Overtraining in Powerlifting and 5 Methods for Recovery
Show Notes
We’re going to start today’s episode off with two questions:
What is physically happening when you’re lifting or training?
Tearing the muscle fibers OR
Building the muscle fibers
2. Which phase of training do you see muscle growth in?
Recovery phase / during rest
Training phase / during the workout
Correct answer: you tear down the muscle during your training sessions. You are not building muscle at the gym; you are breaking it down. You are building muscle when you eat, rest, and recover.
Do not take recovery lightly. This goes for everyone in anything in life. Recovery is where you repair and build up to be stronger.
This is quite literally what happens to our physical bodies in exercise. You’re not building shit in the gym. You’re building when you rest. You’re breaking everything down when you train
What does recovery involve?
Nutrition: protein, caloric intake, water intake, total macro balance, vitamins or sometimes other supplements
Sleep: 8-12 hours for athletes
Foam rolling: helps to release fluid and tightness in the fascia, that outer layer of your muscle
Low intensity movement: walking, light cardio, yoga, swimming, bodyweight training, or low intensity resistance training
Deloads: every 3-6 weeks for CNS recovery and type IIx muscle fibers for max strength
What happens when you don’t recover?
Overtraining:
Gradually increased resting heart rate
Gradually increased tightness in muscles and/or joints
Injury
What I monitor in my clients for overtraining purposes:
Daily activity & steps
Sleep
Nutrition
Water intake
RHR
Allow clients to take notes about how they’re feeling so that I can look for those other signs of extreme fatigue, tightness, other subjective metrics based on how they feel rather than objective measurements.
Proper recovery methods & signs of over training:
Recovery is individual
Recovery needs are not only determined by the intensity of the training, but also the intensity of daily life outside of sessions; physiological stress, work life, and overall lifestyle
For some people training 3x/ week is what’s most effective for them, while others may be able to train 5x/week
How the program is split up also can work in unison for proper recovery
This is not black and white, the way to find how much you should recover is to track and monitor those signs whether you’re doing it strictly like I have my athletes do it or more loosely and just taking mental notes when things start to feel “off.”
Either one is fine, especially if you’re first starting out, you don’t have to be so strict, but since I am a coach, I work with people who want to get better and make improvements and be efficient in their program so that’s why you’ll see those daily check-ins in there.
