Shopping cart
You have no items in your shopping cart.
Credit: Tanita Europe Blog
Effective exercise needs a balance of focussed effort and recovery. If you are working hard towards a big race or trying to significantly increase your running distance, this balance might be disrupted and you might be at risk of overtraining.
In this blog we look at signs of overtraining, what you can do to recover and get back on track.
Overtraining occurs when you exceed your body’s ability to recover from strenuous training. Your body is unique and you will respond differently to a training programme, from the next person. It is not just sports stars and professional athletes who are at risk of overtraining and so it is important to be able to recognise the symptoms.
Overtraining signs can be both physical and mental as it affects your inner body, but also your stress hormones, such as cortisol. Overtraining symptoms can include the following signs:
Is your regular activity seeming harder? Are your times getting slower? If your progress has halted your overtraining means that your muscles are not getting the chance to repair before you exert them again.
That feeling of heavy legs is normal after a hard training session, but if it just never goes away you are probably overtraining.
If you still have muscle pain more than 72 hours after training it is a sign that your muscles are not repairing. In the end this can lead to loss of your muscle mass, more than gaining muscles.
From relatively mild strains to stress fractures, overtraining can result in the injury occurring, or in one failing to heal and worsening as you do more.
Are you getting every cold that is going around? Overtraining may be having a negative impact on your immune system.
Stress on your body from overtraining can affect your appetite and you might notice that you are struggling to finish meals.
Symptoms of overtraining can also be mental and can include agitation, moodiness and stress.
You might be feeling physically exhausted but not able to get the quality sleep which is vital for your body to repair and your muscles mass to grow.