Someone mentioned the other day that they are now going every day to the gym for a few hours each time. Unless some of that time is spent in the jacuzzi at the end of an hours session, then I'm just wondering if that person is not suffering from overtraining.

What is overtraining you might ask ?

Overtraining is training beyond your body's ability to recover.

This can be used to train the same body parts so frequently that your body does not have the time to recover before the next workout. Or by training way too hard for what your body can cope with and don't give yourself enough recovery time.

Overtraining can also be caused if you train hard, but not too hard, but your body is not able to recover due to nutritional deficiencies, illness, or stress.

Symptoms of overtraining are:

• a plateau in performance
• a drop in performance
• Elevated Resting Heart Rate
• Elevated Training Heart Rate
• Feeling of heaviness
• Chronic muscle soreness
• A desire to skip a workout (your body telling you, you had enough)
• Lack of enthousiasm to workout, but also to do your daily activities
• Decreased concentration
• Tiredness
• Lack of appetite and undesired weight lossO

Overtraining can increase the risk of injury or disease. 

To overcome overtraining, take a full week off from workouts, eat healthily, sleep a lot, and just let your body recover.  When you take up your workouts again, make sure you have enough rest between workouts, don't train the same muscle group two days in a row. And continue to eat healthily.

Another option is to take up the services of a personal trainer to help you build a balanced weekly and monthly workout programme to reach your specific goals.

If you need help with your workout to reach your goals, contact me, Anne Iarchy, Personal Trainer Barnet and North London, on 07880627944 or email me at anne@barnetpersonaltrainer.co.uk