Can you overwork a muscle....

[R-Tistic]

I have a question....say you are working on biceps, and you do a large amount of exercises for them to where they are exhausted and you feel that you are done for the day. Is it helpful, harmful, or even neutral, to wait 20, 30, or even 60+ minutes and then going and working the same muscles again?

I always hear how some people will be in the gym for 6-8 hours a day...and I have always wondered what they do with this time, since it seems as if you can and should only work certain muscle groups on different days. Do these people do as I mentioned, and work a muscle to exhaustion, give it a good break, then do it again?

[Got Life?]

the way muscle's work is you tear them and they rebuild stronger...if you tear them too much they won't be able to repair stronger and hence you'll be damaging them by overworking the muscles...this also increases chances of injury.

The average person has no business lifting for more than an hour to an hour and a half.

[LiveFromThe781]

who the hell is in the gym 6 hours a day? maybe someone training for olympics and they arent doing resistance work the whole time. shit half the time theyre probaly working on technique and form with zero resistance.

you CAN overwork a muscle. it then gets inflamed and swells up. it happened to me like the first week i started lifting in my friends basement. the next day i woke up and my left forearm looked the way it does now but back then i was a good 30 or more lbs lighter.

[Got Life?]

lol @ freak forearms.

[R-Tistic]

Originally Posted by LiveFromThe781

who the hell is in the gym 6 hours a day? maybe someone training for olympics and they arent doing resistance work the whole time. shit half the time theyre probaly working on technique and form with zero resistance.

you CAN overwork a muscle. it then gets inflamed and swells up. it happened to me like the first week i started lifting in my friends basement. the next day i woke up and my left forearm looked the way it does now but back then i was a good 30 or more lbs lighter.

LOL...I'm really talkin about professional athletes who operate on a whole different level I'm sure...but even some HS and college athletes spend 2-4 hours in the gym from what I hear.

[LiveFromThe781]

ive honestly never heard of anyone needing to spend more than an hour in the gym.

if your workouts are lasting THAT long you need to increase your intensity. intensity>volume

[Got Life?]

no one in their right mind spends 2-4 hours lifting, if their doing that they're doing a lot of things wrong.

if you mean they're doing cardio, stretching, lifting, all this and that and whatever in between, it's plausible someone can be in the gym for a few hours.

[R-Tistic]

^Yeah, that's probably what it is. They'll say "in the gym" but I'm sure that's not all spent on lifting...you can only do but so much.

[Graphx]

I spend a couple hours in the gym but as already said only about an hour and sometimes less is spent actually lifting

[Got Life?]

lol yeah, i'll swim, do cardio, lift, stretch, maybe shoot some hoops if people are playing...i can end up spending a few hours at the gym, but there's no way i'd ever be able to lift for hours considering the intensity of my workout.

[XxLiLBuRnAxX]

I had a workout buddy that used to spend countless hours in the gym, this guy was just a freak of nature though, Ive mentioned him before. He would workout 5 days a week for like 2 to 3 hours of lifting a day eat snicker bars and would gain weight and be huge. He has genetics from God. How he didnt overtrain I will never know...

But for normal people...I wouldnt recommend it, the most time Ive ever spent lifting was 4 days a week for about 1 1/2 hours each time and even to me I thought that was a bit overdoing it.

[LiveFromThe781]

your friend should allow scientists to run experiments on him to determine how we can duplicate his genes.

[Got Life?]

either that or he should confess to the fact that he was taking roids or he's a cyborg...

fucking freaks...

[XxLiLBuRnAxX]

He never took roids and he never took a single supplement in his life. Thats what amazes me.
I tried to give him some protein powder one time to use just cuz I wanted to see what it would do to somebody with his genetics and he refused to take it, shit sat in the back seat of his car for a year. Only thing he ever took was a multivitamin.

Yes I agree we should duplicate his genes lol, he remains more cut and about my size to this day and he hasnt touched a weight in months....2 years ago during the summer when he and I decided to hit the gym hard for 3 months this fool gained 20lbs of muscle eating burger king and candy while I gained about 10lbs and stuck to a rigorous diet plan...and he dicked off in the gym for 3 hours doing random shit that worked his whole body every single day...i was like man son of a bitch...lol

[Got Life?]

stem cell research!

[LiveFromThe781]

seriously. that kid is the best argument for it that ive ever heard. i hope that at least by me being in really good shape and shit that my kids will have great genetics.

[XxLiLBuRnAxX]

plus he dont even wanna be like that, he doesnt touch weights anymore cuz he wants the sleak lean athletic look instead of the bulky linebacker build, but the problem is that he cant lose the muscle no matter how hard he tries lol
he says he wants to be like me....hell i would LOVE to switch with him at any given time lol

[Got Life?]

Originally Posted by LiveFromThe781

seriously. that kid is the best argument for it that ive ever heard. i hope that at least by me being in really good shape and shit that my kids will have great genetics.

if i have a son(s) that continues the trend of men in my family the same as I did by out growing my father who's 6'2 260 then my kids are pretty much nfl bound unless they get injured...what stopped me was blowing out my knee and no desire to play football for Rutgers after that ensued.

[rocker314]

i guess overworking muscle means too much of getting tired