Overtraining is a term used to describe a condition that recreational athletes very rarely, and athletes occasionally get into when they train too often and don't put enough emphasis on their recovery. It is a chronic overload reaction, caused primarily by too high training volume and too little regeneration between the individual training sessions.
Provided you eat and recover as well as you can between workouts, and then take a complete break of a few days, short-term, planned overtraining is a tiring but rewarding change of pace to break through plateaus in muscle mass and strength gains.
Anyone who follows YPSI.de is already familiar with the YPSI squat vacation and the YPSI arm vacation .
The squat vacation is 6 days of squat training 3 times a day. During the arm holiday, 4 different training sessions for biceps and triceps are rotated 2 times a day for 6 days. Afterwards, 3-5 days of real vacation are taken. The body reacts to this short-term overload with disproportionate growth - provided the diet and sleep are right and it is then given enough rest to supercompensate.
If you are looking for a new YPSI holiday , you also have the option of adapting this concept to full-body training and training the entire body over a period of 6 days - alternating one day with two workouts upper body and one with day two workouts lower body.
I have already used planned overtraining in this form very successfully in competitive sports during my time with the Hungarian short track speedskating national team. I basically did a training program like this with the team in the first two weeks of December. With the goal of increasing maximum strength and muscle mass and reducing body fat a little more, a month before the beginning of January, two months of trips with World Cups, European and World Championships were on the program, during which many training units had to be adapted and I usually completely canceled strength training have.
Such a training holiday for the whole body can look like this:
Logically, the two upper body workouts of Days 1, 3, and 5 are done on Days 1, 3, and 5, and the lower body workouts of Days 2, 4, and 6 are done on those days. That means the upper body and lower body workouts rotate from day to day.
Below is the training program:
Day 1, 3, 5
workout 1
A1 Pull-up, tight, neutral, paused 6×2-4 4012 120s
A2 LH Flat bench press, shoulder-width grip 6×2-4 5010 120s
B1 Lat pulldown, supinated, shoulder width, paused 4×6-8 4012 100s
B2 LH Neck Press, standing 4×4-6 4010 100s
workout 2
A1 Lat Pulldown, Pronated, Shoulder Width 5×6-8 4010 100s
A2 30° KH incline press, neutral grip 5×6-8 4010 100s
B1 65° incline curls, supinated 4×6-8 4010 100s
B2 dips 4×6-8 4010 100s
Day 2, 4, 6
workout 1
A LH Squats 8×3 5010 180s
B Leg curl, lying, dorsiflex, neutral 4×4-6 4010 180s
workout 2
A1 LH squat, heels raised 5×6-8 4010 120s
A2 Leg curl, lying, plantarflex, neutral 5×6-8 4010 120s
B 45° back extension, CH in front of the chest 4×6-8 3013 180s
Notes: There must be a break of at least 4 hours between workout 1 and workout 2. The first training should be completed before 12 p.m., the second training must be completed before 6 p.m.
During the 6 days you have to consume a lot of protein (woman: 2g/kg body weight, man 3-4g/kg body weight), depending on body fat percentage at least in the evening eat additional carbohydrates (e.g. rice, potatoes, quinoa), below 10% body fat also maltodextrin in the Drink a post-workout shake and go to bed before 11pm to maximize recovery and get the most out of that time.
In those 2 weeks, it's common to drop body fat by 2-4% and gain 4-6kg more muscle mass.
Good luck with the planned overtraining!
Image: David Waldraff, German Weightlifting Champion and Co-Instructor of the YPSI Weightlifting Workshop on LH Rack Deadlifts during one of four training sessions in 2 days at the Before'n'After Bootcamp Seminar, Module 1 of the YPSI Trainer B License.