Overtraining

Overtraining essentially means that you are giving your body more work than it can physically recover from and it will break itself down (lose muscle) rather than build itself up. Overtraining can easily kill any progress you are making in your training and even set you back.

Everyone is different as to how much training they can do before overtraining. Some people, who are known as "hardgainers" cannot tolerate much before slipping into overtraining. Hardgainers must be especially aware of the signs of overtraining. Some people, call them "muscle geniuses", can tolerate huge volumes of training and still get great results.

You will know if you are overtraining if you have one of more of the following symptoms:

• rapid resting heart rate (about ten beats per minute over your usual resting heart rate). Check this first thing in the morning after you wake up to get an accurate comparison.
  
• elevated blood pressure
  
• decreased desire to train
  
• decreased strength
  
• impaired immune system function (repeated or lasting illness)
  
• general tiredness
  
• decreased sex drive
  
• loss of appetite
• susceptibility to injuries
  

Factors that influence whether you may be experiencing overtraining include:

• how much sleep you're getting
  
• quality and quantity of nutrition (including supplements)
  
• quantity and intensity of training
  
• training level
  
• stress levels
  

To recover from overtraining, the best thing you can do is cut back on your training. You can also cease training for awhile, taking a layoff, just be sure you don't give up exercising completely, as can easily happen when you lose motivation through overtraining. Do about half of what you were do...