But, I Still Feel Awful

So in the past, we have talked a little bit about overtraining and how rarely it actually happens. One of the reasons why is because normally common sense kicks in. And you back off due to the sheer misery.

But if you don’t, a sure sign overtraining is when your body starts becoming more and more broken down over a period of time and recovery seems like a thing of the past and your heart rate is going through the roof.

You don’t know this across one or two workouts but across one or two weeks.

When you start steadily feeling worse and worse, and you feel beat before you get past your first set in the gym, and your sleep and eating haven’t changed drastically, this is when you start recognizing that overtraining might be a real thing.

If you feel like the above you should probably back off a little bit. Not stop, but back off.

There are a couple of theories on this, but to be honest, the one that I’ve always gone for is enjoying the workout.

What?!

Yeah, when I feel like crap and I can’t seem to lift even the mildest of weights, I just pick a fun weight. One that is relatively easy to do and might give me a slight pump.

Some people might call this active recovery, but for me, it’s going back to the basics. 

My theory is, if you cant grow that day, you might as well enjoy it.

Then I go and revisit the training plan as a whole and I try to mitigate the overtraining by minimizing one thing at a time.

If things get better and I don’t feel like I’m collapsing anymore, then I found the problem, if not, then I just keep mitigating it one thing at a time.