How to prevent overtraining of lower leg muscles?
83Original question: How many times a week are we supposed to blast the legs in order to prevent "overtraining"? My answer: All muscles are alike. Leg muscles are not different from any other muscle group, so I advice to avoid overtraining at any cost if it is related to bodybuilding and weight training. To begin with, I would like to make a statement and that is “undertraining is always better than overtraining” because with undertraining, you can still make some progress in any sport but with overtraining, no progress will be possible. And our legs are the mostly trained muscle group as we do cardio and walk generally with our legs only. See, muscles would never know whether it is Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday or Friday or so on. All they know is that they are subjected under increased stress and stimulation. They know that they have been lifting something and to recover, they demand fuel (good diet); otherwise, they stop everything and sit on a strike to not work and produce no results. So you need to deal with them tactfully and using the biological science, the way its meant to be by nature. No one can change that even any bodybuilding superman.
How muscle formation takes place in case of overtraining?
Now, you must understand that how does muscle formation takes place in case of overtraining. Well, it happens like this. You subject muscle under stress, stimulate it by moving a certain weight in a set way, avoiding a muscle pull or strain, then cells and tissues break down, and when they recover having sufficient rest and diet (even massage and meditation), they form muscle. Each time you lift heavy, more cells/tissues break down and a bigger muscle forms next. If you work them, again before they have recovered, that would amount to overtraining and instead, they will shrink and only shrink, making you weak and depressive. Everyday is a kidney, liver, pancreas day no matter what muscle you blast. They have to filter the waste of the byproducts the muscles throw out. Cells and tissues are broken because of muscle fibre recruitment during a set. When they are completely recruited and stimulated, they are exhausted. Its then that you can claim I have worked out my muscles, so the heavier you lift, the more rest you need. There are innumerable methods to grow muscle through the periodization method. If you wish to follow the safest and simplest method without following any periodization knowledge, then I suggest a heavy workout from a single muscle group, lasting not more than 30 to 35 minutes a day including warmup and stretching plus abs. Take a day off, go again the third day, another muscle group and a day off again.
Ideally, I can tell you to do a sample workout split like below:
For week 1:
Day 1 (Monday): Legs plus lower abs
Day 2 (Thursday): Chest and Back
For week 2:
DAY 1 (MONDAY): Shoulders/traps plus upper abs (place weights on your chest)
DAY 2 (THURSDAY): Arms (triceps and biceps)
Points to be remembered:
- Get involved in brief but intense cardio before the workout.
- Abs are just like any other muscle made up of amino acids and have fibers and cells and tissues; therefore, work out heavy with weights as suggested.
- As suggested, there are innumerable methods to build muscles and they all work including this one.
- The sample split routine is for “heavy weightlifting” and if you lift light, a muscle group can be worked out twice a week and if moderate, then once a week.
All the best and all izz well.
Bodybuilding Exercises : Great whole leg workouts
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Dropped by to look for leg exercise. Very informative hub.
simple rule of thumb is to flex a muscle hard if it still hurts you're not ready to train it again, even better wait two days after the pain is gone and you're sure to be 100% recovered.
It usually takes 48 hrs for a muscle to heal. If the muscle is still sore wait until it is mostly gone. It does take a little bit more to stimulate legs since you walk around on them all the time and the have a built up tolerance. It's best to hit them hard with a good 3-4 sets of 8-12 reps with heavy weight and good form. Just make sure you get in good post workout nutrition and 8 hrs of sleep for maximum recovery.
Soni, I love the addition of the endocrine system. Most people don't understand how our glands help us recover.
Really, how many people understand the hypothalamic- testicular- pituitary axis, the metabolism of growth hormone into IGF-1 by the liver (muscles cannot mature without IGF-1) and the full array of endocrine responses to exercise?
As usual, a pleasure to read your work...
Solid info.
Legs have the most biggest muscles in the body so it's hard to overtrain them.I would not put much stress in preventing overtraining in the legs.
Soni, you know that I NEVER spam my hubs, but this will shed some light on the plethora of things that transpire after training.
http://hubpages.com/hub/Delayed-onset-muscle-soren
Also, abs and calves can be trained more often, because they're comprised of a balance if fast, intermediate (most people don't know about this one), and slow twitch muscle.
I'm afraid that 'undertraining' will lead to loss in fitness and your sessions will be in fact wasted.
The key is to ensure overcompensation occurs. Your method above will prevent overtraining of leg muscles however will likely NOT lead to muscle and strength gains due to insufficient stimulus.
For a little more info on overcompensation please see













Veronica Allen Level 1 Commenter 2 years ago
Very good information.