Some of us are not only training
more, but harder than ever. Extreme modes of exercise such as HIIT and Crossfit
are gaining in popularity with some people training five, six, or even seven
days a week.
But how much is too much?
Although there is no magical
formula to determine when you’ve reached that point.
What is Overtraining?
Common in many types fitness
activities, overtraining happens when you perform more training—both in and out
of the gym—than your body can recover from. A shorter or less severe
variation of overtraining is referred to as overreaching, which is easily
recovered from in just a few days, while more severe overtraining can take
weeks, or months of recovery.
Some of the factors that lead to
acute overtraining include a sudden increase in exercise frequency, intensity
or duration of training sessions, as well as not allowing your body adequate
recovery. Genetics, as well as the length of time you have been training, known
as training age, also play a huge factor in your ability to resist
overtraining.
Because no one trains exactly the
same way, you should watch out for varying symptoms of overtraining. For
instance, power athletes may experience different symptoms than endurance
athletes, who might experience something different from weekend warriors.
Common Overtraining Symptoms
There are a number of
overtraining symptoms that include tiredness, tightness, decrease in
performance, increase in injuries, restlessness, elevated blood pressure,
decreased strength, decreased endurance, decreased max heart rate, allergic
reactions, a change in menstrual patterns, plus many more.
As some are easier to spot than
others, here are the top 7 signs you’re overtraining.
Overtraining Symptom #1: Lack of
Motivation
Lost all drive and motivation to train,
or really perform any physical activity? Your body is telling you that you need
to rest and recover because you are doing too much.
We all have days when we don’t
feel like training, heck. But if you go days, or even weeks, without wanting
anything to do with the gym, it’s time to listen to your body and take a rest.
Overtraining Symptom #2: You Feel
Especially Sore Following a Big Workout
Highly dependent on nutrition, if
you’re eating enough while training hard but still feel intense soreness after
your workouts, there is a chance overtraining has set in. Different than the
usual soreness from training, it will linger for a few extra days and might be
a little more painful.
As most newbies often do too much
too fast, overtraining is common in beginners Remember the first time you
trained your arms and you couldn’t wash your hair for a week? Or how about the
first time you did legs and dreaded walking up stairs for a week?
Overtraining Symptom #3: You Stop Seeing
Results
Believe it or not, working out
too much can actually cause you to lose muscle and gain fat! If it was as
simple as energy balance (burning more than you consume) then the more you
train the better. The problem is that hormones play a large role in the equation.
Overtraining causes your body to
produce inadequate amounts of testosterone (bad for the ladies too) while
producing higher levels of cortisol. The problem for both men and women is that
your body increases both insulin resistance and fat deposition. We are training
to get strong and lean, right?
Overtraining Symptom #4: You Become
Restless and Lose Focus
Typically found in strength or
power athletes or those who train with high intensity intervals, what happens is your
sympathetic nervous system goes into overdrive, restlessness, and
inability to focus.
This restlessness makes it even
harder to recover as I can’t stress enough how important sleep is for recovery
and consistent gains.
Overtraining Symptom #5: You Feel Sluggish
All Day
Another effect of overtraining
the sympathetic nervous system, this often happens with endurance athletes.
Again, the result of decreased testosterone and increased cortisol levels, in
some cases causes debilitating fatigue that feels like you’ve come down with a
cold.
Overtraining Symptom #6: Chronic Soreness
in Your Joints, Bones and Limbs
Post workout soreness in the form
of DOMS (delayed onset muscle fatigue) is normal, but if you experience intense
and prolonged soreness, you may have done too much. Basically, if it feels like
you got run over by a bus, you should cut back on your volume or intensity.
Overtraining Symptom #7: You’re Sick More
Often
Very often caused by a
combination of things such as lack of sleep, poor diet, not enough activity and
mental stress, if you think you are on point with all of these things and still
find yourself getting ill, it may be due to overtraining.
It’s really easy to ignore those
early morning sniffles or a cough here and there, but make sure you listen to
your body. Those little hints could be telling you that something is wrong with
your immune system from your increased training volume.
How To Avoid
Overtraining
Once
overtraining sets in it may take days, weeks, or even months, to recover
completely, since your nervous system has short-circuited. If this is the case,
you may have to take an unplanned break from exercising in order to fully
recover. So, to avoid this scenario, make sure to train smart and allow your
body adequate time to recover.
1. Sleep
Sleep is cheap, effective, and so
simple a caveman could do it. And it’s something where most people really miss
the ball. If you want to double your results and decrease your risk of
overtraining, you might want to hit the hay an hour or two earlier. Sleep is so
important because it helps repair your body.
2. Nutrition
Your diet plays a huge role in
recovery. Without the proper nutrients, you’re shooting yourself in the foot
before the race even begins. You wouldn’t get in your car to drive to work
without any gas, or with the wrong fuel, would you? Your body needs quality
fuel and empty calories won’t cut it.
To prevent overtraining, you
should have an adequate intake of protein, fats, and carbs, which is why many
restrictive and fad diets don’t work
3. Stress
One thing rarely taken into
account is your body’s stress level. You need to consider both training as well
as outside stressors. If everything else is on point, and you are still not
achieving results from your program, you might want to give some thought to
whether stress is the culprit.
4. Training
Just as training too frequently
causes problems, smart training volume prevents them. A good rule of thumb is
to train only enough to elicit a training response. Don’t train to the point
where it takes 2 weeks to recover from one session.
Rest between heavy lifting sessions
as much as possible and avoid training heavy with full body lifts one or two
days in a row. Also, you may consider changing up the intensity week to week:
train hard and heavy one week, then, the following week, take it back a notch.
To maximize results and minimize injury, be sure to progress your workouts
slowly, instead of making large jumps in training volume, or intensity. This
helps your body to adapt to new stresses.
Depending on your goals and
training experience, I also recommend a deload week where you significantly
decrease training volume every 4-12 weeks.
5. Recovery
Just as I mentioned above, taking
at least one or two days in between training sessions helps you recover much
faster, but this doesn’t mean you have to stay out of the gym all together.
There are a few activities to try
on rest days that will keep you active and help prevent overtraining and
injuries. Spending some extra time on a foam roller and doing some proper stretching is
never a bad idea. Especially if you work at a desk, you can never spend too
much time with the roller.
Non-impact activities like yoga
and swimming can also aid in recovery as long as you don’t overdo it. These
activities can be considered “active rest” to help rejuvenate your body and
flush out toxins. With yoga, focus on the breathing and restful aspects and
feel like a million bucks after class.
Now that you’re equipped to spot
the most common signs of overtraining, go train hard and train with purpose!
