Overtraining

[liltyson19]

I, as I am sure do many others, often find myself to be an overtrainer. What are the signs of overtraining and how do you know if what you are doing is too much. Doing fitness I find myself at times doing split cardio, gymnastics and choreography (dance) all close together in one day only to wake up from my nap barely able to move and with massive shin splints, back soreness and really tight hamstrings. Maybe my body will get used to this again but I also want to make sure I am not over doing it. Any tips about knowing when to ease off a bit? I have a track record of pushing hard only to be stopped by an injury.

 

[BronzedGoddess]

I have the same question as well. I just started doing gymnastics and I upped it to 2xs a week so now I'm going to be doing some type of physical activity every day of the week. My soreness from lifting is hurting my tumbling. I'm not getting the full extention in my shoulders on my back handspring. I'm going to cut it down to lifting 3xs a week and cardio 3xs a week and just focus on intensity. If my diet is clean, the cardio will just be icing on the cake. Good luck and I hope you find what works for you.

 

[Temple]

Signs of overtraining are that you generally feel tired and unwell, illness, depression, lack of motivation, increased incidence of injury.

 

[Sassy69]

Over training = Under recovery.

If you are significantly upping your training from what you have been doing in the past (i.e. your body has adjusted to it and you have found a happy medium for recovery time), then expect to increase your recovery regimen as well. Your muscles need time to recuperate - I dont' know if gymnastics is more equivalent to an overall body lifting session or a cardio session - so you might adjust your total training splits, cardio & recovery accordingly. Also throw in those things that help promote recovery like l-glutamine, etc.

When you start feeling burnt out or your body just doesn't have the energy it usually has is when you are over training. If you think of a week of good nights of sleep as the equivalent of a week of killer workouts, you may refocus some of the intensity in the gym/cardio/gymnastics into intensity in recovery without feeling like you are sacrificing on your workouts. A lot of it is just mental...