How to Avoid Over-Training When You Exercise

Trainer Tuesdays

Welcome back to the weekly edition on Trainer Tuesdays. Make sure to check in at our blog every Tuesday evening to learn the expertise of our great staff of expert personal trainers. Aside from being fantastic exercise coaches, they are also extremely knowledgeable in many aspects of health and fitness; so, it's time that you get to know them a little better! Each week, we will post a frequently asked, or sometimes just a fun fitness related question followed by the answers of each of the personal trainers at Fitness Together Brecksville.

How to Avoid Over-Training When You Exercise 

Lisa Clark: We all are aware of what happens when you aren't exercising enough-- you won't meet your goals, whether those goals are losing weight or building muscle; however, not many people are aware of how dangerous over-training can be to your body. When people start exercising too much, that stress you are putting on your muscles can effect your central nervous system which controls your muscles, and the nerve impulses can weaken and become inefficient. This can lead to a lot of different symptoms. 

1. Mentally it can fatigue you to the point where you lose your motivation to train. Everyone has days where they lack motivation, but if it continues for days or weeks, over-training may be leading to that lack of desire. 
2. You can actually stop seeing results, and if you have over-trained to the point where your hormones become out of whack, it is even possible to lose muscle and gain unwanted fat. This is due to your body producing higher levels of cortisol and inadequate amounts of testosterone. 
3. The decreased levels of testosterone and increase in cortisol also can make you feel very sluggish, which again goes against what we all have learned about exercise and how we gain energy the more we exercise. 
4. You are more susceptible to viruses and you find you are sick more often. 
5. Chronic soreness in your joints, bones and limbs (longer than the typical soreness you might feel after a good workout)  

The effects from over-training may take weeks or months to correct themselves, so make sure you train smart and allow your body plenty of time to recover, get plenty of sleep, proper nutrition and hydration, avoid excess stress in your life and consult one of your professional personal trainers at Fitness Together if you have questions or think you may be over-training!

Adam Teplitz: There are plenty of us that are not only training more, but harder than ever. Extreme modes of exercise such as high intensity interval training are gaining in popularity, with some people training six or seven days a week. This can have many adverse effects.

Over-training happens when you perform more training, both in and out of a gym or studio, than your body can recover from. Some of the factors that lead to intense over-training include a sudden increase in exercise frequency, intensity or duration of training sessions; as well as not allowing your body adequate recovery. 

Since no one trains exactly the same way, you should watch out for varying symptoms of over-training. These symptoms include: lack of motivation, extreme soreness following a workout, restlessness, loss of focus, lack of results, and sluggishness.

Once over-training sets in, it may take days, weeks or even months to recover completely.
To avoid over-training, make sure to train smart and allow your body adequate time to recover. Always be sure to get plenty of sleep.  Sleep is vital because it helps repair your body.

Focus on keeping a clean diet. Your nutrition habits play a huge role in

Fitness Together owner Sean Sullivan promoting our Nutrition Together program

recovery. To prevent over-training, you should have the proper intake of protein, fats, and carbs. Our Nutrition Together program can help you get started on the right path.

Monitor your stress levels. If everything else is on point, and you're still not achieving results, stress might be the culprit.

Lastly, make sure to allow enough time for recovery. We all need a rest day! 

Michael Roberto: Over-training is a phenomenon where your exercise performance decreases or levels out and you cease to make progress.  On top of that, over-training comes with nasty side effects like feeling sluggish all day, changes in your sleep, chronic joint and limb pain and lack of motivation.  There are ways to prevent over-training.  One thing to do is to take a recovery day--- a day where you let your body repair new muscle from a hard workout and allow your body to heal.  Another way to prevent over-training is to change your routine at least every 6-8 weeks.... A Fitness Together Aspire8 program can help to make sure this is happening. One of the easiest ways is to simply get more sleep.  It's recommended that one should get 7-8 hours of sleep per night.  These are just a few ways to keep yourself from getting into a workout slump.

Brooke Kratche: Every time you work out, your muscles are tearing apart. They need time to rebuild themselves so that they may become stronger.  Rest is extremely important.  That is why designed programs from your Fitness Together personal trainer focus on different muscles each session.  Working the same muscles repeatedly can result in over-training that muscle.  Chemically, you will not feel great. You might feel a little depressed or simply exhausted too often.  Physically, you are far more likely to experience an injury.  There are so many great benefits to exercise, but it must be paired with adequate rest, hydration and nutrition or the positives can quickly become dangerous negatives.

Justin Traft: So many clients ask about what can they do to avoid negative effects of over-training. One would be to always make sure you are giving your body rest-- particularly certain muscle groups so that you're not over-training one group more than another. Two, always make sure you change it up to keep your body guessing... this way certain muscle groups are not your main focus point in your program all the time. Three, make sure you set aside days where you let your body rest. For example, instead of weight training, maybe you can go for a walk in the park or around your neighborhood with your family instead. Four, keep reassessing and resetting goals... this will keep you motivated and help you to avoid over-training.

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