10 Overtraining Symptoms and What You Can Do About Them
Overtraining symptoms are warning signs that begin to gradually appear comes from regularly training too hard. If your workouts are too intense, volume is too high, you perform too many exercises, and you don't get enough
recovery
between workouts, you could have overtraining symptoms leading to workout burnout.
Effects of overtraining are real--your entire body suffers the consequences. While a high level of motivation and hard work will help you achieve your goals, you have to listen to your mind and body to know when too much is enough.
10 Overtraining Symptoms
Are you burned out from training too hard with weights or is your total training routine too demanding? Here are 10 signs and symptoms that can range from mild to severe:
1. Working hard but with decreasing coordination; performance gets worse or is inconsistent.
2. Needing increasingly longer time to recover after workouts or competitions.
3. Experiencing chronic fatigue; feeling tired and sluggish over extended periods of time.
4. Losing motivation and feeling depressed or indifferent about training and competition.
5. Headaches, often accompanied by an inability to sleep regularly.
6. More frequent muscle soreness and joint stiffness that tend to last increasingly longer.
7. Reduced or lost appetite.
8. Changes in your period; completely stopping menstruation (amenorrhea).
9. Elevated resting heart rate when you wake up in the morning.
10. Decreased self esteem and self confidence.
A few of these signs may not mean much, but if you can identify with many of these signs and symptoms, listen to your body and consider doing the following:
How to Reverse Overtraining Symptoms
1. Back off from the volume and intensity of your training program. Remember--as you increase your weight loads, reduce the volume.
2. Allow more recovery time between set and workouts.
3. Include more variation in your program. Following a planned, periodized training program builds in recovery periods. See
The Principle of Variation
Phases of Training
4. Do not perform every set to failure.
5. Maintain adequate caloric intake. Be sure to eat enough carbohydrates for quick energy and enough protein to build muscle.
6. Educate yourself about the signs of the
female athlete triad
and be willing to access professional resources for assistance.
Adequate rest time is just as important as a good workout. In fact, you may reach your goals more quickly if you allow enough recovery time for your body to rebuild. All things in moderation is good training advice. See
The Principle of Balance
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Sources:
Fry, A.C. (2007). Overtraining with resistance exercise. ACSM Current Comments. Retrieved October 28, 2008, from http://www.acsm.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Current_Comments1
McArdle, W.D., Katch, F.I., & Katch, V.L. (2000). Essentials of exercise physiology
(2nd ed.). Baltimore: Lippincott, Williams, & Wilkins.
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