Are you pushing yourself too hard in the gym? These symptoms and habits may signal it’s time to dial it back.
We all know that exercise has wonderful benefits, like burning calories, increasing energy levels, and boosting your mood. But just like anything else in life, moderation is key. Too much exercise or at too intense of a level, can leave you drained, and worse, at risk of injury.
Overtraining occurs when a person partakes in too much physical training with too little rest and recovery after hard workouts. The resulting stress placed on the muscles, joints and bones causes fatigue and soreness that ultimately affects performance. While over-training syndrome most often applies to serious athletes, that doesn’t mean that recreational athletes or weekend warriors are free from the effects of pushing the body too hard. While it’s normal to feel some level of fatigue after a tough workout, complete exhaustion, burnout or pain is not.
Everyone’s body is different, meaning that every person has different limits when it comes to working out. Knowing your body and what it’s telling you is essential when it comes to making sure you aren’t pushing yourself too hard. Here are a few physical symptoms and lifestyle patterns to be aware of that may be signs you’re going too hard in the gym.
Sign #1: Your body is overly sore
Being sore after a workout can be a good feeling (you put those muscles to work!), but sometimes soreness can be a sign that you’re actually pushing yourself a little too far. It’s great to be a little fatigued, but you should never feel like you can’t move a part of your body. And soreness should clear up within a day or two; lingering pain for a week or more is a sign that you’ve overdone it.
Sign #2: Your soreness is one-sided
If a muscle group or joint on one side of your body is sore after a workout, but not the other, it may be a sign that you overworked a body part and may need additional healing and recovery time.
Sign #3: You’re working out too much
Of course, exercising should be on your list of priorities, but it doesn’t need to be the number one thing, every single day to see results. Choosing a workout over time your family, work obligations, or social outings on a consistent basis are signs that you may be hyper-focused on exercise. This is not always a bad thing, but if you find yourself becoming obsessed with scheduling that next workout, you may be headed towards an unhealthy addiction. The key is to make sure you’re creating a sense of balance in your life — which yes, may mean skipping a trip to the gym in favor of a self-care activity or time with your family.
Sign #4: You exercise infrequently and push too hard
On the opposite end of the spectrum, viewing exercise as a last priority can cause you to push too hard when you do finally get in a workout. Many put working out on the back burner; when they do make the time, they cram all of the exercises into one session, which leaves them limping around (and unable to exercise) for days, or even a week.
It’s important to slowly introduce exercise into your routine and increase it in manageable increments.
Sign #5: You’re over indexing on one type of movement
Another sign of over-training has to do with an unbalanced program. This is common in those who only pursue one type of activity. When a runner just runs, he/she improves his endurance, but the other elements of the body become neglected. The legs become strong but also very tight and over time this leads to pains and strains because the runner, most of the time, does not spend the appropriate time that is needed to stretch the muscles that are pounding the pavement. Over time the muscles become so tight that they begin to stress the joints. This type of over-training presents itself as knee pain, plantar fasciitis or back pain.
This mistake can be made with any type of exercise. People that only pursue yoga and Pilates have great flexibility, but often are not developing upper body strength, which over time can present itself as pain in the back and shoulders. Those who are focused on weightlifting dedicate their time to developing the large muscles of the body with little attention paid to the connective tissues or to mobility. This type of over-training will present itself as pain in the joints.
The solution here is simple: diversify your workout routine. It is important to have balance in the strengthening of the large muscles, conditioning of the connective tissues, counter stretching after strength work, active flexibility and dosing each joint and vertebrae of the body with proper movement.
If you recognize some of these signs in yourself, take a step back and pull out your calendar. Schedule in exercise 3-4 days a week and reserve the other 3-4 days as “rest days”. Depending on how rigorous your workouts are you can choose to have one or two complete rest days or choose active recovery days where you get in some low-intensity movement like walking, biking or swimming.
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