You're Not An Elite Athlete

[BendtheBar]

Guess What? You're Not an Elite Athlete!

Guess What? You're Not an Elite Athlete! Tony Gentilcore

In light of some recent articles and blog posts written by my buddy, Bret Contreras, I just needed to take a few moments and vent a little bit. BRB

Ahhhhhhhhh.......expletive, expletive, expletive, *punches hole in wall,* expletive, *flips over coffee table,* expletive expletive, *drop kicks a puppy,* and expletive.

There I feel better now.

All of this I have no issues with. In fact, I thought the article was brilliant and had a lot of great and innovative things to say. But, almost inevitably, within 24-48 hours of the article going live on t-nation, I received a swarm of emails from random dudes asking me if they thought it would be a good idea if "they too!!!" should train everyday?

Excuse me while I go throw an ax into my face.

NEWSFLASH: you're not an elite athlete!!!!!!!

[Off Road]

He's right...I'm not

[BendtheBar]

Neither am I.

[Soldier]

Very interesting. I read the original article, and the main thing I took from it was that our fear of overtraining is usually unfounded, and we'll never know our limit until we get there, or maybe a little past. I've been pushing myself harder than ever to get ready for basic training, and this article was a huge green light to me, to push harder and see if I can take it. I've been training twice a day most days for two weeks now, mostly with light to moderate weight circuit training as warm up/cardio, followed by moderate to heavy sets to finish up. This has allowed me to reintroduce some things I had gotten rid of, especially the big three lifts.

I believe the increase in volume is the absolute best way to get ready for my military service. As for using it to increase strength/power, I'm sure that depends on the specific person using it and how their body responds.

[big_swede]

I tryed a scaled-down method of lifting a'la john broz, squatting to daily max every day. I managed to stay healthy for 3 weeks, (and i had one or two off days during that period= but then it was a no-no, not while managing 9hours at work every day at the same time

Would love to have the time and oportunity to go all out with this for some months some time though, but thats just me dreaming.

[BendtheBar]

I don't really have an opinion. I have never trained Olympic style, don't gas, and barely can train 4 times a week without wanting my bankie.

[dmaipa]

i read the article myself and thought it was pretty interesting. I understand the whole worry about overtraining, but i really think that if you can train everyday then you aren't putting everything into it. UNLESS, you are training Olympic style under the supervision of an olympic coach, when i mean olympic coach, i mean someone who trains strictly that, not a strength and conditioning coach who knows how to do the olympic lifts. OR, a tactical force person like military who needs to be challenged daily. I don't know of any tactical force person who won't perform when called on to duty because it was their recovery day.

[big_swede]

Good point D

[BendtheBar]

The eccentric aspects of lifts are the most taxing part of training, and as it has been mentioned here several times before, there isn't a lot of eccentric work in Olympic training.

With that said, they still squat which is Herculean. I've had a stint where I tried good mornings 5 days a week and handled them well but the weight was kept in check.

All that aside, my personal opinion is:

--1) It is hard to overtrain a muscle. Usually the joints and connective tissue wear out first. I know this not only from lifting, but also from years of manual labor.
--2) What's the point? Unless you are an Olympic athlete and need to practice form, balance, etc., what's the point of squatting/lifting 13 times per week? ...especially for a natural.

As a recreational lifter with poor genetics I've become big and strong beyond expectations rarely training more than 3-4 days per week. For most of this time I used 6-9 sets per bodypart per week.

Even at this pace I still have to constantly monitor training volume and intensity. I am always nursing a strain as is.

Personally, this idea that more is better for recreational lifters is absurd. Advanced lifters can do whatever their body's allow. If they want to squat 13 times a week, have at it.

I meet a lot of 40+ bodybuilders in my line of work. To a man, nearly every one of them regret either pushing for too much volume or not periodizing in their 20's and 30's. If you want to lift into your 60s, consider that the road is long. You can't climb a mountain every day.

[Fazc]

An article which has a lot of relevance to what is being discussed here:

Excluding the Middle: Not Just a Fallacy • AmpedTraining.com • Matthew Perryman, CSCS