints fuckin killed me. I am glad that I took today off though and reflected on my training these past couple of weeks. Yesterday I probably did 50 sets of shoulders and realized these past few weeks ever since I ramped up the sets, my lifts have stayed the same. Btw, it's week 4 of my test e and dbol cycle(got done with dbol couple days ago). I talked to several people(pros) who told me that since im on anabolics that i can train twice as hard. I realize now that thats a false statement for the majority who arent genetic freaks. So what should I do now that I've established I've been overtraining?

u CAN train twice as HARD, but NOT twice as MUCH

seems u don't take enough rest days bro... try to never train more than 3 days in a row, then a day rest... 2-on, 1-off is even better.

as for your shoulders... this is such an easy muscle group to overtrain as the shoulder area gets a lot of work on when training chest and some when doing back... my shoulders are all screwed up because of years of not listening to my body, now I only train them light/high reps and that's after chest on the same day

train hard, but train smart

eating is much more important than what u do in the gym...

[R1rider]

^^ this. like China said train twice as hard, but not twice as much

i personally like training eod, but i do squat, bench, deadlift, power cleans/press

for you 2 on and 1 off would be good

[TLF84]

I always go 2 on 1 off

[TheFitnessLife4ever]

u CAN train twice as HARD, but NOT twice as MUCH

seems u don't take enough rest days bro... try to never train more than 3 days in a row, then a day rest... 2-on, 1-off is even better.

as for your shoulders... this is such an easy muscle group to overtrain as the shoulder area gets a lot of work on when training chest and some when doing back... my shoulders are all screwed up because of years of not listening to my body, now I only train them light/high reps and that's after chest on the same day

train hard, but train smart

eating is much more important than what u do in the gym...

Gotcha. My diets been on point, just the training that's been some what of an excessive thing. I know everyone's body is different, but how many sets woul you say is a good number for shoulders lets say and what would be a max # of sets? Also, should I just get back to training tomorrow, or take a few more days off?

[jadakiss]

I agree with the vet china. Try to rest more.

[Teutonic]

How many set s per body part do you do....

Big ones..

little ones..

[TheFitnessLife4ever]

How many set s per body part do you do....

Big ones..

little ones..

For my legs and my back I do around 20-30 for each to hit all parts of muscle. Shoulders and traps 50+ sets(5-10 for traps). Chest I do about 20 sets, triceps and biceps I do maybe 10-20 sets max for each of those.

[RS1208]

holy shit bro 2hrs for traps and shoulders? honestly how much over kill can be going on there? I say take a few days off and rest.

[juced_porkchop]

So yesterday I did shoulders and traps for almost 2 hours and woke up today and my shoulder joints fuckin killed me. I am glad that I took today off though and reflected on my training these past couple of weeks. Yesterday I probably did 50 sets of shoulders and realized these past few weeks ever since I ramped up the sets, my lifts have stayed the same. Btw, it's week 4 of my test e and dbol cycle(got done with dbol couple days ago). I talked to several people(pros) who told me that since im on anabolics that i can train twice as hard. I realize now that thats a false statement for the majority who arent genetic freaks. So what should I do now that I've established I've been overtraining?

If you workout every day then YES.
dude you took a day off because you where sore? you dont normally?
you DONT grow int he gym you grow when you rest. dont EVER train more than 2 days in a row. I rec EOD (3-4days a week) and only hit the same spot ONE time a week.
if you do this and are still sore GOOD! because you will grow and not be overtraning. for most that get into this after a while its the REST they need t push on themselvs NOT the workout.

Good luck.

[juced_porkchop]

ALSO:
you shoudl not NBE ABLE to work out traps/delts for 2hrs
if you can then your not lifting heavy nuff. you shoudl be dead burnt out by 30-60min .
if your going 1hrs up the amount and drop it to around 1hr

[rikta]

quality not quantity bro

[TheFitnessLife4ever]

So what would be the limit as far as sets go in your guyses opinion?

[darkside06]

for shoulders? IMO...shoulders is all about the roundness. When i train shoulders i do maybe 3 sets of presses and then focus the rest on side and maybe some rear raises. traps i'll do a few sets of shrugs and maybe some face pulls buti don't do that many sets. 3 for presses, maybe 3-4 for sides and same for rear. 3 sets of shrugs or upright rows and my shoulders are fried.

[Matt0071]

ALSO:
you shoudl not NBE ABLE to work out traps/delts for 2hrs
if you can then your not lifting heavy nuff. you shoudl be dead burnt out by 30-60min .
if your going 1hrs up the amount and drop it to around 1hr

Totally agree, damn, 50 sets, thats ALOT of over kill bro, more harm done then good, as they state muscles only stay in a anabolic stage for 45-1 hour anything more is a burn!
As for me for shoulders i do 3 sets for my traps like shoulders shrugs ( heavy), and thats it, barbell press 3 sets, 3 sets db shoulder press ( and Rear delt fly) Super set " to get the blood flowing in the shoulder " , 3 sets of front raise, 3 sets of medial delt raise, thats pretty much it for shoulders, all together around 45-1 and i feel the burn and i am out!

Thus working out that much is a recipe for a shoulder injury, i think i would rather workout next week then to have a blown cuff or some shit and be out for months and months with a screw in your shoulder
seen to many people with bad shoulders for that reason!

[TheFitnessLife4ever]

Totally agree, damn, 50 sets, thats ALOT of over kill bro, more harm done then good, as they state muscles only stay in a anabolic stage for 45-1 hour anything more is a burn!
As for me for shoulders i do 3 sets for my traps like shoulders shrugs ( heavy), and thats it, barbell press 3 sets, 3 sets db shoulder press ( and Rear delt fly) Super set " to get the blood flowing in the shoulder " , 3 sets of front raise, 3 sets of medial delt raise, thats pretty much it for shoulders, all together around 45-1 and i feel the burn and i am out!

Thus working out that much is a recipe for a shoulder injury, i think i would rather workout next week then to have a blown cuff or some shit and be out for months and months with a screw in your shoulder
seen to many people with bad shoulders for that reason!

Wow man! I suppose I do need to lower the sets by a lot. I do train heavy as possible, but my energy doesn't seem to runout unless I'm there for 3 hours. Im gonna definately lower it down a bit and supplement the excessive sets I've been doing for some short cardio. I'll take off these next couple days since I'm working chest and tris next session.

[BoBoy]

I love how these kids read about how the pro's in Muscle&Fitness do 50 sets a bodypart and then they start doing the same thing . Unproductive to say the least . I personally have been working out over 30 years and never need more than 12-15 sets/bodypart or 45 minutes to get my work done . Look at the late great Mike Mentzers Heavy-Duty work-out plan to see how its really done........50 sets for delts , lol.

[AndroSport]

Do you seriously mean 50 SETS? Not 50 reps over X sets?

Also - the thing that changed my athletic life and took me from wimp to pimp was TRAINING INTENSITY. Now I am not being a dick or calling you weak or saying you don't work out hard enough because it looks like you do too much actually. What I mean is what is the cadence of your reps (i.e.: x seconds up and x seconds down and x seconds pause between) and the timing of your sets (i.e.: how long of a break between sets before jumping back on) ?? I think anyone here could do 50 sets with a couple min between each at a certain weight and cadence. Whats your tempo?

What allowed me to put on 50lbs of muscle (naturally before i even knew what gear was really) in the course of about 4months or so was someone coming up to me in the gym and slapping the SHIT out of me while I was working out to piss me off then telling me to use that toward the INTENSITY of my workout. I fought myself not to stop my current set and try to fight this guy who would have killed me (who was actually a pro and worked out at this small country club to stay low pro sometimes) and back then people didn't care so much about all this "you can't touch anyone stuff"... either way it made me think hard about what he meant. Later on he explained himself and gave me his pep-speech that he saw something special in me etc (i think i was about 14ish) but it changed the way I looked at my workouts.

You will figure out what exact timing & cadence is best for you and you will find out that you can fatigue even experienced/large muscles quickly by doing either Neg Accentuated sets or regular sets in "slo-mo" with perfect form and leaving a smaller window in between the sets for recovery or speeding everything up - whatever works for you. This can alter the way your muscles react to the training and change things.

Again - its different for everyone but you def need SOME sort of change up and after seeing this stuff for so many years i don't know many people who do that many sets and last long at all lol

FIND YOUR OWN SWEET SPOT - YOU'RE PUTTING IN GOOD WORK BRO - IT WILL PAY OFF

[josh223]

You mentioned your joints were hurting, sounds like either you have been taking too much AI (eliminating estrogen will cause painful joints) or you have packed on my muscle size than your joints can handle.

it only takes me 20-30 mins to workout shoulders and traps idk why you need to spend 2 hours

[Matt0071]

as front raises, side raises, and rear delt flys i dont use heavy weights at all like 20-25 pounds db just to get lots of blood flowing there at that region and superset it with db presses, works well for me

[tigers1389]

Overtraining is an overused term. With regards to frequency and intensity, more often than not, it'll refer to a CNS condition. What you described sounds like you're on your way to some form of overuse injury which could be from either imbalanced training at the shoulder girdle or, simply, overuse lol Be mindful that your shoulder girdle is also used in any pressing (bench, incline, whatever) and any pulling (rows, chins, olympic lifts) so plan and train accordingly gear or not.

[BoBoy]

So what should I do now that I've established I've been overtraining?

Go back to the basics , I"ve seen guys build huge delts by just doing 5-6 sets of sitting presses and 5-6 sets of presses behind the neck ...... I just happened to work delts this morning , right after my chest work-out (of course) I did 3 sets of bent over DB laterals for additional pre-exhaustion then I went with 5 supersets (5 military press supersetted w/5 press behind neck ) for a total of 13 sets ; thats it , don't need no more . Remember if you did bench presses first then your delts are already pre-exhausted from them , which is why you should work pecs/delts same day......its also really easy to tear a rotator cuff (done it twice), especially with dumbells , I stick to barbells for most of my work-outs . ~Bo

[BoBoy]

u CAN train twice as HARD, but NOT twice as MUCH

seems u don't take enough rest days bro... try to never train more than 3 days in a row, then a day rest... 2-on, 1-off is even better.

as for your shoulders... this is such an easy muscle group to overtrain as the shoulder area gets a lot of work on when training chest and some when doing back... my shoulders are all screwed up because of years of not listening to my body, now I only train them light/high reps and that's after chest on the same day

train hard, but train smart

eating is much more important than what u do in the gym...

Exactly . China Wall knows . Delts after chest , work harder , not longer ; sometimes it takes an injury to learn these things ......