How to Avoid Overtraining
New runners and seasoned runners both can get caught up in the excitement of training. Before they know it, they've peaked, burned themselves out (physically and/or mentally) or worse, suffered an injury before race day. Feeling the burn after a workout is a great sign that you've done your job. That burn is a result of pushing your body past what it's used to. Challenging yourself toward harder, more intense workouts over a period of time is called progressive overload. Progressive overload trains your body to adapt to the new conditions being put upon it. The key, however, is making sure that along with the progressive overload you are also giving your body time to recover. Overloading the body and then giving it a chance to recover, adapt, and heal before placing more stress upon it, is a great way to train.
Below are some good tips to follow to get the most out of your training without overtraining.
Enjoy the easy runs - If every run is a hard run, you greatly increase your chances of injury, peaking early, or mentally burning out. Also, running your weekly easy runs at maximum effort can put a damper on your weekly quality workouts and so they're not benefiting you as much as they should. That's why almost every training plan includes easy runs each week. These runs are usually designed to keep your base mileage going and to help keep you limber in between quality workouts. Problem is many runners blast through the easy weekly runs as if they were quality workouts.
Respect your REST days - Forget the idea that rest is only for the weak. Rest is equally as important as that weekly tempo run or long run. Your body needs time to rebuild the muscle tissue that's broken down with each workout. If you never let your body rest, your fitness level can begin to decline affecting all of your runs, easy and/or quality. No rest is basically a fast forward to overtraining and injury.
Add Cross-train - On cross-training days, do anything aerobic that's not running (i.e., elliptical, row machine, cycling, swimming, circuit resistance training, etc.). These activities will give you a great aerobic workout as well as conditioning other muscle groups helping to increase your overall fitness, while giving your running muscles a break. Adding a couple of cross-training days into your weekly training is a great way to maintain your conditioning without overworking the same muscles.
Follow the hard/easy rule - If your do a chest/triceps workout one day, you should wait at least two days before working those muscles again. Professional bodybuilders will often work a muscle group so hard in one workout, that they'll wait an entire week before working that muscle group again. Overtraining can be a result of repetitive exercise. If you don't vary your workouts and you're constantly subjecting your body to the same stress over and over, those muscles can become over-trained. A good rule of thumb is to wait at least 48 hours before working the same muscle groups again.
Sleep- Your body does most of its repair and rebuilding while you sleep. Lack of sleep is a big cause of fatigue which can increase your chances of overtraining. If you're not getting enough sleep, then you're not giving your body time to heal. Most adults need seven to 8 hours of sleep a night, although some may need as few as five hours or as many as 10 hours of sleep each day. If you're not getting your normal amount of sleep, then you need to back off on your training until your sleep hours are back to normal. ext. !? l?= ?> body time to recover from the last effort before you hit your next building long run. It's not about the total miles. It's about the quality of the long runs.
Below are some good tips to follow to get the most out of your training without overtraining.
Enjoy the easy runs - If every run is a hard run, you greatly increase your chances of injury, peaking early, or mentally burning out. Also, running your weekly easy runs at maximum effort can put a damper on your weekly quality workouts and so they're not benefiting you as much as they should. That's why almost every training plan includes easy runs each week. These runs are usually designed to keep your base mileage going and to help keep you limber in between quality workouts. Problem is many runners blast through the easy weekly runs as if they were quality workouts.
Respect your REST days - Forget the idea that rest is only for the weak. Rest is equally as important as that weekly tempo run or long run. Your body needs time to rebuild the muscle tissue that's broken down with each workout. If you never let your body rest, your fitness level can begin to decline affecting all of your runs, easy and/or quality. No rest is basically a fast forward to overtraining and injury.
Add Cross-train - On cross-training days, do anything aerobic that's not running (i.e., elliptical, row machine, cycling, swimming, circuit resistance training, etc.). These activities will give you a great aerobic workout as well as conditioning other muscle groups helping to increase your overall fitness, while giving your running muscles a break. Adding a couple of cross-training days into your weekly training is a great way to maintain your conditioning without overworking the same muscles.
Follow the hard/easy rule - If your do a chest/triceps workout one day, you should wait at least two days before working those muscles again. Professional bodybuilders will often work a muscle group so hard in one workout, that they'll wait an entire week before working that muscle group again. Overtraining can be a result of repetitive exercise. If you don't vary your workouts and you're constantly subjecting your body to the same stress over and over, those muscles can become over-trained. A good rule of thumb is to wait at least 48 hours before working the same muscle groups again.
Sleep- Your body does most of its repair and rebuilding while you sleep. Lack of sleep is a big cause of fatigue which can increase your chances of overtraining. If you're not getting enough sleep, then you're not giving your body time to heal. Most adults need seven to 8 hours of sleep a night, although some may need as few as five hours or as many as 10 hours of sleep each day. If you're not getting your normal amount of sleep, then you need to back off on your training until your sleep hours are back to normal. ext. !? l?= ?> body time to recover from the last effort before you hit your next building long run. It's not about the total miles. It's about the quality of the long runs.