Over Training and Over Trained; the difference

For years there has been a paranoia about something called over training and how it will halt your progress in the gym.

Over training is considered to be a situation whereby you exercise with too much volume, frequency and/or intensity which leads to a reduction in performance, a possible loss in muscle mass and potentially, injuries.

Here is my take on the situation.

Overt raining is when you perform more work than is needed to stimulate a positive response from training.

Over trained is when a trainee has been chronically over training and is now experiencing symptoms such as:

elevated waking heart rate

lack of motivation

mild depression

weight loss

persistent drop in performance

nagging injuries

poor appetite

restless sleep

short tempered

clouded judgement

The majority of gym goers will not fall into an over trained state as that takes an unusually large volume, duration and frequency of very intense exercise paired with poor sleep and diet.

Over training is hard to judge on a short term basis as the “right” amount of exercise is more art than science right now in terms of knowing when it has been achieved. This is where a good coach comes in and most importantly this is where you must get to know your body.

Have no fear about over training or being over trained, unless you are a professional athlete then it is simply a case of taking a week or so of “going easy” when you start to feel the above symptoms.

Your Epsom Personal Trainer,

Richard Ham Williams