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Answer:
Overtraining
essentially means that you are giving
your body more work than it can
physically recover from and it will
break itself down (lose muscle)
rather than build itself up. Overtraining
can easily kill any progress you
are making in your training and
even set you back.
Everyone
is different as to how much training
they can do before overtraining.
Some people, who are known as "hardgainers"
cannot tolerate much before slipping
into overtraining. Hardgainers must
be especially aware of the signs
of overtraining. Some people, call
them "muscle geniuses",
can tolerate huge volumes of training
and still get great results.
You
will know if you are overtraining
if you have one of more of the following
symptoms:
-
rapid
resting heart rate (about
ten beats per minute over
your usual resting heart rate).
Check this first thing in
the morning after you wake
up to get an accurate comparison.
-
-
decreased
desire to train
-
-
impaired
immune system function (repeated
or lasting illness)
-
-
-
-
susceptibility
to injuries
Factors
that influence whether you may
be experiencing overtraining
include:
-
how
much sleep you're getting
-
quality
and quantity of nutrition
(including supplements)
-
quantity
and intensity of training
-
-
To
recover from overtraining, the
best thing you can do is cut
back on your training. You can
also cease training for awhile,
taking a layoff, just be sure
you don't give up exercising
completely, as can easily happen
when you lose motivation through
overtraining. Do about half
of what you were doing before
and reduce the intensity of
the training that you are doing.
Some
people are so overtrained that
they must reduce or stop their
training for several or more
weeks.
If
you have one of more of the
above symptoms, do yourself
a favor and reduce your load
or take a short layoff. Your
body will thank you for it.
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