I'm doing 15 sets per workout, which breaks down to 5 exercises with 3 sets per exercise. The rep range is 12 - 15 per set, and I'm shooting to get all that done in 30 minutes. So that would be a total workout time per week of 3 hours. Regarding the overtraining symptom of insomnia, I'm sleeping like a baby so I'm golden so far
When I was a young man sometimes I would get sick when I overtrained. I was in excellent condition, I don't think I could push myself hard enough to overtrain nowadays, my problem is just the opposite, under training.
Makes sense. I don't think you're at risk with 30 minutes a day. I like the idea of a 30-minute workout, but I don't really want to work out 6 days a week. So I do three full-body workouts, each of which lasts about 70 minutes or so, excluding abs which add an additional 10 minutes or so. That totals about 4 hours a week. I stopped doing cardio when I first mentioned I was considering it earlier in this thread. I don't miss it either, and I think the overall workout intensity adequately addresses cardiovascular considerations. So far so good...
Well, the "experts" seem to agree that it is better to undertrain than it is to overtrain. The question, of course, becomes one of demarcation and degree.
They build character, that's for sure. The thing I don't like about a split routine is that if you miss a workout, it kind of throws the whole thing out of whack. Whereas with a whole-body routine, the next workout is just like the last one. I know it has its downside, but I'm looking at the full half of that glass. However, I will say that the one split routine that I did adhere to for a number of years untill about 6 or 7 years ago was an A/B split, where I worked out 3 times a week. So week one would be A-B-A, week two would be B-A-B and so on. When I missed a workout it didn't otherwise alter the schedule in a meaningful way for me.
I came across a site that might be of interest to some here. http://www.exrx.net/index.html It has a lot of content and is very well organized, citing research where appropriate on matters relating to exercise volume, nutrition and so on.
Yeah, I decided to tone it down a bit, to about 60 minutes plus abs, 3 times a week. It actually added up to about 75 minutes plus abs at first, and seemed quite doable at the outset. But it adds up and got to be a bit taxing, so I reduced the volume by about 20% or so. I guess there's always trial and error when changing a routine. It occurred to me that when I went from twice a week to three times, I actually ended up adding to the overall weekly volume rather than merely distributing it over 3 workouts. This latest variation will actually be a small reduction in weekly volume to the previous twice weekly regimen. To think I used to to do so much more weekly volume (sets) even into my later 40s, when the more recent research now suggests it was probably a waste...
Studies have actually shown that results from workouts over 60 minutes are marginal at best. Your body starts building cortisol and starts depleting testerone. In other words, any time over 60 minutes is just being used to destroy muscles faster without much benefit.