How to speed up recovery from workout
Rest is a crucial element in your fitness plan, if you don’t take care of this aspect you are in for a long list of symptoms called OVER TRAINING
This is why no discussion of training is complete without discussion of over-training how to diagnose it, prevent it, and treat it.
Following is a brief discussion of over training and post workout recovery. If you follow those tips you will significantly improve recovery from your workouts , which is crucial to your fitness progress.
Overtraining increases risk of Injury
Since your muscles and joints do not get enough time to rebuild, they accumulate minor injuries that in time turn into manifest injuries.
Also the chronic fatigue leads to a sloppy performance and below adequate technique which puts you more at risk of injury.
Joint and muscle pain are common signs that you are training too hard or too often.
Overtraining stops your progress
If you use a journal to track your workouts with details of weights, reps and sets, you will be able to see the trend; it should be going up, if the opposite is true there is a great probability that you are over trained. If your workouts get harder to complete and the weights you once mastered feel like boulders, you have to reassess the situation. Temporary plateaus from time to time are OK, but a long stagnation should be handled seriously.
Over training leads to mood problems
The normal exhaustion one feels after successfully completing a workout is a kind of exhilaration and satisfaction, once you cross the line you lose that nice feeling and get instead a feeling of debilitation, misery and a growing sense of aversion towards working out.
Overtraining increases risk of infection
Because your immune system is not working properly you start getting sick, you catch colds and other infections easily.
overtraining leads to loss of appetite
Instead of the healthy appetite you feel after working out Over trained people start losing their appetite the very opposite of what your body needs at that time. Which starts a vicious circle; you need more nutrition but get too little so you are more deprived and so on.
DOMS day happens every day
This is not the new blockbuster DOMS stands for delayed onset muscle soreness a common aftermath of working out seriously. While some muscle soreness is good and indicates properly worked muscles, too much soreness lasting for too long is a sign of failure to recover from the previous workout.
overtraining can cause hormonal changes
Increased levels of cortisol and decreased testosterone are the complete opposite of what your muscles need to grow. Cortisol is a catabolic hormone that is it breaks muscles, and testosterone as we all know is our muscles’ dear friend. A similar case happens to over trained females but this time it involves decreased estrogen and menstrual irregularities.
over training causes disturbed sleep
You can find it hard to get into sleep or you may wake up early before you are fully rejuvenated.
How to prevent overtraining and improve workout recovery
- Sleep is crucial for workout recover
muscle repair mostly occurs during sleep and insufficient sleep is often a culprit in excessive eating .This is why you should always try to get at least 7 hours of sleep each night, preferably 8 or 9
- improve workout recovery by spacing your workouts
spacing your workouts apart by 1 to 2 days can greatly improve your workout recovery
rey the following alternatives till you reach your best post exercise recovery
- 3 days on and 2 days off
- 2 days on and 1 day off
- 1 day on and 1 day off
- Vary your exercises
using different types of exercise can cut back your post workout fatigue , since different exercises stress different muscle groups .
- Make sure you have a healthy nutritious diet
you must replenish your body's nutrition stores otherwise it will start drawing from its own tissue stores .
- Ask your doctor
you may also check if your doctor can prescribe a multivitamin to support your increased nutritional needs
Overtraining is a serious problem but treatment is as simple as rest and eat .