Signs of the apocalypse
Okay, look, I’ve been faced with over training myself. Sometimes it’s hard not to overtrain. But if you really listen to your body, you will know when you do it. I’ve been there: you’re showing up consistently, blasting through plateau after plateau, looking good, feeling so good every heavy weight feels like a pair of pink 5-pound dumbbells and then… You get that tickle. You know, the tickle or itch in the back of your throat. The kind that in the morning turns into a cough, mucus, sore throat, not always, but sometimes? Yeah, that one. It’s a subtle sign. At this point you need to pay attention, the body is telling you something. Don’t freak out about it, but don’t ignore it either. Maybe consider giving it a couple days off and take some astragalus, vitamin C, echinacea, zinc, magnesium, and chill. I know how you feel, my friend, I’ve been there, but chill. Here are other things to look out for:
- Check your pulse early every morning. A rise in your resting pulse rate can be a sign of overtraining.
- You have been coming in and pushing hard, but you can’t seem to increase your intensity. You even feel like you should lower it. This tells me that your central nervous system is taxed.
- Done, gone, got no more go go juice? Well again I understand this is when rest, or periodization, comes in handy… Periodization is more complex topic I will discuss later in other blogs, but for today I will just tell you this take time off, one week off will not kill you. In fact, many times when my clients would take a week off they would come back even stronger than they were before they left, and they lost no muscle and gained no fat. Extra time. That means rest. Not in bed, rather active rest. Take your kids to the park, walk your dog, go to the beach, do something you like that’s active, but not at all strenuous, and relax.
- Another often overlooked symptom is sleep disturbances. Have you been working out super hard then go home and lay in bed tossing and turning, but not sleeping real well? Often this goes overlooked, please consider this. Take some time off, you might as well, because if you can’t rest guess what? Muscle doesn’t repair, metabolism slows, fat stores, insulin resistance increases, and so does ghrelin! The hormone that makes you eat more than you need for healthy metabolic rate! Bad. That’s exactly opposite of what you want for getting that lean sexy body.
- Next sign is a decrease in body mass (not from dieting). Probably from lack of rest or bad sleep, or a combo of these.
- Next is a lack of appetite. This is classic fight or flight syndrome. This can happen when we over stress our central nervous system. Basically working out so hard that your body starts to increase adrenaline and cortisol so high to keep up with the ever-increasing demand of your workouts. The body thinks a lion is chasing you and and turns your adrenaline on like a faucet. This can cause anxiety, temporary high blood pressure, and decreases in appetite. This sucks for your sexy leaness, because more food is what you need in this situation to help remedy it, not less.
- Next is a cold or flu that just won’t go away. Okay I think we covered that one pretty well.
- Next is a loss of interest in training. Well I guess this one can solve itself by taking a few days off. Just make sure that you come back!
- Next is excessive muscle soreness. Well duh! Yes this can happen, you go in and lift with such intensity that the next time you go to train you’re too sore to increase intensity. Guess what? You need to change your approach so you can find the balance between consistency and intensity. Rest or periodization is required.
- Finally, are you moody? Are you snapping everyone’s head off? Fighting with the significant other, friends, or coworkers? Is everyone in your world annoying except you? Hahaha LOL, well you might be the one, and again it could be caused by over-training as we discussed. Overtraining can over stress your body’s hormones, and hormones can make you crazy if they are out of whack. Just go ask my pregnant wife. No, wait, don’t!
