Can Muscular atrophy can be a bi-product of over-training?

Answer 1

Overtraining can certainly result from over-training.

Muscle growth is stimulated by exercising the muscle against enough resistance to cause tiny tears in the muscle fibres, which over time get repaired to be thicker than they originally were.

There are various training methods to achieve this effect, known as hypertrophy, some take very little time to perform.

The first bodybuilder to ever get a perfect score at Mr Olympia, Mike Mentzer, used to emphasise that anything over the minimum exercise necessary to stimulate growth is technically overtraining, as hypertrophy is caused by repair of the micro-tears in muscle tissue, and overtraining results in causing so many tears the muscle takes a longer time to be repaired.

Depending on the fitness of the individual, the intensity and duration of the workout, the age of the individual and so on, overtraining can take anywhere from a night's sleep, to several weeks to recover from fully.

Many people, I am sure exercise too often, or perform too many sets of exercises for certain body parts, and cause themselves to atrophy, or to gain muscle more slowly than they could if they trained properly.

As with much in life, balance is key, between diet, rest, and exercise.

The longer you train, the more you become aware of what is necessary to keep pushing your body to improve.