Photo Credit: Rebalance Life

A good training plan strikes a balance between running and recovery – because we must always remember recovery is part of training. So, just how much is too much? Running too much or too little will interfere with our fitness level. In this case, more does not necessarily mean better. Putting unreasonable demands on your body can have adverse consequences. If you are overtraining, you are in actual fact killing your chances at improving. But you also cannot expect to improve if you don’t put in sufficient training.

The Adverse Effects Of Overtraining

Overtraining can make you feel sluggish throughout the day. You would start to dread your workout sessions. You will start to deteriorate in performance. You will start to feel frustrated with yourself. Your sleep may be affected and thus you won’t be getting proper recovery. You will start thinking – why? I’ve been putting in so much more effort, why isn’t my results proportionate to the effort I’m putting it? Overtraining will take it’s toll on you both mentally and physically.

Symptoms Of Overtraining

Disturbed sleep, frequent illness and an elevated resting heart rate can be an indication of overtraining. If you are starting to dread your workouts, this is also a sign for you to slow down and maybe take a rest day or two. Get in enough snooze to allow your body to recover.


How To Prevent Overtraining?

Generally speaking, your training load should vary from day to day. You shouldn’t be doing a hard session every day. That is way too much. You should alternate your hard and easy days to get the most out of training. You must always remind yourself that recovery is part of training.

Training is the stimulus for your body. When you train, your muscles start to break down. You will start to feel fatigue. When your muscles start to repair itself, it will repair itself to a state that was stronger than before. This is known as the overcompensation theory. This way, when you are back for your next training session, you are stronger and fitter than before. If this is done right, you will get fitter over your course of training. But remember, you must allow your muscles to recover in order to become stronger. This is the importance of recovery.

Risk Of Injury

Injury is a very real risk when you overtrain. This is why you should be mindful about overtraining. When you are overtrained, you are sluggish and fatigue. Your muscles are weak. This greatly increases the risk of injury. You could easily pull a muscle and set you back in your running journey.

So, if you are putting in your training and not seeing the desired results, it could be because you are overtraining. If you hardly feel fatigue after training, this means you are undertaking. Put in more quality sessions to see better results!


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