Do you know these 8 signs of overtraining? Part 1
There is a fundamental law that applies to many areas of life. It is as follows:
If you want more, you have to do more.
This principle seems to apply almost everywhere. You will get more in many areas if you invest more. Do you want to get ahead in business? Then work hard at it and you will have the best chance of success.
Do you want a more fulfilling relationship with friends and family? Then spend more time building that relationship. Do you want to be the best player on your team? Then train harder and longer than your competitors and you will slowly stand out from the crowd.
I think you know where I'm going with this. When training with weights, however, it's not quite so simple. The "more is better" approach only works up to a certain point...and then it stops working. At a certain point, more will even become counterproductive.
When it comes to building muscle, strength and endurance, more training is generally better than less training...but once you exceed your body's recovery capacity, things can quickly go south.
Here's a short list of what will happen next:
- You'll struggle to finish your workouts
- You will lose strength and endurance
- You will sleep poorly
- You will struggle with exhaustion and lethargy
- You will feel strange aches and pains
- You will get sick more often
These are all signs that there is a systemic imbalance between work and regeneration. Scientifically, this symptomology is known as 'overtraining syndrome' (1) and the likelihood is that you will struggle with this problem at some point in your fitness career.
This article can help you avoid this problem. You will learn how to recognize overtraining before it becomes a serious problem and what you can do to prevent overtraining in the first place. You will also learn what you can do if you have reached a state of overtraining.
First, let's start with the common (and often false) clichés about overtraining.
Is overtraining real?
If you've been training for any length of time, you'll probably have heard two things about overtraining:
1. "There is no such thing as overtraining. There is only insufficient recovery."
The underlying idea here is that people who are physically overwhelmed by their training sessions are not training that hard at all, but simply not recovering enough from their training.
2 "If you do more than 2 to 3 heavy weights and low intensity cardio workouts per week, you will inevitably end up in a state of overtraining."
This line of thinking is generally supported by the view that more than a few intense workouts per week will overload the central nervous system.
And if you've spent any time on either side of the debate, you've probably heard reasonable-sounding arguments for both positions. But as usual, the truth seems to lie somewhere in the middle (2).
Training heavy with weights puts a lot of stress on your muscles and central nervous system, but most people can train harder than they are right now without negative physical side effects
For example, consider a study conducted by scientists at the University of Sydney (3). The subjects were young men in their twenties and thirties who had at least two years of experience training with weights and were capable of doing an average of 155 kilos of squats.
Each of these subjects performed two upper body and two lower body training sessions per week, which corresponded to four training sessions with weights per week. For squats, the men were divided into three groups:
- Group 1 performed 1 set of squats to the point of muscle failure with 80% of 1RM weight.
- Group 2 performed 4 sets of this type.
- Group 3 performed 8 sets of this type.
After 6 weeks, all groups had increased in strength, with group 2 and 3 building significantly more strength than group 1 and group 3 showing the greatest strength gains. If you've ever done squats with 80% of your 1 RM weight (which is a repetition range of 5 to 7 reps), then you know how tough this training program was. One squat session of this type per week is demanding and two of them are downright grueling. And yet no signs of overtraining were observed.
An even better - and more extreme - example can be found in a study conducted by scientists at McMaster University (4). In this study, 40 young, overweight men were divided into two groups.
One of these groups was put on the following program:
- 40% calorie deficit
- High protein intake (2.4 grams per kilo)
- 6 training sessions with weights/HIIT training sessions per week
The other group did the same, but only ate half as much protein. If you showed this to most personal trainers, they would say you're crazy and that all you're going to achieve with this is muscle loss.
Well, after four weeks, the subjects in the high protein group had lost an average of 10.5 pounds of fat while gaining 2.5 pounds of muscle. The subjects in the lower-protein group had lost an average of 8 pounds of fat and gained no new muscle mass.
My point here is not that you should do 16 heavy sets of squats per week or maintain a massive calorie deficit with several hours of intense training per week. I just want to illustrate how much you can abuse some people's bodies before negative effects become visible.
Exactly how far you can go depends on many things, which include your age, genetic makeup, exercise history, diet and sleep hygiene, but I can promise you this: It's far harder to get into a state of overtraining than most people think.
I have worked with many exercisers and can say with absolute certainty that if you are a relatively healthy adult, you can do very well with something like the following:
- 3 to 6 hours of heavy training with weights per week (3 to 5 workouts)
- 1 to 2.5 hours of cardio per week (depending on your goals)
- 20 to 25% calorie deficit with a high protein diet and high carbohydrate intake
8 signs of overtraining you should know
It may be hard to get into a state of overtraining - and it may be more of a psychological state than a physical one - but it can happen. I had my first experience of this a long time ago while working with a personal trainer.
He had me doing workouts 6 days a week for 2 or more hours that took me well past the point of physical exhaustion - to the point of mental exhaustion. After 5 or 6 weeks of this ordeal, I was exhausted. I wasn't sleeping well, everything hurt and I could barely muster enough energy to finish my training sessions.
He advised me to take a week off training to recover and 7 days later I felt like I had come back from the dead. If I had known then what I know now, I could have spared myself the agony.
Overtraining doesn't happen overnight. It's like quicksand - it slowly pulls you down and the harder you fight it, the faster you sink. For this reason, I'd like to look at some of the signs of overtraining below to show you that it's time to take your foot off the gas (5).
1. your training sessions feel particularly heavy
When your body is exhausted, the perceived effort during training increases. This is to be expected if you've just finished a set, but if this becomes the norm, it could be an indication that your body needs a break (6).
2. you lack motivation to train
If you normally look forward to your training sessions but suddenly don't feel like going to the gym anymore, this is a red flag (7).
For me, it got so bad at some point that I was no longer able to finish my training sessions. I was so physically exhausted that I couldn't even force myself to try anymore.
3. you suffer from depression
For some people, the mood disturbance caused by overtraining goes far beyond training. They lose all motivation to do anything (8).
4. you suffer incessantly from sore muscles
Muscle soreness is a part of training with weights, but as you become more experienced, you will experience less and less muscle soreness regardless of what you do. (This is not a bad thing, by the way, as muscle soreness is not an indicator of muscle growth).
However, if you overdo it with your training, you may experience persistent muscle soreness that doesn't go away completely (9).
5. you are not sleeping well
If you push your body too hard, your nervous system can become overstimulated. This will make it harder for you to fall asleep and feel fully rested (10).
6. you are constantly tired
If you don't sleep well, you'll be tired. No surprise so far. However, if your body is constantly overworked, you may feel constantly tired and exhausted even when you do get enough sleep.
7. you feel strange pains
This is one of the first things I notice when it's time for a break. First my shoulders start to hurt, then my wrists and then my knees. These symptoms usually start after 8 to 10 weeks of intense training with weights and they go away after 3 to 5 days off.
(I should mention at this point, however, that joint pain can also be caused by other things such as poor exercise form or lack of flexibility).
8. you get sick more often than you normally would
Prolonged periods of intense training can suppress the function of the immune system, which will make you more susceptible to illness (11).
In the second part of this article, I will go into more detail about what you can do to avoid overtraining in the first place.
Source: https://legionathletics.com/signs-of-overtraining/
By Mike Matthews