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Fitness mistake: Don't overtrain

Posted on Jul 20th 2007 12:00PM by Martha Edwards

Filed Under: Fitness

Today, I am limping around, aware that I worked my bad knees a little too hard yesterday by adding too much weight when I did my squats. I made one of the cardinal fitness mistakes yesterday -- I overtrained. For some people, getting a fitness routine started is hard enough, but for those who've been at it for a while, this is a problem. We like to challenge ourselves, but there's a fine line between pushing the limits and pushing too hard.

Overtraining is what happens when you push your body too hard without giving it enough time to recover.And if you're over training, you're at risk for injury. So do yourself a favour: The next time your body tells you t slow down, listen to it and take a break. It's not called being lazy if you take a couple of days off from your routine to recover -- it's called being smart.

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Tags: injury, muscles, over train, over training, OverTrain, OverTraining, push, recovery, workout

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Walrus 7-20-2007 @ 12:18PM

...too late for me! I overtrained for 3 weeks straight and bonked, slept for 12 hours two days in a row, but recovered.

I think overtraining is more of an issue because people who train this hard need to feel the void of non training with other things...

Rampage99 7-20-2007 @ 4:18PM

You know, I hear this a lot and I do agree with it. There are limits, but at the same time I think some people put too much restriction on how much working out a person can do. I'm not sure how many of you have seen 300, but I implore you to check out www.gymjones.com. Now I understand these are advanced athletes but seriously check out their schedule and see just how much they do.

Now mix this regiment with a bunch of actors that were quite of of shape and you already know the results. Just take a look at the video on the site with "The Captain". His results are mind blowing! Of course there were limits to their training but I think people really underestimate just how far they can be pushed.

Eric 7-20-2007 @ 4:16PM

I don't completely agree. Hard work is cruicial.

It does not sound like you injured yourself from your post. It just sounds like you are sore.

Two days from now you will stop limping and be stronger than before. High intensity workouts are how strength gains are made.

Walrus 7-20-2007 @ 4:37PM

Oh I didn't injure myself at all, I guess I swayed from the original topic at hand, I just exhausted myself... nothing to do with being sore or injury... no I'm used to soreness :).

I agree that you don't necessarily need long breaks, but here's what I was doing for 3 weeks:

1-Bike to work 5x /week (only around 14km roundtrip, but one heavy hill)

After work, bike to gym:

2-Upper body and core ball workout at gym (about 1.5 hours), usually pushing myself a bit, but not big time on strength.

3-Bike home, either go for 5-10km jog or play tennis.

So 2 and 3 vary, I usually work out every second day, and jog on the other days for at least 5km (usually 10km), and then play tennis on off days.

On weekends, I would just listen to my body and usually go for a light/slow jog.

So to some that may be nothing, to a lot of people it's excessive... but either way I depleted myself of energy and just kept sleeping. Injury wise, I think if I jogged more I may run into problems... but really I only get injured when I play impact sports.