Question

[LCpl Lamm]

I have a couple questions concering PT.

I have a Weight Training class at my High School, we lift weights for an hour on Monday/Wednesday/Friday...Tuesdays and Thursdays we work on speed and agility, we do sprints, foot work, etc.
When I lift, I do core lifts, bench, squat, clean, and deadlift, plus a couple other auxillery lifts. After school, I lift weights for about 30-40 minutes, all auxillery lifts.
MWF-pull=ups, sit-ups with weight, barbell curls, tricpeps, shoulder complex, and lats.
Tues/Thurs-pull-ups, sit-ups with weight, toe raises with weights, and a squat exercising which names escapes me at the moment.
After I lift after school, I go to Wrestling practice, we run, then wrestle. Then I sometime go home and do callisthenics-push-ups, sit-ups, etc.

Anyhow, to get to the point. Is this too much. I don't hurt myself, so I should be good to go. But the past week my bench max has gone down, a long with my clean max. Could this be to overtraining, or due to my muscles breaking down and reforming?
Also, should I be doing pull-ups everyday? And should I be doing sit-ups with weight?
I asked someone else this, and they said don't work the major muscle groups everyday, only every OTHER day. So, pull-ups, sit-ups, should be done every other day.
Opinions, advice would be greatly appreciated. I'm doing all this work for a few reasons-wrestling, track and field, and USMC boot camp.
Thanks,
Lamm

[Grimmy]

The wrestling training is probably your best thing going for getting ready for bootcamp.

What you outlined does sound to me like over training.

Just at a guess, I'd suggest cutting out the after school lifting for a few weeks and see what that does to your overall output.

Chuter and others will know more than me on this tho.

[USMCRET6391]

If you max out your muscles (to muscle failure) it takes 48 hours for them to fully recover, you are definitely over training and all that weight lifting is not going to help you any in Boot Camp.

[LCpl Lamm]

Got it. I got another question.
Would it be a good idea to do ab exercises everyday? For example, 400 sit-ups Mon/Wed/Fri/Sat/Sun...divide the 400 reps into 4-6 sets. I don't just do regular sit-ups, I do variations of sit-ups. And on Tues/Thurs do 3 sets of 50 reps crunches with weight. Does this sound like a good idea?
I say 400 reps because I was told that doing 400 sit-ups a day is a good way to strengthen your abs. I was told to do 100 in the morning, 200 in the afternoon, and 100 at night. I do 400 at afternoon or night, but I rest 15 minutes between each set, unless I'm doing a 10 push-up, 40 sit-ups workout, where I do 10 psuh-ups, 40 sit-ups consecutively 8 times. And what about the pull-ups, should I be doing them everday, or every other day?
I am looking to strengthen my abs. And I know the lifting part isn't going to help me in boot camp, but I still want to do it.
Thanks, any and all help is greatly appreciated.

[USMCRET6391]

My suggestion is to do what I call 30 sec speed drills. Do as many sit up/crunches as you can in 30 secs then rest for 60 secs and do another set. Do 4 to 5 sets.....you should be doing significantly fewer reps on the 4th and 5th set. Abs are the easiest muscles to build and once you have driven them to failure (which you should be at by set 4 or 5 above) you arent doing much good, so 400 sit ups a day sounds really excessive to me, they are only going to get so big and/or strong.

[Grimmy]

If you're wanting belly muscles built to take a punch and protect you from abdominal damage..and not just going for that 6 pack thing...try jackknifes

..lay on your back with arms exetended along side your head on the ground and your legs out straight...with a single motion, bring your legs up to vertical and your swing your arms until your fingers are touching your toes..the only thing touching the ground should be the small of your back and your butt.
Hold at that point for a slow count of 60, and repeat a few dozen times


edited to remove sanchin breathing. I just read some stuff on the web while looking for a link to add here that suggests it might be harmful to the vascular system..which kinda makes sense.

[LCpl Lamm]

Well, when I am doing 400 a day, I don't get hurt, and if I do, I rest for a day or two or however long it takes for them to heal. So, would it be wise or bad to do sit-ups everyday? For sit-ups, and pull-ups, I am working on doing 100 sit-ups in 2 minutes or less and doing 20 consecutive pull-ups.
Come to think of it, when I say I do 400 sit-ups a day, they're actually crunches. I have a hard time finding someone to stand on my feet, and I have a hard time finding something that will hold my feet down, like a couch thats low to the ground. I think I found something that will hold my feet down though, so I will probably do 4-5 max sets of actual Marine Corps sit-ups everyday, since my max set right now is low. And, since 405 max sets of sit-ups won't equal to 400, which they won't, not now, I will just finish out the rest of the reps with crunches.
Am I doing too much? I've heard that as long as you are not hurting yourself, and you are not working a muscle group to death, and not working a muscle group when it is sore/hurt and needs to heal, you can exercise away.
Thanks,
Lamm

[Bronco1986]

as far as abs goes....

i work them 3 times a week. mostly mon/wed/fri.
right now i do 35 sit-ups, then rest 1 minute, do another 35, rest 1 min, and then a final 35.

before that i'll do regular push-ups same pattern as sit-ups/one minute rest inbetween each set. after the above mentioned abs exercise i do more push-ups(close arm and wide arm) same pattern. then i do crunches with various leg positions(legs down at 90 deg, legs down but spread, legs up at 90 deg, legs up but spread, one leg down one up then switch that. then finish with the original position. there is no break inbetween each diff leg position. i do 15 per position. works out to 105 reps.

between each excercise i break about 2-4 minutes. its all about keeping that heart rate up and that kind of thing. you dont want your muscles to become relaxed between sets.

i recommend not taking such long of breaks. 15 minutes is too long. cut down on the reps, but decrease the time inbetween sets. try one minute. doing less reps but in less time should actually improve performance. it has for me. when i took my first PT test i worked out similar to you. sports practice, wieghts training(during and after school). and large counts of situp/crunches but with long breaks. if you added it up i was probably training 3-4 hours a day. i only did 48 situps in 2 mins on the test.

now that ive started the workout i do now, i max out the situps on the APFT. after only doing that workout for 3 months. also, you can adjust it to your level. e.g. once you can do the say each set with 25 reps, increase it by 3 to 28 and then once you can do with out fatigue increase...etc.

that works for me, but overall, i would cut down on your training.

[USMC Chuter]

I'm going to keep this simple and avoid "mon/wed/fri blah blah this many reps yadda blah" kinds of advice. First of all, you are/were definately overtraining, bordering on ridiculously. Here's my take:
Abs- Do a variety of ab exercises 3-4 days a week. One session per day is fine.
Pullups- Do several max sets 2-3 days a week at the most.
Weights- Work one or two muscle groups a day, allowing 48 hours of rest before retraining those particular parts. If you're spending more than an hour or so on weights per day, and you're not training for the Mr. Olympia pageant, you're blowing smoke up your own ass and probably overtraining.
Running-Meaningful distance work 3 days a week, speed work 1 or 2 days a week. You might also trade one or two of your runs per week for another type of cardio-say swimming or biking.

Training properly is far more important than training often or for long periods of time. You'll see way more benefits from a reasonable, well-rounded, PROPERLY CONDUCTED training program than you will if you attempt a world record for situps in a 24 hour period... You're training for Marine boot camp - if you cut the weights out and made sure you could run, do pullups, and do situps; you'd be fine. Go forth and sweat.

[Grimmy]

This is Lamm we're talking about

Taking into account his tendency to ask questions and then either go about doing what he was doing anyway...or continue asking the question in various permutations until he gets the answer he wanted in the first place...maybe it'd be a good idea if he made sure he can do 8 count squat thrusts for at least an hour straight...and do pushups, with his hands at least 16 inches apart, until the sweat dripping from his face makes a puddle that touches both tumbs.

I mean, might as well tailor his workout to the classroom thrash requirements eh? lol.

[USMCRET6391]

I wasnt going to say anything, but I agree 100%. He's not looking for input, he's looking for confirmation.