O is for Over Training

by Heather Long | More from this Blogger

19 Jul 2007 05:35 AM

I've posted warnings about over training before. I've made suggestions and recommended rest. I've said that over training is bad for you and can have negative side effects, but let's talk about what over training is. Typically, if you are exercising beyond your ability to recover, then you're overtraining. What does that mean?

Someone who exercises 7 days a week at a high intensity, never giving their muscles the 24 to 48 hours they need to rest, recover and repair from the previous workout are overtraining. They are doing this because the constant stress on the muscles without repair can create injuries - sometimes grueling injuries that are difficult to recover from. Overtraining is often experienced by high intensity athletes when they are preparing for competition because they are more likely to train, train, train rather than train, rest, train.

Proper Rest Periods

No matter how hard you train, if you don't give your body the rest it needs then you will not sufficiently recover from the workout and reap the benefits of the workout in the first place. Also, if you have over trained, it can take days of rest to undo what you have done to yourself. Essentially, over training causes your performance to decline, not improve.

You can cause over training in other ways - including combining too many workouts with a lot of stress from traveling (say jet lag) or for women, training super hard every day and then menstruating and continuing to push that hard workout. You may also be on a crash diet, deciding the only way to lose weight is to starve yourself and exercise for all your worth - all you do at that point is make yourself sick.

Your body needs rest. Your body needs food. Your body needs exercise. It needs these things, but if you pound it with excess in any area or severely deplete any area, you are going to hurt yourself. So the best thing to do is exercise, but place a day between your strength training routines. Do your cardio six days a week if you must, but always take a day of rest in there to let your muscles recover.

If you want to work out every single day, then alternate - cardio one day, strength training the next, flexibility on the third. These exercises target different areas and different parts of the muscles and you get the rest you need as well as the performance increase you're looking for.

Learn more about Heather Long

Heather Long is 35 years old and currently lives in Wylie, Texas. She has been a freelance writer for six years. Her husband and she met while working together at America Online over ten years ago.

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Tristi Pinkston (10839) 30 Oct 2007 09:42 AM

Thanks for this, Heather! I've done this exact thing to myself and am now learning not to. :)