Avoiding Weight Lifting Burnout

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Ok. i have been lifting weights for about a month now. And i've been kinda missing a few days. i lift weights about 3 times a week at home. my parents have our own weight machine and dumbells but i would like to ask you Weight lifting autistics on how i can avoid burn out. But still keeping my muscle mass build up. Any suggestion's? Thanks.

To avoid burnout lifting 3 times a week like you're doing is good. Unless you want to get extreme, more than 3 times a week isn't necessary. Also, keeping each workout to an hour or less is important to avoid burnout. More than anything, listen to your body. If you're real sore and tired, take a break.

Another tactic that can be helpful is to change up your routine from time to time. That could stimulate new muscles and make workouts more interesting. Even if you have limited resources you can have sessions where you lift heavy and slow..and others where you lift medium and fast..etc. If you want to build muscle eating right is important..basically just eat the best you can and eat enough food to stay fueled and maybe put on a bit of muscle.

Anyhow, good luck! The results can be very satisfying.

I used to lift weights 5 days a week, for 45 minutes per day (lunchtime) for a couple of years.

I avoided burnout by doing my arms and shoulders twice a week, and my legs and thighs three times a week. The middle stuff, like crunches, I did kind of randomly. It worked out really well.

For those two years I was totally depression-free, and had a great-looking body as a bonus!

A general rule of thumb that is often quoted is to change up your exercise selection after no more than 6 weeks. So instead of flat bench with regular grip move it out slightly and maybe hit incline or decline. But this is all in relation to training experience. Experienced lifters could be changing every couple of weeks in order to gain benefit. Also adding in a planned detraining phase like a week of just active recovery work can help a lot. You could just play it by ear and when you start to feel run down and demotivated just take a week out. I always felt better after the time off so I knew it was the right decision. I always feel that's a good way to gauge whether you're burning out as well as your actual perfomance, i.e. are you getting stronger?

www.hypertrophy-specific.com - if your goal is simply getting bigger i dont think youll find better advice on one site.

one thing ill add - (obviously if you read the above site itll be redundant) - but when i was at the same stage as you, the biggest single thing i did was to start keeping records - quickly writing *everything* down between sets, chart-style - poundage,reps, any worrying twinges, notes on improving form etc. When i was just doing vaguely what i felt like it was really hard to get motivated sometimes, but once i had a sheet of paper to fill in, and i was on a path to developing a suitable routine with a clear indication of progress, it quickly became a non-issue. I was obsessed

A funny thing i started off really loathing the really valuable, but technical & hard compound exercises (squats,deads etc) and preferred the (relatively useless) easy & fun things like curls etc. but once i started recording everything the compounds became my favorites.

Yeah, deconditioning is important for hypertrophy.

Im not quite sure what 'burn-out' refers to in the OP, but if your pushing maxes every session and starting to feel 'run down', lacking energy all the time, then you could be doing more than is healthy and risk getting increased infections etc as your immune system will start to suffer.

If your goal is hypertrophy, pushing maxes isnt the way to go in the long term anyway, although it will probably give good results to start with.
If your goal is strength - consider that one of the popular programs used by powerlifters (last time i checked) is 'west-side' - they have alternate strength and speed days - on speed days i think they use lighter weights.

If, however your just after a little extra motivation, just have a read of this http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=533977

another thing is to have some music, movies, something you don't have to follow closely, but just give your mind something to do between reps...

You've gotten some great advice. Tracking your lifting, seeing the progress, reading weightlifting sites, eating well, measurements (biceps, thighs, etc) can all be motivating factors. Doing different things sometimes helps too. If you've gotten pretty far, you can try doing periodic training - 8 weeks of conditioning, 8 weeks of building up strength, a week of heavy lifting, then a break for a week, then do it again. There's all sorts of recordkeeping that can be fun if you're into such things. Keep your protein intake high. Find bodyweight workouts to do sometimes just for fun. (see how many pushups and pullups you can do.)

Good luck with it. I really enjoy weightlifting. It's great!

Thanks Guys. I truly appreciate it.

For deconditioning, does one completely take a break for a week, meaning also no cardio? I don't believe I've had one complete week's worth of rest in two years. At the very least, I have been able to lift weights once a week when my motivation was at its lowest. Taking an entire week off is scary because I am afraid I will regress. The weather is getting a bit warmer so I should be able to walk outside for the first time in months.

Not sure how necessary it is to abandon cardio, but im sure some people say that is helpful. Perhaps if someone has 'stubborn' calves for instance, they might skip running & cycling for a week to make sure they get the most benefit from the deconditioning.

The time needed depends on how much you want to decondition; If youve just ended a cycle with 2 weeks of negatives and you want to get back to a level where an effective hypertrophy stimulus can be gotten from your 15RM, then you have a lot of deconditioning to do - maybe a week and a half(?) In less extreme examples a week would probably be fine.

try what i do. go on the indoor track for 3 minutes to warm up, then work out on the eliptical cycle for 20 min. do the free weights for one day, then do weight machines another day. well, that's how my workout regiments goes.