How Overtraining Affects Your Workout

Working out is an endless cycle of adaption and stress. It requires subjecting the body to challenging exercises to improve endurance, strength, and speed. The right amount of stress can strengthen the body and cause greater gains. But the wrong amount of stress can lead to inflamed muscles, painful joints and body pains. Ignoring the signs of overtraining will inevitably lead to severe inflammation and injuries, both of which will affect your workout. In today’s post, we are listing down ways overtraining affects your overall training:

Lack of Motivation

When you put the body through extreme stress, you will lose your drive to train. And when you are not spending enough time resting, it is only a matter of time before you will start losing interest in training completely. When you are starting to lose your motivation to work out, take it as a sign that your body needs to rest. Working out 7 days a week leads to burn out. You have to give yourself at least 2 rest days to recover from training!

Sore Joints

One of the most common signs of overtraining is sore joints. When you work out, you put enormous strain on the joints. Eventually, the cartilage between the joints will start wearing away, leading to painful joints. Do not wait until joint pain worsens before you do something about it. If you are going through intense training, give yourself enough rest time between workouts. If you are training for the first time, do not overwhelm the body or you will be too sore to work out the next time.

Zero Gains

Another clear sign of overtraining is zero gains. No matter how hard you train, you are no longer seeing the results you used to see. There are times when working out too much can cause the body to lose muscles and gain fat instead. This occurs when the body is producing less testosterone due to overtraining. When the body is producing less testosterone, stored fat starts to accumulate and motivation to work out starts to diminish. If you stopped gaining from your work out, let a professional fitness trainer help you get your fitness regimen right on track.

Restless, Loss of Focus

Overtraining can affect the brain too! When the body is in dire need of rest, you will have trouble focusing. You become restless, anxious, and sometimes, impassive. This goes especially if you are completing high-intensity interval training or HIIT! The restlessness will make it extra hard to concentrate on your workout. Loss of focus and restlessness can only be remedied by ample rest.

Sluggishness

Do you feel extra sluggish after working out? Exercising should leave you energized, not lethargic. If you are suffering from extreme fatigue, it is a clear sign that you overdid your workout. When you over-train, the sympathetic nervous system becomes inundated with the stress hormone cortisol. This causes  debilitating fatigue. If you’ve been feeling sluggish, do not force yourself to cover more ground than you have to. Listen to your body and get some rest when you need to.

Sore Limbs

Although post-workout soreness is normal, prolonged soreness that last for days on end is not. Painful bones, joints, ligaments, and muscles that last for more than 2 days is a sign that you went overboard with your training. If you feel like you’ve been run over by a bus post workout, you have to reduce the intensity or volume of your workout.