How To Prevent Yourself From Overtraining

Workouts, weight liftings and other physical activities are good for health but, only up to a certain extent. This is mainly because too much workout or over training can harm your body. There is a threshold of how much training your body can bear before undergoing an injury or trauma. If you surpass the threshold, your workout regimen can deliver troublesome results. However, this overtraining threshold vary from person to person, depending upon the hormonal profile. A person with high testosterone and growth hormones will have a higher tolerance level compared to those with low T.

Consequences Of Overtraining On Physical And Sexual Health

Overtraining can affect the general health by disturbing the testosterone to cortisol ratio and over all hormonal profile. Based on the results of a new study, too much exercise can:

Kill healthy cells
Increase cortisol and cytotoxin levels in the blood
Reduce catecholamine production
Decline in serum testosterone levels and decline in sexual function

In addition, overtraining can increase oxidative stress, which accelerates the physiological aging process; thereby weakening your connective tissues and making your more vulnerable to stress related injuries. Last but not the least, overtraining can also affect mood, sleep and weakens your immune system ultimately making the person more susceptible towards flu like symptoms.

Another study showed 30% drop down in the sperm concentration of semen samples in over-trained elite cyclists. Study also suggested that it took almost 3 days for semen sample to return back to the normal. Furthermore, the pineal gland and testis were also found to be worn out.

Hormonal disruption due to over training can take weeks or even more to get back to the norm. In other words, it is not a short-term problem.

How To Prevent Yourself From Overtraining?

Often times, people make their training decisions on the physical appearance of their muscles. Unfortunately, most people don’t understand that muscles have the ability to quickly adjust as per the training and after a period those aches vanish too but that does not mean that your threshold has been raised or that you are prevented from the hazards of overtraining. Endocrine and nervous systems are the first ones to be affected by excess training which makes it more difficult to determine the body’s threshold.

Indicators Of Overtraining

If you are experiencing following signs and symptoms, you should speak to your healthcare professional as you might be experiencing the hazards of overtraining. These are:

Inability to achieve morning erections are usually indicative of something wrong. In most cases, it is due to altered testosterone to cortisol ratio which clearly indicates over training or hormonal imbalance such as low T.
Once you have taken good amount of resting period, put two plates on barrel and lift it up to the pelvis. Keep the grip as long as possible and then note the time. Later, when you think you have over trained, lift same amount of weight up to the pelvic region and note the time. If the time is worse than what it was when you had rested enough, it means you should not work out further because your nervous system has not recovered yet.

Over training does really exists! However, the threshold level is different for each person. If someone feels he has over trained himself, give a two to three-week resting period to bring the body back to normal status. Also, make sure you speak to a professional trainer in order to learn more about optimal training threshold and muscle resting/recovering exercises.

References

Hough, J., Robertson, C., & Gleeson, M. (2015). Blunting of Exercise-Induced Salivary Testosterone in Elite-Level Triathletes With a 10-Day Training Camp. International journal of sports physiology and performance, 10(7), 935-938.
Naghibi, S., Asaadi, A., Abdi, M., & Abdi, H. (2013). Correlation of overtraining psychic factors with Testosterone and Cortisol in men volleyball players. Advances in Environmental Biology, 1202-1205.
Hough, J., Corney, R., Kouris, A., & Gleeson, M. (2013). Salivary cortisol and testosterone responses to high-intensity cycling before and after an 11-day intensified training period. Journal of sports sciences, 31(14), 1614-1623.