February 14, 2023

The topic of overtraining has been hotly debated during the last few years. There has not been a clear consensus on issues of training frequency, type and intensity. In this column, I will explain the concept of overtraining and a new method of working out called nucleus overload training.  

There is a view that your body will adapt to a given training volume provided that the lifter is consuming the correct food and hydration. During this training, your exertions create tiny micro tears on the muscle. Overtraining can occur when this process exceeds the rate of recovery that your body can handle. When a muscle or muscle group is overexhausted, the training volume is more than it can recover from. 

Overexhaustion is difficult to quantify, however, because every person has unique genetics when it comes to recovery and muscle building. Side effects such as sleep problems, anger, exhaustion, slow recovery and weakness are potential signs that overtraining has occurred. 

Nucleus overload is a training method where you consistently train a muscle group with high frequency over a period of time (about a month) followed by a week or so of resting the muscle. Training a muscle in this way is supposed to activate satellite cells, which are precursors to muscle cells and allow them to grow. 

I’m going to get technical for a minute, so hold on tight. When the muscle is consistently overloaded in this training method, the recovery part of the cells (the satellite cells) adapt to the increased load. This adaptation is believed to cause MTOR reset, which means that the cells’ anabolic signaling becomes less sensitive to resistance training and can be regenerated after a “deload” period. A deload is taking an extended rest time over a period of days to fully reset and recover.

I have experienced overtraining and I experimented with nucleus overload training. The results were a mixed bag. I explored training biceps for 3 weeks, doing 4 sets of 12 reps every day with preacher curls at a moderate load. 

When this period was over I did experience substantial growth, but it was obvious afterwards that I was experiencing inflammation as a serious side effect. As a result, I can say with confidence that this technique was not worth it as fewer quality days could have produced the same physical results with minimal or no side effects like excessive soreness in the muscle, tendons and an overall higher risk of injury. 

For the best growth and recovery, I would recommend that you keep away from nucleus overload training and adjust your training frequency to what fits your lifestyle and goals.