Exhaustion From Training
It’s not uncommon to lack motivation to exercise when your energy is at its lowest and moving your body feels like a struggle. Regular exercise takes time to deliver great results, but sometimes your body won’t cooperate. In other words, you’re flat-out exhausted.
Overtraining is a decline in performance that can persist for months or longer without obvious symptoms. You usually notice it in the effort you put into a workout session and/or in your overall mood during your training routine.
In the bodybuilding community, some debate whether overtraining is really a myth. What has always resonated throughout this argument is that overtraining is relative. A high volume of exercises may be too much for one individual, while it may be a very light set for another. It can vary.
Regardless of how you define overtraining, the importance of rest and recovery cannot be overstated. Rest is key to repairing muscle and connective tissue and relieving the mental stress of training.
When rest and recovery are ignored or neglected for a period of time, negative symptoms begin to show. Even intermediate/advanced trainees can get caught in this period of stagnation and underdevelopment.
What Are The Signs of Overtraining
The typical bodybuilder is extremely ambitious in their efforts to build muscle and minimize fat during training. On most fitness influencer channels, you notice a lot of planning throughout the day, with the gym as the main focus of their lives.
Pre-workout meals, eating prepped food from the night before, 1-2-hour gym sessions, extra cardio training, nighttime bed routines, and more. These are the daily habits that are part of the normal bodybuilder lifestyle.
Once a person gets accustomed to a certain lifestyle or routine, it’s hard to break those habits and get off course. This could be a suggestion to take a week or more off from heavy training to give the body time to heal and recover (See “When to Start Deload Weeks in Your Routine”).
On paper, it seems like a simple step to add a week off from heavy training, but your mind will always put up some resistance. ‘Why take time off from lifting when you’re making progress each week?’ ‘If I stop now, I’ll end up plateauing, or I might lose strength that I’ve worked so hard to gain.’
These thoughts linger because of fear of missing out (FOMO) or because you feel you have to take a break from something you find rewarding. You can rationalize how much exercise is good for you, but the truth is that too much of anything can be bad for you in the long run.
What determines the amount of training you need is how you spend your time outside of training. Individuals with sedentary jobs (mostly sitting) will be more likely to overtrain than those who work on their feet most of the day (construction workers, servers, doctors, firefighters, police officers, etc.).
A person with a very active lifestyle wouldn’t necessarily need to add more sets/repetitions to their exercise routine; they would focus more on rest and recovery (see How Rest and Recovery Can Help You Develop More Strength). This also includes nutrition, as higher exercise workloads require a higher caloric intake to maintain lean muscle mass for growth (see How Much Protein Is Needed For Training).
Without proper diet and rest, an individual can experience symptoms such as poor-quality sleep, lingering joint aches and pains, low energy and motivation, low libido, chills, and mood fluctuations. These symptoms tend to linger for months and go unnoticed until the desire to work out disappears entirely. This is what many call ‘burnout’.
Proper Recovery
To recover properly from a continuous training regimen, you need to be mindful of your overall energy in the gym. Do you need stimulants regularly to motivate yourself to work out on a given day? Do you constantly hit walls when you try to find the energy to finish those last sets?
Be honest with yourself and figure out what’s working and what’s not. If none of your exercises are not progressing in weight, reps, or sets, it may be time to rest. Rest periods can range from an entire week off to easing up on the sets/weights you use.
When resting at night, establish an effective nighttime routine to help you get ready for bed. Adjust your room lighting, electronic devices, eating schedule, and temperature settings to help you fall asleep and get the rest you need. If you’re still experiencing overtraining symptoms, check your blood work with your doctor to ensure your hormone levels are balanced.
The Wrap Up
Overtraining is subtle and hard to detect because its definition varies widely. What may be overtraining for a beginner just starting to work out could be routine for a bodybuilder who has trained for many years. Depending on your lifestyle and overall fitness level, you will need to train with a certain level of intensity and practice proper recovery to achieve great results. It’s also a good reminder that exercise isn’t something to take for granted; you need it in your life, but too much is never truly necessary.
What else do you want to know?
How Much Protein Is Needed For Training?
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