So you're working out.
That's a good thing.
However too much of this good thing can be the absolute worst thing you do if you're
trying to build muscle.
What's up guy's?
Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.COM
Too much of a good thing can certainly be a bad thing.
And when it comes to weight training it can be the worst thing.
Especially if you're trying to build muscle.
Guys I've gone on record here and told you that, keeping your workout short but intense
is the biggest key to getting results.
Why?
Because most guys who train, think that more is better and by doing that, overtrain.
Now some of you are probably sitting there going, oh wait, I heard overtraining doesn't
exist.
Or there's a guy on youtube, or there's a guy in my gym, that says that overtraining
is BS.
That's the biggest BS you've heard because I will tell you, it is the biggest problem
that guys face today who are lifting naturally.
What I mean is, guys that are lifting without the assistance of something else, and we know
what that is.
Ok.
Guys taking steroids, guys taking, you know, drugs.
That's not what we're talking about.
Those guys have unlimited potential to train.
But if you're going to do this naturally.
You want to make sure that you're not tapping into your limited recuperative ability to
get back from your workout.
To be able to come back stronger than you were the last time.
To do that guys, you have to stimulate and not annihilate.
Ok.
Stimulate and not annihilate.
And I will tell you, to stimulate, there is a minimum effective dose.
So I'll date myself a little bit, there was a guy by the name of Mike Mincer, who was
into something called heavy duty training, a long time ago.
He went so far as to say, one set is all you need.
One set with the right intensity, taken to failure, is enough to stimulate muscle growth.
And then you've got to get out of the gym.
You've got to get out into your non gym environment, so that you can allow your body to recover
and recuperate and rebuild.
And that's why we've been talking a lot lately, about sleep and all this stuff outside of
the gym.
Because it's equally important to what you're doing here.
Now if you don't believe me, I understand.
This is going to be a little bit of a pattern interrupt here for the guys that have been
told that you have to train for an hour, an hour and a half or two hours.
At least let's take this guys, as the opening step to start to at least explore the possibility.
Explore that what I'm saying is true.
Because I will tell you absolutely, it is something that will change the way that you
train.
It will change the results that you see.
So what I wanted to do here in this video was, cover some other areas.
Explain to you that, overtraining exists.
This minimum effective dose exists in everything we do.
And I thought, why don't I show you some examples of that to at least help to formulate the
thought that yes, this does apply here in the gym as well.
And then at the end we'll wrap it up with some of the ways that you can insure that
you're doing enough stimulation.
But you're not under doing it but at the same time you're certainly not overdoing it.
So let's take a look at one example here.
I talked about things that are, sort of, all around us every day.
Sun Exposure.
Right, there is a minimum effective dose.
If you go out in the sun and you're trying to get a tan.
There is an amount of sun exposure, right, you're getting more and more activity of the
melanin in our skin to change the color.
Right, and as we get the color change, there is a point where we reach optimal exposure.
That's our tan.
But every single second, literally every single second thereafter, all we're doing is crossing
further and further into sun damage, sunburn, which is not a good thing.
So you went from a desirable stimulus to an undesirable result.
So again, burn, tan, there's a fine line here guys you're going to find, between what's
good and what's bad.
Ok, example number two.
I'm not going to make you stare at my hand for too long here guys.
But right here, you can see callus, callus, little bit on the inside here of the pinkie.
That comes from grabbing those gnarled bars that we all lift with.
Why do they form?
Because they try to help our skin become a little bit more resistant to the rough bars
that we're grabbing, so that we don't get skin breakdown.
Do too much and what do you get?
You get a Blister.
So guys, again, minimum effective dose caused a good response by the body.
Too much of a good thing turns into a blister.
In this case, again, damage
Alright, now in case you're a visual learner, let's start with another example.
Right here in front of me guys, three pieces of meat.
Ok, we have one that's inedible, completely raw.
We've got one that's cooked fairly nice, depends on how you guys like your steak but it's cooked.
And then here we've got one that's charred, ok, overdone.
This is a great representation of what happens with our muscles when we train.
Again, undertraining, you're not working hard enough, you're not working out at all.
You're a raw piece of meat.
Ok, you're not edible and you're not going to see any results.
On the other side of the spectrum here, you overtrain, you do too much, this raw piece
of meat becomes inedible once again.
Why?
Because it's completely burned, you can't even bite into it, This has got damage, this
is basically muscle damage, this is muscle anyway, ok and it's damaged.
But if you train optimally, this piece of steak, you could actually eat, it actually
tastes good and it serves a purpose.
Alright, last one for you visual learners out there.
Let's say you have a headache.
What are you going to do?
Most likely you're going to run to the medicine cabinet, grab something for it.
Ok, so you take out whatever brand you like, two should probably be enough to get the job
done, right.
But what happens if two becomes sixty two or so.
What happens then?
I can tell you, that headache will probably go away.
But you're going to have a lot worst problems on your hands.
Because you're going to be in the emergency room.
If you're lucky enough not to die.
Right, there's certainly, when it comes to medication, a dose that is effective and beyond
which becomes damaging to you.
We know that.
It's no different guys when we're talking about training.
You have that minimum effective dose, you go beyond that and you start to do damage.
So what I want to do now is tell you there are ways that you can sort of, focus on, making
sure that you are getting enough of that stimulus.
But making sure that you're also not overdoing it to the point where you're crossing that
line and harming the results that you're actually trying to get in the first place.
Ok, so now what do we have to do to fix this?
How do we make sure that we're doing enough and we're not doing too much?
Guys, it comes down to trading in workout intensity for length.
Now if you're training for muscle endurance, if you're training for an endurance sport.
That's a different type of training guys, we're talking about building muscle.
And when you're trying to build muscle, it's the minimum effective dose.
That's what we're going after.
So we need to increase our workout intensity.
Decrease our workout length.
Now some guys are sitting there again, I can't believe he's saying 40 minutes is enough.
40 minutes is plenty because you have to be training hard.
Ok, now how do we illustrate that.
Let's say you're the average guy out in the gym, there's 45 seconds in a set.
We've already covered this before too, most likely you're no where near that.
If you time yourself during your average set, you're somewhere around 22 - 23 seconds.
You should be up more like this by slowing down you're eccentric on you're reps.
Then let's say you've got a 60 second rest period.
And we'll even give you 15 seconds of time to transition.
Although you should be setting up for your next set in your 60 second rest period.
That's 2 minutes per set, ok two minutes per set.
That's means, if we were to do 20 sets, 20 sets across a workout, that we still would
be at 40 minutes.
What are you guys doing that are training for 90 minutes?
How could you possible be training, you're not doing this?
And as I said, you're already at 23 seconds in a set.
So if you're at 23 seconds in a set, what are you doing?
I could tell you what you're probably doing.
Because I see it all the time in the gym.
You're on your cell phone in between sets.
Your texting, your playing apps, you're trying to kill some time, you might be trying to
pick up the girl in the gym . Whatever you're doing guys, is not effective at trying to
build muscle guys.
So when we talk about this dose, you have to do one thing for me.
Start buying into the concept of increasing your workout intensity.
make those eccentrics harder.
Give it all you've got here.
Train to failure.
Rest and recuperate in between sets.
Come back and do it again.
Guys, you can either train hard or you can train long but you can't do both.
If you train hard, you won't have to train long.
That's what ATHLEANX is all about.
Ok, it's about integrating muscle groups together.
Getting you to use the muscles the way they're supposed to.
So that we're cutting down, making the workouts much more efficient, cutting down on the excess.
Training muscle groups, as I said, together.
And then doing so, in an intense way so that we can get in, get the work done, get out,
recuperate, come back bigger and stronger and see results a lot faster.
Guys this is what training like an athlete is all about.
And again, you might be uncomfortable with the concept, try it.
Because I can tell you one thing, if you keep doing too much, you're going to keep getting
the results that you've been getting which is what you're probably not happy with.
So what you want to do is start cutting back and start seeing the results.
Because again, aim for that minimum effective dose.
You're going to start to see what it's like to not be overtrained.
Guys we'll cover this more in depth in another upcoming video.
But if you found this helpful or at least a little eye opening, make sure you leave
your comment below and let me know.
In the meantime, if you're looking for a program to train you effectively, but not train you
into that realm of overtraining that unfortunately is rampant out there.
Then head to ATHLEANX.COM and start to see what it's like.
Guys I'll be back here again in just a few day.