Hello Dan. Great web site. My question is- If you can adjust the weight increases on each excersice isn't it possible for someone to overtrain?? Example: On my 4 day Body Building routine the Bench Presses arn't at a heavy weight but, if I increase the poundage will this not allow me to recover fully for the next work out and also lead to over training?? Thank you.

Hello, Great question! I have designed all of my programs so that our members can make individual changes (fitness goal, weekly training frequency, exercise prescription, and weights) without compromising the integrity of the program as long as reasonably "sound" information is loaded into the computer. More on this in a minute! All of the set and rep combinations are based on a 12-week periodization model to allow for variety in volume and intensity. You can see this variety by looking at the difficulty "color" of each week on your program. I really wanted each member to have the ability to be involved with his or her exercise program. This is very important and is one of the aspects of our site that people like the best. However, the difficulty with allowing this control means that a member could put in that they bench press 1,000 pounds! This is obviously not “sound” information and could create a problem. The most important thing about changing the prescribed weights on your program is that you must be able to complete all the reps, in each set, for every exercise. If you cannot, you must decrease the weight. And, if you can easily complete everything for a particular exercise you can increase the weight. Easily completing the reps means that if the workout calls for 10 reps and you could have easily done 12 or more repetitions that you can increase the weights. However, if you could only complete 8 repetitions than you should decrease the weights. And, being able to complete only 1 rep more or 1 rep less than the prescribed workout is not significant to make any changes. This rule holds true for every week of your workout except for the “downloaded” workouts on weeks #5 and #10. I have written at the top of these workouts that you should not make any weight changes because everything is supposed to be easy! Let me be even more specific in order to give you a greater understanding of when to change your weights. On all the other workout weeks there are certain “indicator” sets for each exercise. Indicator sets are the heaviest sets for a particular exercise. These are the sets that will indicate to you whether or not you should increase or decrease the weights on a particular exercise. Take the bench press for example. The first couple of sets are lighter, warm-up sets. Obviously, you should not increase the weights on these sets. They are supposed to be easy! You must wait until you get to the heavier indicator sets to make a decision on changing the weights. On “very hard” weeks like #4 and #9 there will be 3 and sometimes 4 indicator sets on exercises like the bench press or leg press. Again, in keeping with the rule of changing weights, you must be able to complete all of these indicator sets and reps with relative ease before you should think about increasing the weights on your program. On “medium” weeks like #1 and #6 there may only be 1 or 2 indicator sets after the warm-up sets on the bench or leg press exercise. The same rule applies here as well, if you can easily complete these indicator sets then you can increase your weights. As you might have figured out, the number of indicator sets along with the total number of exercises on your program is how I designate the specific difficulty of a workout. The Fitrex programs are designed to allow for enough recovery for the next workout if you stay consistent in following the set and rep combination rule as outlined above. Finally, the periodization model that the programs follow will help you to avoid overtraining by incorporating the "very easy" or "download" weeks periodically throughout the length of the program. Keep up the good work, and thanks for your very good question! Dan