There’s a reason that your personal trainer doesn’t push you hard every day to lift to your maximum or workout to exhaustion. It’s because it’s counterproductive to your ultimate goal. Muscles need to rest after a workout. Those long hours at the gym won’t help you achieve your goals any faster and can cause problems that can put you out of commission for a while.
A hard workout has consequences.
A tough workout creates a lot of stress on your body. When you build muscles, it causes microscopic tears that have to heal. Like any type of sore or cut, it takes time to heal and if you go right back into the gym and stress it again, that won’t happen. Speaking of stress! The workout also stresses your body, but in a good way. It causes the body to create more antioxidants that boost the immune system. If you workout too frequently, the immune system is remains stressed and suppressed. That can drop your immunity for up to 72 hours.
Check out your productivity.
One of the biggest tells that you need some rest is a poor performance. Too much gym time can make your accomplishments disappear and you start regressing rather than progressing. Pushing past it and “sucking it up” to get through the workout won’t help. In fact, that makes it worse. Your enjoyment of the workout diminishes and it affects your desire to continue.
Your mood, energy level and health suffer from overworking your body and not getting a rest.
Your mood may be the first sign that you’ve been working out to much. While your body is fighting to get back to normal, you might be fighting with others. Not giving your body a rest can cause anxiety, irritability, anger, confusion and depression. It may take longer to recover from a workout and you may find you’re not only fatigued, you’re more susceptible to illness.
- Loss of appetite is one sign that you’re working out too much and need a rest. It’s one of the later stages.
- Your resting heart rate can give you information. If it significantly goes up, it’s a sign that you may be stressing your body.
- Not only does insomnia signify that you might be overdoing it at the gym, it also adds to the problem. Your body needs a rest for adequate healing and it can’t get it.
- When you overwork your muscles, you actually can lose muscle mass and put on fat. That isn’t normally what the people working out too much are hoping to achieve.