Are you training too much?
October 28th, 2007 | posted by Kimberly
Like most of you, I love nothing better than hitting the gym and trails to work up a sweat. At times I find myself sleepy or tired during training. When I get home I am a bit cranky and irritable. I am a very driven person and when it comes to training, sometimes I neglect the “rest” period. These are some of the warning signs for overtraining. Overtraining is essentially good training gone awry. It usually starts with a specific goal in mind – to lose weight, qualify for a marathon, win a fitness competition, or even compete in a body building event. To accomplish these types of goals, it takes alot of training. How do you know when its too much?
Overtraining is excessive training that leads to a breakdown in performance. The word excessive is subjective though. For the casual exerciser, a person who trains in the gym 4-6 times per week doing cardio and weight training; may seem excessive. But it doesn’t mean they are overtraining. There isn’t a perfect science guys to know whether or not your are overtraining.
Lets look at some of the warning signs:
- Elevated resting heart rate
- Nagging overuse injuries:stress fractures, sprains and strains that don’t heal
- Loss of body weight due to a decreased appetite
- Chronic fatigue
- Compromised immune system and sickness
- Disruption or ceasing of the menstrual cycle
- Difficulty sleeping
- Irritability and crankiness
- Decreased performance (i.e. slower times, can’t lift as much weight)
- Decreased desire to workout
An ounce of prevention is a pound of cure!
You can avoid overtraining by practicing periodization, or a cycling of intensity and volume. An example of periodization is exercising 4 hours in one week, 6 hours in week two, 8 hours in week three and then way back down to 3 hours in week four. It’s important in that fourth week to bring it way down in order not to overtrain.
Schedule in rest days into your training. As I mentioned earlier, I tend to forget about the rest days. Rest days are just as important as your time in the gym or on the trail. Taking a complete day off each week and also varying the intensity will give your body it’s much needed rest.
I’d like to end with a little food for thought. It takes at least three days of complete inactivity for your muscles to show signs of decrease, but it only takes one workout on a weakened muscle to cause an injury. Fight the urge to overtrain by keeping things in perspective. You won’t reach your goal if you are sidelined with an avoidable injury. Train hard, but give your body the fuel and rest it needs to produce results!
Posted in Exercise by |
