Fitness Tip: Body Recovery Time
Your body needs ample time to recover. Otherwise? You could actually be doing more harm than good.
Your performance decrements may also occur through pathological mechanisms, such as joint overuse. When that occurs, strength and power declines may be due to afferent inhibition from the affected joints rather than due to decreases in muscular capabilities.
Also worth mentioning: There are two hormones often impacted by overtraining. Testosterone and cortisol. Overtraining often results in a decrease in the ratio between resting concentrations of these two hormones. While this ratio may not be directly responsible for the performance decrements observed, it has been repeatedly shown that this ratio decreases as training volume increases.
If you feel you may be overtraining, here are some steps to take.
- Include one or more recovery days each week
- Avoid monotonous training
- Include periodization
- Make sure that training volume and training intensity are inversely related
- Avoid too great a relative intensity for extended periods
- Avoid incorrect exercise selections (overuse of certain muscles or joint)
- Take into account the cumulative training stresses from other forms of exercise
There are numerous sign and symptoms of overtraining. Not all of these symptoms will be present. And the presence of some of these symptoms does not automatically mean you’re over trained.
The ultimate determination? Whether performance is impaired or plateaued. So keep training hard and keep training smart.
—a fitness tip from Cenegenics Nutrition/Fitness Counselor Kevin Finnegan, MS.
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