Archives for August 2012

This article is meant for more experienced trainees, read it, but follow the advice only if you have been working out with us for a while.

You have been warned.

So you’re  following the Adonis Index workouts and they have grown to become quite fierce.

Is it possible your over-training with our systems?

Chances are you will never get even close to overtraining. How Come?

If you have been around in the community for a while you may have noticed that there are a couple of recurring questions the new guys often ask.

Here’s are a few common questions revolving around our topic of discussion:

“Won’t the Adonis Index 3.1 and Booster specializations cause me to overtrain?”

“Aren’t the supersets in the advanced workouts a little too much?”

“That’s a lot of workout days, shouldn’t I rest after each workout?”

All three questions stem from the fear of overtraining.

This concern is completely understandable, you want to progress, but at the same time, you don’t want to risk over-training, injury and/or compromising your immune system.

This re-occurring question was first noted when we did an interview with Vivek and Adam who both trained twice a day for almost the whole week for the latest 12 Week transformation contest.

Here are their interviews:

• Vivek’s interview – 9 Pounds Muscle Gain Since His Last Contest
• Adam’s interview – 6-Month Journey to Cover Model Body with Adam Murphy

From these interviews more questions spawned… Can you over-train with Adonis Index workouts?  What is the limit that your body can handle before it starts to break down? Aren’t two workout routines a day or even training once a week, but for seven days straight for weeks on end too much?

What about rest and regeneration? Aren’t you supposed to rest for at least a day to let your muscles grow and body to recover?

These question demands a verdict.

Well, after interviewing more than a hundred people from both Adonis and Venus Index contest, the answer seems to be quite simply,  “no”.

It appears to be just another industry myth.

For example consider the olympic athletes, they are training all the time, from dusk till dawn, even the pro bodybuilders have two-a-days in their competition prep plan.

Now genetic predisposition and drugs make a big difference, but even without those your body is capable of more.

It all comes down to two things:

1. Lifestyle circumstances
2. Conditioning

It All Depends on Your Lifestyle

If you are working from 7 am to 6pm, then you will not be able to handle more than one workout a day without sacrificing your sleep and social life.

That’s the reality.

If on the other hand you are like Vivek, who is a successful business owner can plan his days however he wants, then you can get two workouts done pretty easily without having to go nuts.

So, if you have the option and really want to experiment with your workouts, then go for it.

It’s a Matter of Conditioning Yourself

You can have the time, but you may not have the fitness required for such an intense training load.

I always say that workout frequency is really just a matter of conditioning.

If you are not trying to lift as heavy as possible, testing your max or going to failure with each set and you actually understand the principles behind the Permission to Lift Light concept, then it’s about slightly increasing your frequency over time.

When you first got into weight training, you probably couldn’t handle more than two workouts a week, your body was in shock, trying to repair from the first workouts and build more strength.

You continued to work hard and your body responded with increased strength and mass muscle gains. Your overall condition improved and  you were ready to face greater challenges.

Well, going from 4-5 workouts to everyday training or two workouts a day is similar. You begin to increase the frequency “little by little” – baby steps.

After a couple of weeks or months, you’re suddenly able to perform two-a-day workouts with the greatest of ease.

This transformation results in tremendous muscle growth.

Vivek was experiencing muscle gains equivalent to that of someone in their teens (we call this catch up growth).

And Adam could suddenly out perform  his buddies, here’s what he told us afterwards:

Here’s what Adam told us after training twice a day:

The guys I was training with were out lifting me every week (% of increase), despite me being more focused and dedicated. 

It was not until I started lifting lots more(2x a day) that anything changed. A couple lifts I started going up faster than they were, a couple lifts we progressed equally, a couple I was just able to reduce the percentage that they out gained me.

Every person is different,

I did the 3.0 program and documented everything. Then the next three months I did it with extra workouts, as many as I could do and feel like I was safely pushing the edge. But I worked into it. It started with just a extra set or two at night… then it grew until I was sometimes doing the entire day twice. I did not even alternate days. I did the exact same exercises. I had never heard of anyone doing this so I figured I would see what happened. Athletes do the same thing day in and day out so why can I not do the same lifts twice in one day?

I just experimented. My theory was this… If lifting causes a slight damage to the muscle, maybe re-damaging it a couple hours later would be like ripping a scab off and getting extra damage. Sort of sounds silly saying it like that but that is what I was wondering.

The reason I love the AI way of life is simply that they give you the understanding of the concepts and theories that we are then free to play with. To use the latest information and theories to create our own experiment.

No ONE rule exists. I think that this is an important thing to accept. Then dedicate 3 months of your life as an experiment and report back.

The truth is you will have greater results if you train with lighter weights, and work the muscle more often.

However, keep in mind if following this strategy blindly, over-training is bound to occur.

Here is a quick message from John Barban on this topic:

“Eat too much food and do too much exercise, and your body will develop diseases of over consumption like type-2 diabetes, heart disease, cardiovascular disease, cancer and arthritis (just to name a few). And you’re joints muscles and tendons will start to break down from excessive exercise and your immune system istself can become compromised (classic overtraining syndrome).”

There is a sweet spot to everything.

However, the Adonis Index workouts are designed in a way that will not cause overtraining.

And if you have the time and conditioning, you can start adding more in order to get more results and find out your limits.

Start with the basic 3.1 workouts and MBF that through a couple weeks condition yourself to handle more challenging stuff. This can be adding specializations aka boosters to your current routine or progressing to ATS and IXP. (Here is a list of all Adonis Index Workouts)

It’s a step-by-step process of conditioning yourself to handle bigger challenges.

4 Ways to Challenge Yourself and Gain More Muscle

If you are a more experienced trainee you might wanna try testing your limits.

If you have been through the regular AI workouts and you want to keep your training fun, fresh and challenging here are a couple of ways to do so.

1. Try the Anabolic Again

Anabolic Again is a very advanced program designed by Brad Pilon that will take your training to a whole another level.

It’s mainly for people who no longer get any results from their regular workouts.

2. Cut the Rest Days

This means that if you have 5 workouts a week like in MBF or 6 with 3.1+boosters, you can just skip the rest days and do three weeks worth of workouts in just two.

If at any point you feel like it’s getting too much and you really need a rest, just take a day off.

It’s about trial and error, remember your goal is to test out your limits and see how much you can push.

3. Add a Second Workout

You can add an extra workout day like Vivek or Adam to increase training frequency and put on some serious muscle mass.

4. Add Some other Sport Activities

We go to the gym to work on ourselves, develop a stronger body, and improve our character. However, if you already look good, why not keep improving and enjoy your body and life a bit at the same time?

Take up swimming, challenge some friends to beach volleyball, or join a pick-up game of basketball.

These activities are great forms of cardio, you’ll be out of the gym, breathing  fresh air and may even have time to stop and smell the roses.

The bottom line is if you continue training 4-5 days a week you will still burn calories while  participating  in other recreational activities on your “non-training” days.

For example, an activity such as mountain biking  will enhance your conditioning, and contribute to some mass muscle gains in your thighs and calves.

An added bonus  if you are naturally skinny guy like me.

So what will it be? Which option will you try and experiment with? Let me know in the forum. (Not a member? Go here)

Talk to you soon,

Vaclav Gregor