How Much Weight Training Is Too Much?

Weight training is a popular form of exercise. There are many different types of weight training, including powerlifting, bodybuilding, calisthenics, and circuit weight training. While the methodologies differ, all these types of weight training offer similar benefits, including (1, 2):

• Increased muscle mass
• Improved functional strength
• Increased bone mineral density
• Decreased body fat
• Better athletic performance
• Reduced anxiety and depression
• Increased confidence and self-esteem
• Improved cardiovascular fitness
• Reduced resting heart rate and blood pressure
• Improved blood lipid profile
• Increased insulin sensitivity and lower blood glucose
• Reduced visceral fat
• Fewer incidences of low back and arthritic pain
• Reversal of age-related muscle and bone density decreases
• Increased quality of life

However, while the right amount of weight training can have a very positive impact on many aspects of your life, doing too much can be counter-productive and even harmful. Invariably, this happens when the demands of weight training exceed your ability to recover.

Needless to say, the better you are at recovering between workouts, the more weight training your body can tolerate. That’s why knowledgeable lifters pay so much attention to things like sleep, nutrition, and supplements.

However, even with all your recovery ducks in a neat row, it’s still possible to do too much. As a personal trainer with over 30 years of experience, I’ve found that beginners are especially susceptible to excessive weight training.

In this article, we explore the signs and symptoms that you are doing more weight training than your body can handle. We’ll also provide guidance on creating a balanced and sustainable strength training program.

How Much Weight Training is The Right Amount?

Cardio is often viewed as the most important type of exercise. This makes a certain amount of sense, given that cardio strengthens your heart, lungs, and circulatory system, which is responsible for keeping you alive.

Subsequently, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), recommends that adults over the age of 18 should get the following amounts of cardio (3):

• 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity each week OR
• 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity activity each week OR
• A combination of both

However, despite the well-documented benefits of weight training, there are no clearly defined recommendations for how much you should do. Instead, the CDC says that most adults should do muscle-strengthening activities at least twice a week (3).

Such vague guidelines make it tough to provide a detailed answer to the question “How Much Weight Training is The Right Amount?” That’s because some studies show benefits to doing just a couple of short workouts per week, while others suggest that longer, more frequent workouts are the way to go (4).

A Professional Trainer’s Point of View

As a veteran personal trainer and lifelong strength trainer, I’ve found that the right amount of weight training depends on several factors, including:

Consideration	Effect
Training status	Experienced exercisers can usually tolerate longer, more frequent workouts.
Age	Older exercisers may struggle to recover from lots of weight training.
Health and general lifestyle	Sleep duration, stress, and activity levels can all affect recovery between workouts and exercise tolerance.
Diet	Recovery from weight training is heavily influenced by what and how much you eat.
Training goals	Some training goals require more frequent or voluminous workouts than others.

With all that in mind, the right amount of weight training for one person could be entirely unsuitable for another. The optimal amount may also change over time.

For example, as a young bodybuilder, I often lifted weights six times a week for two hours per session. However, as a recreational exerciser in my mid-50s, I now lift weights for about 60 minutes three times per week. My goals and recovery ability changed, so my workouts had to change, too.

The Signs and Symptoms of Too Much Weight Training

So, while there is no one-size-fits-all guideline for how much weight training you should do, research and anecdotal evidence tell us that you can have too much of a good thing. However, it’s up to you to discover this for yourself.

Warning signs that your weight training workouts are starting to outpace your ability to recover include:

Your Progress Has Plateaued or Is Regressing

Weight training should cause your muscles to get bigger and stronger. While rates of progress vary from person to person, you should still see gradual improvements over time. However, too much weight training could result in stalled progress or even regression. This happens when your body is unable to recover sufficiently between workouts.

Chronic Muscle and Joint Pain

Delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS) often accompanies intense weight training. However, DOMS should be mild and short-lived, lasting only a few days. Chronic muscle soreness is a reliable indicator that you are not recovering between workouts (5).

You may also experience joint pain if you weight train too hard or too often.

Disrupted Sleep

Exercise generally improves sleep duration and quality. Unfortunately, doing more weight training than your body can handle can disrupt your usual sleep patterns (6). This is somewhat ironic because sleep is a critical part of the recovery process, and not getting the recommended 7-9 hours you need will further undermine your training.

Frequent Illness

Weight training should boost your immunity so you are more resistant to the bugs and germs that can make you sick. Conversely, training too hard or too often can weaken your immune system, making you more prone to illness (7). Getting sick more often or struggling to fight off minor illnesses are good indicators that you are doing too much weight training.

Mood Changes

A healthy body is associated with a healthy mind. However, when your training outpaces your ability to recover, it’s not just your body that’s affected, but your brain, too.

Misplaced anger, anxiety, irritability, and mood swings are all indicators you may be overtraining. In all likelihood, these changes can be attributed to disrupted sleep, tiredness, and the aches and pains caused by too much weight training.

How to Create a Sustainable Weight Training Routine

The best way to avoid the downsides of weight training is to follow a program that matches your needs, goals, and abilities. You can hire a trainer to create a suitable program for you, choose one from the internet, or learn how to write one yourself.

Either way, things to look for in a weight training program include:

Appropriate for Your Experience, Abilities, and Goals

Imagine taking up jogging, and your first run is a 26.2-mile marathon. Talk about doing too much too soon! And yet, as crazy as this scenario sounds, it’s precisely what many newbie weight trainers do when they follow workouts meant for more experienced lifters.

Unfortunately, a lot of the programs in magazines and websites are intended for people with plenty of training under their weightlifting belts. Some are only suitable for pro bodybuilders using performance enhancing drugs.

As such, they’re entirely inappropriate for beginners and even some intermediate exercisers.

So, skip those Mr. Olympia-type programs and stick to workouts that match your current experience level. Also, make sure your prospective workout addresses your goals. For example, don’t follow a powerlifting program if you just want to shape up and get fit.

Logical Progression

A well-designed weight training program should evolve as you get fitter and stronger. In other words, it should start relatively easy and get harder as you become accustomed to working out.

Common program variables include:

• Doing more reps per set
• Doing more sets per workout
• Lifting more weight per exercise
• Doing more exercises per muscle group
• Training more frequently

A sustainable program should include small but regular adjustments so that you keep making progress. However, those changes should not be rushed or leave you feeling overwhelmed. Slow and steady is the way to go.

Include Regular Rest Days

Rest days put back into your body what weight training takes out. The number of rest days you need depends on how hard you train and your ability to recover. However, most people should have two to four non-training days per week to give their muscles the time they need to heal, grow, and adapt.

Focus on Training Quality, Not Quantity

Just because you know a dozen exercises for your chest doesn’t mean you need to include all of them in your weight-training workouts. Doing lots of different exercises for the same muscle group wastes valuable time and energy and will impede recovery.

Instead, put your time and energy into a couple of “big bang” exercises per muscle group. As the bodybuilding great Lee Haney famously said, the goal is to stimulate, not annihilate!

Include Periodic Deloads

A deload is a period during which you reduce training intensity, volume, or duration. Deloads can be planned or unplanned and give your body extra time to recover so that, when you return to training, you are well-rested and ready to get back to work.

For example, you might take a week off because you are starting to feel tired or reduce the difficulty of your workouts one week every six. Either way, both planned and unplanned deloads can help prevent overtraining by making you take time off before it becomes absolutely necessary.

Read more about the essentials of effective weight training program design in this guide.

Closing Thoughts

Weight training is one of the best things you can do for your body. Hitting the gym builds muscle, strengthens your bones, and boosts immunity. Whether you want to lose weight, get fit, look good naked, or improve your sports performance, lifting weights will help.

Unfortunately, you can also have too much of a good thing, and excessive weight training can be counter-productive.

Unlike cardio, there are no proven recommendations on how much weight training you should do. The ideal dose depends on many factors, including your age, experience, lifestyle, and goals. However, most experts agree that 2-3 weight-training workouts a week are an excellent place to start for most people.

The bottom line is that lifting weights should have a positive effect on your health and performance. If you are experiencing negative results, you may be doing too much.

References:

1. Shailendra P, Baldock KL, Li LSK, Bennie JA, Boyle T. Resistance Training and Mortality Risk: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Am J Prev Med. 2022 Aug;63(2):277-285. doi: 10.1016/j.amepre.2022.03.020. Epub 2022 May 20. PMID: 35599175.
2. Westcott WL. Resistance training is medicine: effects of strength training on health. Curr Sports Med Rep. 2012 Jul-Aug;11(4):209-16. doi: 10.1249/JSR.0b013e31825dabb8. PMID: 22777332.
3. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (n.d.). Physical Activity Basics – Adults.
4. Baz-Valle E, Balsalobre-Fernández C, Alix-Fages C, Santos-Concejero J. A Systematic Review of The Effects of Different Resistance Training Volumes on Muscle Hypertrophy. J Hum Kinet. 2022 Feb 10;81:199-210. doi: 10.2478/hukin-2022-0017. PMID: 35291645; PMCID: PMC8884877.
5. Smith LL. Tissue trauma: the underlying cause of overtraining syndrome? J Strength Cond Res. 2004 Feb;18(1):185-93. doi: 10.1519/1533-4287(2004)018<0185:tttuco>2.0.co;2. PMID: 14971991.
6. Campbell EH, Poudevigne M, McFarlane S, Dilworth L, Irving R. Evidence That Sleep Is an Indicator of Overtraining during the Competition Phase of Adolescent Sprinters. J Sports Med (Hindawi Publ Corp). 2021 Apr 3;2021:6694547. doi: 10.1155/2021/6694547. PMID: 33884272; PMCID: PMC8041504.
7. Simpson RJ, Campbell JP, Gleeson M, Krüger K, Nieman DC, Pyne DB, Turner JE, Walsh NP. Can exercise affect immune function to increase susceptibility to infection? Exerc Immunol Rev. 2020;26:8-22. PMID: 32139352.

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