February 1, 2006

Listening to Your Body When It Says "No"

Sometimes you just don’t feel like going to the gym – out of laziness. At other times, though, you really don’t feel like going to the gym at all. It might be because you are tired, you feel drained, or you just lack motivation. Under these circumstances, it could be something else – it could be that you’ve been overtraining and your body is now telling you "no." When your body’s saying that, it’s a good time to listen.

Everyone, even well-conditioned athletes, is susceptible to overtraining. No one is immune. The symptoms that people suffer from, whether they’re an Olympian in hard training or a couch potato who just went back to the gym, are often the same as well. I did a quick search through Google to find this list of overtraining symptoms in the "Sports Medicine" section of about.com:

• Mild leg soreness, general achiness
• Pain in muscles and joints
• Washed-out feeling, tired, drained, lack of energy
• Sudden drop in ability to run "normal" distance or times
• Insomnia
• Headaches
• Inability to relax, twitchy, fidgety
• Insatiable thirst, dehydration
• Lowered resistance to common illnesses; colds, sore throat, etc.

This list is pretty good, but if you need to know more – much more – they also have this list that goes into even more detail. Does this describe you?

You don’t have to feel all of the symptoms to be overtrained. In fact, you might just feel one. The key is to realize the difference between laziness and overtraining. If it’s the former, you might need something or someone to motivate you; if it’s the latter, you likely need some rest.

You might be wondering: What causes overtraining? The obvious answer is: too much training. However, what’s "too much" varies for each person. For example, you might go too hard one week and break past that point where your body can recovery properly. As a result, you become overtrained, and if you don’t take a rest it might get worse. Or you might train too hard for a month, or even a year, and then finally hit that wall. On the other hand, someone else might do the same kind of workout and be fine, while another person might do half as much and hit their own personal limit. Like I said, it varies, but everyone’s susceptible and sooner or later almost everyone hits that wall.

Now you might be asking: Can you avoid overtraining before you’ve gone too far? Yes. Some do it by structuring their training programs to avoid pushing their bodies to that limit – in other words, holding back. However, this runs counter to the notion of pushing yourself to improve. Plus, it’s very difficult to know how much is too much and, likewise, how much you need to hold back. Still, I’ve seen some successful athletes holding themselves just under that limit for a long, long time. However, these people usually know their bodies very well.

I think a better way is to schedule periodic breaks from training, resting so your body can recover and you don’t go over the edge. In October of 2004, I wrote an article called "The Importance of Rest: Revisiting Vince Gironda's ‘Train 21, Rest 7’" that helps to do just that. Under this type of training schedule, you train very hard for three weeks and then you take a week’s break from the gym. Not only does this help to avoid overtraining, it tends to keep your motivation high since it gives your mind a much-needed rest too.

But whether you’re forced to take a break because you’ve gone over the edge and you’ve officially become overtrained, or you voluntarily schedule in that break, it all comes down to the same thing: rest. You simply can’t go at it hard all the time or you’ll cease to improve, you’ll overtrain, and you’ll quite likely backtrack if you’re not careful.

So, when your body says "no" just listen to it and rest for a while. Do that and you’ll find that when you’re ready to train again, your body will suddenly say "yes."

...Doug Schneider
das@seriousaboutfitness.com 

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