Any tips to avoid overtraining when doing weightlifting and martial arts?

[Bapho96]

Hey guys,

I'm a 26 years old male and I broke my femurs 2 years ago. Initially I was told I might not run again. Luckily, I have fully recovered by now. I was always a sports guy (I competed in amateur kick boxing), but since the accident working out has truly become a need physically and mentally.

I had a 6 days per week routine I could handle, including walking 1 hour each day (it's key to keep my legs and joints healthy). However, I added boxing training 2 times per week and I'm fucking spent. My performance levels suck now, my heart rate is 15 bpm over average... I have stopped and rested for 2 days.

My routine is something like this:
DAY 1: 6x hill sprints and back training in the morning. Boxing and 1 hour walking in the evening.
DAY 2: Chest and triceps in the morning. 1-2 h walking in the evening.
DAY 3: 6x sprints and leg training in the morning. No more stuff.
DAY 4: Rest, and repeat this cycle the next days.

Do you have any suggestions? Am I doing anything wrong? I want to resume boxing, but I could only maintain that routine for 3 weeks before being done and useless.

Thank you guys.

 

[Fahcough]

At least you're catching the overtraining ques and not grinding through them.
Where's your fatigue showing most? In the cardio or weights .
Might have to switch one out with slow tempo body weight training and stretching instead of anything intense.

 

[SocraticMethod]

What is your sleep and recovery like? It'd be easy to tell you to cut one of the hill sprint days, but if you're only sleeping 4 hours per night, or you're drinking several times per week, that would be a better thing to fix first.

Glad to hear you recovered from the injury. I broke my femur twice as a kid. Same leg, about 2 inches between breaking points, and three years in between. It sucked.

 

[Slothbroth]

Think of the 3 days on, 1 day off routine as a micro training cycle that fits into a macro cycle. You need to have a rest week in the macro cycle. The 3 weeks on, 1 week off or some variation of that will give you a better training/recovery balance. I like it because you can fit it into a month but you could do a longer macro training block of 6 weeks on, with a week or two of recovery work.

This way you won't keep hitting the wall physically and feel burnt out. After your recovery week, you'll be recovered and ready to hit another hard training block without resting too long and regressing. Then you can really start to build a solid fitness base.

Your week off can include active recovery with your normal work outs done at a lower intensity but sometimes you need the mental recovery of not stressing about training at all.

 

[ROcknrollracing]

I would do some type of conjugate variation but rotated 3 days week or even 2 days a week to allow for better recovery. It is self autoregulated with max effort and allows for conditioning/sport practice. There are of course other options.

 

[NoSmilez]

You can cut your walks down. 2 hour walks aren't going to help with recovery when you are already doing so much. Maybe break the walking in 2 blocks for the day. You can even put walking in your rest day and make it an active recovery day.

The sprinting and weight training is in the same training block. You also have boxing/walking later. Maybe split day 3 into sprints in the morning and lifting at night. Also what do you do for lifting? Are you just moving around weight like how some boxers do when they lift weights or you are pushing hard with a program? What is your training intensity like?

 

[gspieler]

Edit. Misread the OP.

 

[Baby Hanma]

Hey guys,

I'm a 26 years old male and I broke my femurs 2 years ago. Initially I was told I might not run again. Luckily, I have fully recovered by now. I was always a sports guy (I competed in amateur kick boxing), but since the accident working out has truly become a need physically and mentally.

I had a 6 days per week routine I could handle, including walking 1 hour each day (it's key to keep my legs and joints healthy). However, I added boxing training 2 times per week and I'm fucking spent. My performance levels suck now, my heart rate is 15 bpm over average... I have stopped and rested for 2 days.

My routine is something like this:
DAY 1: 6x hill sprints and back training in the morning. Boxing and 1 hour walking in the evening.
DAY 2: Chest and triceps in the morning. 1-2 h walking in the evening.
DAY 3: 6x sprints and leg training in the morning. No more stuff.
DAY 4: Rest, and repeat this cycle the next days.

Do you have any suggestions? Am I doing anything wrong? I want to resume boxing, but I could only maintain that routine for 3 weeks before being done and useless.

Thank you guys.

Keep lifting, keep walking, avoid the hill sprints.

I'm primarily a powerlifter before a Judoka, and on the two days a week I train in Judo in my MMA gym, I can't properly lift because I'm so spent. It was just a sacrifice I accepted because I wanna be able to fight. Judo training is basically like hill sprints but more complex.

That's what's killing you. When you box, just box. The priority should be... Boxing-specific training, weight training, and if you have something left, cardio. Boxing itself is its own cardio.

 

[mr.sandman]

Use a low volume lifting routine

 

[Bapho96]

At least you're catching the overtraining ques and not grinding through them.
Where's your fatigue showing most? In the cardio or weights .
Might have to switch one out with slow tempo body weight training and stretching instead of anything intense.

My fatigue shows in the strenght department. Even when I'm spent, I could keep doing things like walking or jogging for a long time. It's just that I have no power for strenght stuff. For example, I normally can do 10 pull ups. When feeling in that low energy mode, I cant do more than 3.

 

[Bapho96]

You can cut your walks down. 2 hour walks aren't going to help with recovery when you are already doing so much. Maybe break the walking in 2 blocks for the day. You can even put walking in your rest day and make it an active recovery day.

The sprinting and weight training is in the same training block. You also have boxing/walking later. Maybe split day 3 into sprints in the morning and lifting at night. Also what do you for lifting? Are you just moving around weight like how some boxers do when they lift weights or you are pushing hard with a program? What is your training intensity like?

I try to work hard and I do stuff like deadlifts and weighted pull ups. However, it's true that lately I feel overtrained and just can "move around" weight without the proper intensity.

 

[Smato_rules]

I was able to make progress doing easy strength while laying block all day in south Florida and grappling three times a week

 

[ryun253]

Hey guys,

I'm a 26 years old male and I broke my femurs 2 years ago. Initially I was told I might not run again. Luckily, I have fully recovered by now. I was always a sports guy (I competed in amateur kick boxing), but since the accident working out has truly become a need physically and mentally.

I had a 6 days per week routine I could handle, including walking 1 hour each day (it's key to keep my legs and joints healthy). However, I added boxing training 2 times per week and I'm fucking spent. My performance levels suck now, my heart rate is 15 bpm over average... I have stopped and rested for 2 days.

My routine is something like this:
DAY 1: 6x hill sprints and back training in the morning. Boxing and 1 hour walking in the evening.
DAY 2: Chest and triceps in the morning. 1-2 h walking in the evening.
DAY 3: 6x sprints and leg training in the morning. No more stuff.
DAY 4: Rest, and repeat this cycle the next days.

Do you have any suggestions? Am I doing anything wrong? I want to resume boxing, but I could only maintain that routine for 3 weeks before being done and useless.

Thank you guys.

I'd just include a full body routine for the weight lifting if boxing is your objective or just remove it. Stick to your bodyweight pull ups, push ups, etc. that you can pump out reps without destroying your CNS.

For your hill sprints, you can do it once a week instead and add a rep weekly/biweekly.

From your program everything seems really high intensity, you'll have to sacrifice some of the workload.

 

[vision1]

Plenty of options to reduce the load.
You could keep it the exact same and have 2 days off instead of 1.
You could reduce the walking, I know it's low stress but it's also time you're not spending lying in bed or on the couch eating food.

A simple way of laying it out is rotating between high intensity and low intensity days. In other words, 48 hours recovery after a high intensity session. You currently do pretty much 3 high days straight (assuming you go pretty hard on the lifts day 2).

Day 1: Sprints + Pull lift (Deadlifts, rows, etc) morning, Boxing evening
Day 2: LISS
Day 3: Sprints + Push lift (Squats, Bench, etc) morning
Day 4: off

Depends how much priority you want to give boxing. Doing it at the end of a day with sprints and heavy lifting will have a negative impact.

 

[Bry]

What is your sleep and recovery like? It'd be easy to tell you to cut one of the hill sprint days, but if you're only sleeping 4 hours per night, or you're drinking several times per week, that would be a better thing to fix first.

Can't say it any better than this. If your not getting decent sleep and you have other bad lifestyle habits, you will crash. The human body can take a lot before it gets over trained.

Bry

 

[wufabufa]

Can't say it any better than this. If your not getting decent sleep and you have other bad lifestyle habits, you will crash. The human body can take a lot before it gets under recovered.

Bry

Fixed.....

At least that's the way I see it.

 

[Tornado]

Isometrics and single rep sets will go a long way

 

[Trabaho]

Gauge how you feel. Tone it down then when you adapt you can add in more.