What is Overtraining?
What’s the deal with overtraining? Is it bad for you? Should you avoid it? Is it a big deal?
Working out and training is good for you, but you can do too much. This can negatively impact your body, health and mind. Let’s talk about what this looks like, signs and what to do.
Overtraining = doing too much in a period of time where the body has no chance to fully recover.
How it Starts + The Signs
Overtraining can happen to anyone. Some people unknowingly develop an unhealthy relationship with exercise and train too hard, too often. Too much exercise will become harmful.
Factors that can lead or contribute to overtraining include: doing too much per workout (number of exercises or sets; not enough rest between sets), too many workouts sequentially, not getting adequate rest and not fueling yourself properly.
This can happen with any type of training – running, resistance, strength, hypertrophy, HIIT, group training, etc.
Your body will start to tell you when it’s being overtrained. Signs of wear and tear will be presented to you. It will look and exhibit itself differently for everyone.
Some feel physical signs of the body breaking down such as injury and severe pain. Others may feel chronically fatigued and achy. You may even feel burnt out with little to no desire to go the gym, go for your runs or attend your group classes.
Symptoms of overtraining include:
Increased or constant muscle soreness
Stiff or heavy-feeling muscles
Poor performance
Irregular or loss of menstruation
Poor sleep
Decreased motivation
Hitting and difficulty overcoming plateaus
How to Conquer Overtraining
If you find yourself feeling any of these symptoms, stop and reflect on your recent training. What does it look like? Are you incorporating rest days and deload weeks? Are you eating properly? Are you pushing yourself too far?
There are a few ways to recover from overtraining. The most obvious and most important is rest. The moment you start to feel the effects of overtraining, you should stop. Ideally, the sooner you stop, the less time you will need to rest.
Generally, if someone listens to the signs, they will need about one to two weeks of rest. When one ignores signs and pushes themselves, they end up with an injury and could need up to 12 weeks.
The amount of time depends on the individual and the severity of their overtraining.
During your time of rest, focus on mindful movement like yoga, walking, stretching and mobility. It’s all the more reason to play it safe. Listen to your body AND start to schedule your deload weeks.
Also focus on:
Getting 7-9 hours of sleep each night
Eating plenty of whole and protein-rich foods
Properly hydrating
Treating injuries as needed
Rethinking or reorganizing your training if needed
Overtraining is a perfect example as to why scheduling deload weeks is so important.
Yes, you’ll come back better and stronger than ever, but scheduled deloads help prevent overtraining. Get into the habit of tacking them on to the end of your training block. You’ll be thanking yourself later.
Scheduling these weeks of decreased exertion allows for needed rest without feeling guilty. Going through a planned deload week feels a lot better than having to take a week off due to injury or pain. You're giving yourself a mental break as well.
Takeaways
Avoid overtraining by checking in with yourself often. How are you feeling after and in between workouts? Remember to prioritize sleep, a good diet, deload weeks, stretching, mobility etc.
Overtraining revolves around workouts. There’s a difference between training and having a high NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis) vs. overtraining. Training + stretching, walking and doing yoga flows every day is NOT overtraining.
Now that you are aware of what it is and what it looks like, you can implement ways to dodge overtraining.