CinDee:
I am curently facing the same problem as you and like you, I have been waiting to see whether Cathe and other forum muscle experts will answer. In the meanwhile, I'll tell you what I think, but it's based on experience, not science!
I can't always fit in 6 workouts per week. Most weeks it is either 5 or 4. And yet, I love cardio and as I get older (40 is getting closer.....) also feel I must include 2 muscle conditioning workouts for each body part per week, to stave of osteoporosis, keep a high burning metabolism, etc, etc.
So, these past 3 weeks I have doubled up in order to fit it all in. I find the CTX series invaluable for helping me to do this. For example, I will make sure that I do at least one long cardio per week, either Step Works, Power Max, or Cardio Kicks. Then I will do three days of a shorter CTX cardio routine, All Step, Power Circuit, or 10 10 10, these are my favourites. I walk around for 5 minutes and drink some juice after this, then let Cathe take the crew through the warm up of either PLB or PUB or LL or PS legs, whichever strength training video I am doing after that, then when I feel ready, I move right into strength training.
This way, I have fitted in 4 cardio sessions and 2 sessions of weight training for each body part. If I am very pressed for time, I will consider the leg work of Power Circuit and upper body work of Cardio and Weights to be my strength work, but then I take the weight as high as I comfortably can to compensate a little since these are principally endurance workouts.
I was reading a post in Muscle and Fitness Hers this morning on just this issue. The bottom line is, the article suggests, that if you are working out for 2 hours a day, say cardio in the am and weights in the pm (or doubling up both sessions back to back) and doing this as a regular routine 6 times a week and week-in, week-out, it will become detrimental and will lead to either injury and/or over training. Some of the symptoms for overtraining the article lists are:
1. you constantly feel tired, no amount of sleep helps you over it
2. you take increasingly longer time to recover from your strength training workouts, longer than 72 hours
3. you lose interest in working out
4. you experience a disturbance in normal sleep and eating patterns
Locate the magazine in your nearest supermarket aisle and check it out.
Probably, if you are doubling up but only working out 4 days per week, you will avoid overtraining. But be sure to always listen to your body even if the schedule says its cardio and upper body training today. If you just feel pooped, give it a rest for a day. Less can be more.
So, I have not answered your question about whether this will hamper strength gains or not. Bottom line, I have no idea. Step in Cathe, please? And other forum experts? Perhaps the concern is, that in doubling up four times per week, muscles may not have sufficient time to rest?
But I would say that if this is your reality, then I don't think it would be harmful in the short term as long as you listen to your body.
And there are many fitness aficionadas on these forums who regularly double up and either work out for 1 and 1/2 hours to 2 hours per session or do cardio in the am and weuights in the pm six days per week, and they swear by it and can't all be overtraining, or there would be some very listless people around.
Does any of this help?
Clare
