BEWARE OF UNDERTRAINING

Dear readers, I come to you today to discuss an epidemic that is sweeping the nation.  This plague has claimed many young trainees over the years as a result of propaganda, bro knowledge, internet forums, youtube channels, and social media in general.  I am, of course, talking about undertraining.  The dangers of undertraining are severe, yet every day, more and more trainees engage in this reckless behavior.  In most cases, this is due to ignorance, as trainees are either poorly informed on the topic of training, who they should talk to, or just what dangers lurk around the corner as they start down this dangerous path.  My hope is that, by educating my readers, you will know the signs to look for and be able to take care of any young trainee about to embark on this practice.

Hurry before it's too late!

So what is undertraining?  Undertraining is the current craze sweeping the lifting internet nation.  There are many examples of this, but typically it can include trainees only perform 3-5 sets MAX for a movement for the day, and of those sets, no more than 5 reps, trainees only lifting weights 3x a week, trainees performing ZERO cardio, conditioning or athletic work, and in general a complete lack of exertion and physical stress present in training.  Parents and coaches beware; your child or protégé could be undertraining under your very nose!  There are peddlers everywhere pushing this stuff on young naïve trainees.  They use words like “minimal effective dose of volume” and “CNS burnout” to trick young minds into following their devious and perverted ways.

How can you tell if your child or student is undertraining?  Know to look for the signs!  Symptoms include a complete lack of physical development despite months of “training”, claims of being a “hardgainer”, claims of “eating everything and not gaining weight” or needing to “dirtybulk”, having to rest 5-8 minutes between sets in order to make their workouts last an hour, a lack of gym clothes in the laundry, an abundance of freetime to argue on the internet about what program is optimal, CARING about what program is optimal, a complete lack of awareness of what an assistance exercise is, zero conditioning base, a complete set of SBD gear and Olympic lifting shoes, having an Instagram fitness handle, and a physical appearance resembling a sweet potato someone left in microwave for 4 minutes too long.

More like 14 minutes

What can you do to combat this?  You need to chase away the overtraining boogieman that has tricked your loved one down this path and get them on the road to recovery.  Most perceived sensations of “overtraining” or “CNS burnout” amongst the general training populace are simply the manifestation of poor recovery, which can easily be remedied with a focus on IMPROVED recovery.  For the basics, ensure your trainee is eating well enough to support training.  Most likely, your trainee is convinced that they are both a hardgainer and need to follow a dirty bulk, which means they’ve found a means to justify a lazy, slovenly approach to eating that allows them to dine like a child on junkfood and candy without any actual awareness of what they are consuming.  Have them immediately start eating meat and veggies with every meal and watch the recovery improve almost instantly, with some muscular gain to match. 

Along with this, be aware that, the reason your trainee is having difficulty recovering between sets in the gym and between workouts outside of the gym and feeling overtrained in general is because your trainee is most likely a skinnyfat sack of untrained cookiedough with zero conditioning base due to a lifetime of neglecting any basic athletic activity who got sold a load a horse manure by a snake oil huckster claiming that the only way for a beginner trainee to overcome this is to train less than everyone else.  That was a long run-on sentence, because holy Christ it is so goddamn insane that I wanted to just contain it all in one spot like a freakin’ quarantine zone after an outbreak of zombie syphilis.  You’re trying to tell me that the way we’re going to get Johnny No-Sports on par with lifelong athletes is by starting him off with the lowest training volume ever witnessed by man and then reducing it even MORE once he inevitably stalls due to a lack of work capacity?  How are people still believing this?

The way we get your loved one back on track is by viciously attacking that lack of work capacity head on with some dedicated time and energy focused on conditioning and assistance work.  This is where we can sneak in a little volume to help them grow and develop their work capacity to recover better BETWEEN workouts while still improving their baseline conditioning to help them recover IN their workouts.  And hey; more recovery IN a workout means more volume, while more recovery BETWEEN workouts means that more volume won’t lay your trainee out flat.  Get them out running, riding bikes, playing sports, pulling sleds, splitting work, etc etc.  If it feels miserable at the time, it’s probably the right call.

You’ll note that I failed to address sleep on the recovery agenda.  Well, I’m gonna level with you on this one folks; I haven’t had 8 hours of sleep since 2010 and I’m jacked out of my mind on energy drinks and diet mountain dew.  My resting heart rate is 44, so I get to call those things “medicinal”.  So I honestly can’t tell you that sleep is important without being a hypocrite, but here’s an idea; if you’re really really super duper hardcore concerned about overtraining, maybe try getting to bed at a decent hour every night and consistently trying to get there around the same time so that your body has a chance to develop a pattern here.  I’m not saying you have to do it, but man, if you’re worried about overtraining and you’re NOT doing that, you’re most likely pretty dumb.

I'm not mocking you though; it's not in my nature to mock dumb things

Folks, I’m running out of time here and more causes need my attention, but please take care of your loved ones and break the spell of undertraining.  Once you remove this burden from their shoulders, you may see some positive changes, such as increases in muscle mass, greater strength, better athletic performance, more money available after spending less on supplements, a more significant amount of freetime from shorter, more effective workouts and less time on the internet arguing about WHY super low volume workouts are the best, and in general, and improved disposition and awareness of how to train.  Take care for now, drink your Ovaltine, and buy some war bonds to support our troops!