YOU’VE JUST GOT done with another stressful day at the office and you’re heading to the gym. You’re tired—physically and mentally. You’re achy, and that head cold doesn’t see to be improving. You’d rather be anywhere on earth but the gym, but you’re afraid skipping of out on your routine, thinking that you’ll lose your hard-earned gains if you give the gym a miss. You decide to struggle on through.
Does this scenario sound familiar to you?
If it does, you should start listening to your body and stop making the medicine worse than the disease. If you’re working out, but feeling sore and struggling to fend off colds, there’s a good chance that you’re over-training and you need more recovery time—specifically, that you need more sleep.
Being physically fit is about having the highest resistance to illness and injury, and while we all experience the occasionally cold, and some soreness the day after a workout, these symptoms should not become frequent.
They are often our body’s way of telling us that it needs more rest. It’s important to remember that you don’t get stronger when you exercise, but when you recover from exercise. People that exercise every day, and don’t allow any rest time in between their workouts, won’t see the benefits of that exercise. In fact, overtraining not only can prevent you from becoming stronger, but it can prevent you from losing fat and looking your best.
When you exercise at the wrong time—when you’re sick, injured or just plain old worn-down—your body raises its cortisol levels to deal with the stress. Cortisol is a hormone steroid produced by the adrenal cortex, and when it’s released your blood sugar level increase and your metabolism slows down. Remember, your body doesn’t care about how you look—whether you have six-pack abs, or rock-hard glutes—it cares about survival. When you over-train your body moves into survival mode, preventing you from making gains.
Take a look at the people who exercise every day; they rarely look like they’re making progress. In fact, more often than not, they’re worn-out and are frequently battling injuries and colds. Again, overtraining makes it hard to convert fat into muscle and can actually cause your muscles to atrophy.
The perils of overtraining are not just something I’ve read in a book, but something I’ve actually lived—what I know about fitness, I’ve learned from making mistakes. In my 20s and 30s I over-trained, got sick and got injured. At 63 years old, I’ve learned to exercise intuitively, I always listen to my body, and make sure to give myself time to recover from my workouts—my short, but intense workouts—and I do my very best to prioritize sleep.
So, remember, the next time you’re thinking about struggling on through a workout; when you’re sore and sniffling, re-think your plan. Go home, eat a nutritious meal, drink plenty of water, rest and sleep. And then when you do hit the gym, you’ll be all the stronger for it.
#MADEINFITNESS
