The two most important questions to Over Exercising are…

1. How do you know if you exercised too much
2. What happens when you do

The most common ways of Over Exercising your muscles are…

• Exercising Pass the Repair Point
• Exercising the Same Muscles on Back to Back Days

Exercising Pass the Repair Point

Over working your muscles during your workout will break down the muscle cells more then what the body can handle for repair. Therefore, when you exercise and do too many reps or sets with heavy weights, you can rip and tear your muscles.

There is a fine line to where you can push your muscles past the point of failure. When you are lifting weights you want to feel the pump, that burn feeling. This is where the blood is rushing to the muscle you are exercising. But, if you continue to workout after you have felt the burn, there is a good chance you are over exercising your muscles. A good indication of doing too much is when you touch your muscles the next day and it hurts by the touch.

Exercising the Same Muscles on Back to Back Days

The second way you can over train your muscles is if you workout the same muscles on back to back days. This will not give the muscles enough time for recovery and you will not allow your muscles time to grow. You need at least 24 to 48 hours after a workout for your muscles to fully heal and recover before you can exercise them again. This means if you train for your chest on Monday, you should not train your chest again until Wednesday or Thursday.

The dangers of over exercising your muscles is that you will not grow muscle mass. In fact you will do the complete opposite, your muscles will shrink. In both cases when you over train your muscles, your muscles cells are being put through extreme stress. That is more stress then the body can handle and repair.

With the first way of over training, you have split the muscle cells more then the body can handle and you will lose that particular muscle mass. Your body can not quickly repair that much damage and you will have to wait until your soreness is gone before you lift again. In fact, your muscles may start shrinking if you continue to train this way which will defeating the purpose of lifting weights.

In the second case of over exercising your muscles in back to back days, you might have not over trained your muscles in the workout and you may have felt a good healthy pump, but you still need time for the new muscle cells that you have split successfully to grow. If you do not give the new muscles cells time to grow and workout the next day on the same muscle, the muscle remain small and once again defeating the purpose of lifting weights.

Henry Chervenka