The 1 hour "rule"

[Oscar_Actuary]

not to always sound like a puss, but I've had repeated dislocations of right shoulder, and watching snatch videos make me queasy. But some of those and some form of complexes in general will be on the docket. Sometimes I do the Bryce Lane have it all. Love/hate those days.

[Stephen Johnson]

i think of it as more of a guideline than a rule. .

I've always thought of keeping training sessions at an hour or less as a guideline rather than a rule..

Either I missed robertscott's comment, or I subconsciously stole it.

[robertscott]

i wouldn't worry about it Stephen, my jedi mind tricks are too powerful for any to resist

[KenDowns]

Everything I needed to know I learned from Practical Programming

We all know testosterone is an anabolic hormone - builds up muscle. Cortisol is a catabolic hormone - breaks things down. If you never exercise these exist in a baseline ratio in your body.

A weightlifting session alters the ratio in favor of cortisol. A change in ratio less than 10% does not trigger adaptation - you wasted time. A change from 10-30% triggers an adaptation - you get stronger. A change of greater than 30% is overtraining, you start regressing.

In PP these numbers are never tied to the magic 1 hour duration. Presumably for the average amateur but serious lifter more than 1 hour runs the risk of overtraining. But I would think we should expect that to vary with the individual as everything else varies with the individual. Hard to imagine 5-10 minutes either way makes too much of a difference.

[CorlessJohnJ]

The thing is in my opinion if a workout goes for three hours usually you will have more down time or longer time between sets. I know my workouts usually are anywhere between an hour and a half to two hours. If I do cardio at the gym even longer. I don't dictate my workout to a clock whatsoever. Call me crazy but I go with quality and what I feel would be an awesome workout for me. Forget the clock get time in quality time and if you are doing everything right what you want to happen will happen.

[Paperclip]

I once read that (post? peri?) cortisol release can be "controlled" (suppressed?) by simply consuming carbs during a workout.

But I don't even know how cortisol functions and its role, even more how true that statement is.

[Paperclip]

I wonder..., considering how well fed most people who weight train are, is cortisol something that we should "be afraid" of? I mean I imagine that manual laborers work their a$$ off most of the day but do they think about cortisol? Is it a bad analogy?

[KenDowns]

I wonder..., considering how well fed most people who weight train are, is cortisol something that we should "be afraid" of? I mean I imagine that manual laborers work their a$$ off most of the day but do they think about cortisol? Is it a bad analogy?

Pure opinion: I don't think we ever need to be "afraid of" something the body is doing naturally.

For instance, we always knew that training too hard results in overtraining and regression. Then some researchers work out that too much cortisol seems to be playing a role in the overtrained lifter. But then, does this really change what we already knew? Nope.

I bring up the testosterone/cortisol ratio as a possible explanation for the 1 hour rule, but then I don't really know. It might explain what is happening and why it is bad to train too hard, but again, we already knew training too hard is counterproductive.

[CorlessJohnJ]

I wonder..., considering how well fed most people who weight train are, is cortisol something that we should "be afraid" of? I mean I imagine that manual laborers work their a$$ off most of the day but do they think about cortisol? Is it a bad analogy?

Pure opinion: I don't think we ever need to be "afraid of" something the body is doing naturally.

For instance, we always knew that training too hard results in overtraining and regression. Then some researchers work out that too much cortisol seems to be playing a role in the overtrained lifter. But then, does this really change what we already knew? Nope.

I bring up the testosterone/cortisol ratio as a possible explanation for the 1 hour rule, but then I don't really know. It might explain what is happening and why it is bad to train too hard, but again, we already knew training too hard is counterproductive.

I think training "too hard" is actually very hard to do. Overtraining or what I have read of it happens rarely. I know you can train till you can't move or hurt but thats DOMS. If you can overtrain congratulations I haven't been able to do it yet! haha

[robertscott]

I wonder..., considering how well fed most people who weight train are, is cortisol something that we should "be afraid" of? I mean I imagine that manual laborers work their a$$ off most of the day but do they think about cortisol? Is it a bad analogy?

i think that's a good point. Another counter to the argument I heard was that imagine you need to carry a sofa up some stairs half an hour before your workout. Does that mean your workout should only last half an hour?

If you're eating properly I reckon you could train for 2 hours+ and still do fine.

In fact, the biggest, strongest guy I ever train with will hit the gym for an hour, play a game of basketball, then back to the gym again. Flies in the face of all conventional wisdom, but the guy weighs 100k and has a 275k squat so he's doing something right

[stuward]

Cortisol is a complicated issue. As mentioned earlier, increasing it by 10% leads to no adaptation, increasing by 30% is too much. I have no idea of any practical way of measuring that level , but there's an optimum level for each person that will vary according to what the individual is used to. The 1 hour rule, which I have also seen expressed as as 45 to 90 minutes of normal intensity work, with normal hydration, seems to be the optimal duration for getting cortisol into the range to initiate an appropriate adaptation in most people. You will always find situation or individuals that are different. Nutrition within the workout can also make a difference.

[mark74]

The turn the thread has taken (and many others like this) is a constant reminder to me that the strength training community seems to be perpetually polarized in some sort of teenage transition where the only options are manning up and pussing out. There are no in betweens, you are either a lazy scumbag who only deserves some whipping or a candidate for self-destruction, although of course overtraining obviously being an invention of communist propaganda, it's either lazy scumbag or ripped m.0ther.f.u.c.k.er.

[Stephen Johnson]

it's either lazy s------- or ripped m-----f-----.

Using this kind of language doesn't exactly validate whatever point you're trying to make.

People can disagree, but they can do so without introducing vulgarity to the thread. And the board members did, until you posted your comment.

[Oscar_Actuary]

Mark makes a point applicable to several threads here.

One cuss word does not negate it

[robertscott]

I think training "too hard" is actually very hard to do. Overtraining or what I have read of it happens rarely. I know you can train till you can't move or hurt but thats DOMS. If you can overtrain congratulations I haven't been able to do it yet! haha

i missed this post earlier.

OVERTRAINING IS A MYTH

ok so maybe it's not a myth, but let's be serious here for a second. Olympic athletes overtrain, and it happens so incredibly rarely that they don't even think about it.

I hear guys in my gym that train 3 times a week on a chest/biceps/chest split who won't add extra sessions because they're worried they're overtraining. It just isn't going to happen to you.

I totally agree with John here, if you've managed to overtrain, then good for you! Your work ethic is clearly better than 99.99999% of the rest of the world. Scale it back a tiny bit and I look forward to seeing you in London 2012