5 signs of overtraining
If you’ve been training for any period of time you’ve probably felt the symptoms of overtraining. It can be hard, especially when you’re less experienced to recognize these signs and have the discipline to scale back your training but that is exactly what you need to do. Here are our top 5 signs you might be overtraining:
Can’t fall asleep/stay asleep
Decrease in gym performance
Injury/sore joints
Frequently getting sick
Low/no sex drive
Before we get into these, we feel it’s important to give you some context on how this could happen. Here the bottom line… our autonomic nervous system is made up of 3 parts; in regards to overtraining we only need to discuss 2 of them: the sympathetic, and parasympathetic nervous systems. The sympathetic nervous system, aka fight or flight, is what powers you through your workouts. Think of it as a light switch you want to turn on when you workout but then turn off when you’re done training, so the light-bulb doesn’t burn out too quickly. Turning the light switch off activates the parasympathetic nervous system which is the rest and digest portion, this is where you should be most of the day. This is when you recover, rebuild and grow new muscle tissue. If you’re constantly in a stressed state which will happen if you’re overtraining, the light switch will stay on and eventually the light-bulb will burn out. That is when and you’ll experience one or more of the above symptoms.
Now that thats out of the way, let’s get into these…
1. Can’t fall asleep/stay asleep
If you’re suffering from an inability to fall asleep, stay asleep, or both; it’s possible you’re overtraining and not fully recovering from your workouts. Your body is not going to build muscle if you’re not getting adequate sleep. We don’t build muscle in the gym, we break it down in the gym, and create the potential for growth in muscle and strength. We only grow if we get the proper rest and nutrition ie parasympathetic rebound. You’ll want to scale your training back and/or add in an extra rest day or 2 and let your sleep normalize before going back into hardcore training.
2. Decrease in gym performance
Again if we’re not giving our bodies the proper rest outside of the gym, our performance and strength inside the gym is going to be negatively effected. If you’re overtraining you’ll probably plateau or even see a decrease in your strength. You also might lack overall focus and drive during your training. You’ll catch yourself getting more distracted than usual, resting longer and overall lacking intensity. Poor performance overtime leads to poor results, which leads to less motivation, which leads to getting discouraged and quitting. A recipe for DISASTER. Avoid this problem by being as disciplined with your rest, as you are with your training. Both are equally important if you want to see great results.
3. Injury/sore joints
With overtraining you are also putting your body at a greater risk of injury. We’re all about pushing the limits during training but you have to know where to draw the line between pushing yourself & creating more muscle damage than you can recover from. This can happen a lot with beginners - you’re excited to start your fitness journey so you go balls to the walls for 2 weeks and then BAM! You hit that overtraining wall or worse, you get injured because you’re going too hard or too heavy with the weights. Your body has limits and if you don’t know what they are, you will hurt yourself. This is when having a coach would be extremely beneficial. A great coach will know when to push you and when to ease up. Getting injured always sets you back from achieving your goals, that why we must avoid it. Part of your journey, is learning how to train smarter not always how to train harder.
4. Frequently getting sick
If you’ve made exercise an important part of your life, you’ve no doubt noticed the benefits training has on your immune system. People who exercise have stronger immune systems and are more resilient to getting sick than those who live a less active, more sedentary lifestyle. However, if you are getting sick despite being consistent with your training, getting plenty sleep, and quality nutrition, then you may be getting run down by too much training. Exercise is like medicine but even too much medicine can have the opposite of its desired effect. If you are catching colds, sneezing and always fatigued, you may want to take a de-load week or 3-4 days off of training completely.
5. Low or no sex drive
Unfortunately signs of overtraining won’t only show up in the gym, they’ll also show up in the bedroom. For ladies, this will look like low or no sex drive. For the guys it’s usually an inability to perform if you know what I mean. This is not good for anyone. Whats the point of looking good naked if we can’t get frisky! Take some time off training in the gym and focus on that bedroom cardio ; ) Your relationship will thank you.
So you might be reading this and realize holy cow… this is me. Now is the perfect time to take a step back in order to take 5 steps forward. First step is to scale back your training. Second make sure you have enough time to recover, our suggestion would be 24-48 hours between training sessions minimum. You could also just take a full week off training to let your body reset. Third make sure you get plenty of shuteye and fourth that you’re hitting your macros. It’s going to feel like you’re going backwards but you’re not. If your body is giving you these signs it’s because you need to do something different.
Remember it’s a marathon not a sprint.
- Gene & Gaby
