Hello all,
I'm in the middle of my second HST cycle, and feel like I've been making good gains. My strength is up and my physique is definitely more muscular if not bigger. My goal is to add more mass for a bodybuilding contest next year, and so far HST has given me the gains that I’m looking for. I'm in the 5's right now, and have been doing 1-2 sets of 1-3 exercises per bodypart. I've split my routine into am and pm workouts – Legs, chest, and triceps in the AM; Back, delts, and arms in the PM, and do this three times a week. This seems to be working for me, as I said I am able to add weight to every exercise each workout and keep the number of reps. My last reps are tough but not quite to failure. Right now, my protein is 300-350 g/day, not sure what my carbs and fat are, but I’m eating pretty cleanly six times a day. I’m 6’2, 205 (around 165 lean). I try to get about 40-50g each meal, including whey protein prior to training, and a high protein meal after.
I am concerned that I might be starting to overtrain. I’ve developed a few symptoms in the last few days that I think might be a signal. First, over the last three days, I’ve dropped a couple of pounds. Nothing much, but odd to me because a few days before that, I increased my carb intake somewhat, adding a couple servings of pasta a day. I’ve done a little more cardio after lifting than usual as well, but I’ve only had two 30-minute sessions on the elliptical trainer or treadmill.
Another symptom is my heartrate. Usually after lifting, I can go to the cardio machine and keep up a good pace with my rate in the cardio range (about 140 bpm). The last workout, I had to set the resistance of the machine to minimum, and move very slowly, just to keep it below 160.
Finally, and this is the most disturbing, is sleeplessness. I can normally get 6 hours of sleep, which is probably not quite enough, but last night had trouble sleeping at all. This morning, I had a great workout, and now after eating I’m hot even though it is a comfortable temp here. I think this means that my metabolism is elevated.
My questions are, do you think that I am overtraining, or is it possible that the recent change to my carb intake caused these symptoms? Should I not worry about it since I’m still making progress; cut back on carbs again and see what happens; or heed what could be a warning and begin SD now? Whaddya think?
Sorry for the long post, and thanks for all your help!
Rick
(NPC Excaliber 2006)
I'm in the middle of my second HST cycle, and feel like I've been making good gains. My strength is up and my physique is definitely more muscular if not bigger. My goal is to add more mass for a bodybuilding contest next year, and so far HST has given me the gains that I’m looking for. I'm in the 5's right now, and have been doing 1-2 sets of 1-3 exercises per bodypart. I've split my routine into am and pm workouts – Legs, chest, and triceps in the AM; Back, delts, and arms in the PM, and do this three times a week. This seems to be working for me, as I said I am able to add weight to every exercise each workout and keep the number of reps. My last reps are tough but not quite to failure. Right now, my protein is 300-350 g/day, not sure what my carbs and fat are, but I’m eating pretty cleanly six times a day. I’m 6’2, 205 (around 165 lean). I try to get about 40-50g each meal, including whey protein prior to training, and a high protein meal after.
I am concerned that I might be starting to overtrain. I’ve developed a few symptoms in the last few days that I think might be a signal. First, over the last three days, I’ve dropped a couple of pounds. Nothing much, but odd to me because a few days before that, I increased my carb intake somewhat, adding a couple servings of pasta a day. I’ve done a little more cardio after lifting than usual as well, but I’ve only had two 30-minute sessions on the elliptical trainer or treadmill.
Another symptom is my heartrate. Usually after lifting, I can go to the cardio machine and keep up a good pace with my rate in the cardio range (about 140 bpm). The last workout, I had to set the resistance of the machine to minimum, and move very slowly, just to keep it below 160.
Finally, and this is the most disturbing, is sleeplessness. I can normally get 6 hours of sleep, which is probably not quite enough, but last night had trouble sleeping at all. This morning, I had a great workout, and now after eating I’m hot even though it is a comfortable temp here. I think this means that my metabolism is elevated.
My questions are, do you think that I am overtraining, or is it possible that the recent change to my carb intake caused these symptoms? Should I not worry about it since I’m still making progress; cut back on carbs again and see what happens; or heed what could be a warning and begin SD now? Whaddya think?
Sorry for the long post, and thanks for all your help!
Rick
(NPC Excaliber 2006)
