Overtraining?

I think the suggestions are great...but wouldn't doing aerobic exercise everyday cause the body to try to retain as much fat as possible? And also, if i combine aerobic exercise and weight training, does it mean that i will train 3 times a day for some days? Would that lead to overtraining?

Hi,

Thanks for your comments and questions.

I don't think doing aerobic exercise every day will cause the body to retain fat. In fact, I believe just the opposite will occur; the body will use fat as a fuel source during the exercise sessions.

I think understand what you're saying though. You're saying that by performing aerobic exercise every day you will put the body under excessive amounts of stress. This stress will lead to inflammation in the body and high cortisol levels, which may, directly or indirectly lead to fluid retention, reduced fat burning and a loss of muscle.

However, I do believe that the human body is quite resilient and if the aerobic exercise is not excessive in intensity or duration, i.e. not more than 80% of your MHR for the duration of the session and the session does not go for longer than an hour then I think over-training will not occur.

Furthermore, the stress placed on the nervous system by performing aerobic exercise is much less than the stress placed on the nervous system from resistance (weight) training, which again, means it is much less likely to over-train the body.

When it comes to combining aerobic exercise and weights together I don't mean you have to train more than once or at most, twice a day.

If you do them together (weights and cardio) the session should not go longer than 1 hour if you're training on your own or 1hr 20mins if you're training with a partner.

Alternatively, if you're really serious and decide to split your sessions then performing 2 x 1-hour sessions in the day is fine for most people and will not over-train them. Of course, that volume of training is something you may need to build up to.

Personally, I train most mornings with weights in the gym (with mum and dad as my training partners) and then box in the evenings 3 days a week. I've done this for years and feel great for it!

I realise this amount of training may not be for everybody but the weights is at a moderate-to-high level of intensity and lasts for only about 40 mins and the boxing is a high level of intensity and lasts for about an hour.

The results I have achieved by doing this are pretty good. I can keep my body fat between 5-10% without watching what I eat (or drink!) too much.

In the weeks leading up to summer I'll probably tighten my diet up a bit, do a bit of cardio after my weights (about 10-15 mins), take some XLR8 caps and will get down to the low single digits relatively easily.

I hope this answers your questions.

Cheers,

Steve.