2. The more and the longer you workout, the better:
I know that if you work
more and harder in your career, you will grow your business and earn
promotions, if you spend more time with your friends and family you will build
stronger relationships and if you practice longer and more intense on your golf
swing well you will probably shave strokes off your game.
But this doesn’t work
with exercise and weight lifting. If you over train your body it is rather
counterproductive. Most people are aware of this concept, but they are not
aware about how fast overtraining can happen.
When I am at the gym, I
see people overtraining all the time. The guys who pump up their muscles for
about 2 hours, the girls that go to every Zumba and body attack class in one
evening. They wonder why their muscles don’t grow bigger or stronger or why they
don’t lost the weight they want.
They may be thinking
that the longer they workout and the more classes they take the faster they
will reach their goals. But that’s not how it works.
Overtraining is the
result of an imbalanced Work/Recovery relation. When you put too much stress on
your body and don’t give it the needed rest-time then various undesirable
things can happen.
Some of the common side
effects are:
- Chronic fatigue
- Depression
- Underperformance
But they are not always
that extreme or obvious. Some of them aren’t that heavy :
- You simply can’t finish a proper workout:
When your body is over
trained, you can’t lift the weights you usually lift, because you don’t have
enough energy. You will feel progressively weaker, slower and more lethargic.
- You are getting fatter despite training hard:
Your hormones get
thrown out of whack. Testosterone levels plunge and cortisol levels rise, which
causes catabolism (the breakdown of muscle tissue) and increases insulin
resistance and fat deposition. The result: you train harder and harder but get
fatter instead of more fit.
- You are training hard everyday of the week:
Unless you have
Wolverine’s gift of regeneration I recommend to take at least 2 days off
weights per week and schedule at least 1 day of absolutely no exercising at all.
What I like to do is
lifting weights from Monday to Friday and doing some cardio on Saturday, which
leaves Sunday as a complete rest day.
You can play with this
as much as you want so long as you take two days off weights and have one day
of complete rest.
- You are restless at night and have trouble sleeping:
If you do a lot of
aerobic exercise and are over trained, your sympathetic nervous system
can remain excited at all times, which leaves you restless at night and causes
a disturbed and broken sleep.
- You have pains in your joints, bones or limbs:
That’s one of the first
things I notice when I approach the point of being over trained. My back starts
to ache, then my knees and then my hip. Actually it takes 8 to 10 weeks of
intense training before repetitive stress happens and that’s the moment where I
take a whole week off to let my body recover.
- You get sick more often than usual:
If you take care of you
immune system, don’t eat too much sugar and give your body the vitamins it
needs, but still get little coughs, sniffles sinus pressure or headaches, you
may be overtraining. Take a rest week and let your immune system recover.
- You feel drained and crappy after what normally would be a good workout:
Normally I feel so good
after working out, but when I get closer to the point of overtraining I feel
more and more miserable after every workout. Working out should increase your
mood. If you are feeling bad instead, well you may be overtraining and you
should take some rest.
If you only experience
one of the symptoms I listed, it won’t be an indicator of over training. But if
you notice several of these symptoms, then chances are pretty high that you
need to take a rest week and give your body the recovery it needs.
Getting a proper amount
of sleep could help (7 to 8 hours per night) as well as a proper diet which
provides your body with everything it needs to repair itself.
Listen to your body to
avoid the incredibly frustrating and discouraging trap of overtraining.
Sincerely, your Lifting Fairy
WOW wise counsel when I train hard, I find impossible to do so without the correct proportion of rest
AntwortenLöschenhttp://melange-boutique.blogspot.com.es/
Thank you a lot! I will visit your blog immediately! xoxo
Löschenhey, thank you so much sweetie :)
AntwortenLöschensame to you!