So, you have a new fitness/health goal. You’re enthusiastic and motivated to get on it and push yourself to reach the goal as quickly as you can, training everyday as much as possible. There’s no such thing as too much exercise, right? WRONG! Over-training is a serious issue.
Over-training can seriously slow you down from reaching your fitness goals.
Its very easy to fall into this trap and you often don’t realise you have. This is because you’re so focused and driven to achieve your goal. Over-training shows itself in many forms, from a tired, sore body to fatigue and loss of motivation. They all seem like obvious signs of overtraining. There are, however, many more signs warning you to slow down a little
Poor Sleep Quality, Insomnia or change of sleeping patterns
Your body is under stress when exercising, releasing different stress hormones. When over-training, these can start to be over-produced. Your body needs sleep to help repair the body and flush stress hormones from the system. An excess of stress hormones may reduce the body’s ability to sleep.
Decrease in performance is a sign of over-training
You are progressing your sessions, increasing time, speed and maybe weight, but not seeing the results or you start to seem like you are going backwards? Maybe a decrease in speed, agility, power and endurance. These are all signs of over-training.
Fatigue
Where your body/body parts feel heavy or sore for three or more days. You never quite shake off the effort from the last session.
Mood swings or agitated easily are signs of over-training
Often concentration levels are noticeably reduced leading to agitation and mood swings. Your body produces different hormones when exercising and these need rest periods for them to reduce back down to normal. Over-training reduces the body’s ability to flush these hormones form your system. This can result in imbalances.
Reduced appetite
Hormone imbalances can often affect appetite. At a time where your body needs fuel to repair, your system breaks down and stops telling you this. This is due to the imbalance of hormones produced.
Injuries/niggles can be caused by over-training
This seems obvious but how often do you push yourself to try and run through small aches and pains? This is your body trying to tell you to back off and give it a break!
Under-fuelling
This is not a sign of over-training but one of the common reasons for causing it. Simply put, you are not giving your body enough of or the correct type of fuel to do the exercise you are expecting of your body. This results in under-performance during training.
So, remember train hard, but train sensibly. Plan your weeks’ exercise and include rest days for better, quicker results.