The Consequences Of Overtraining

OVERTRAINING & TRAINING SMARTER TO AVOID FATIGUE

By Angela Chang

Every athlete and fitness enthusiast has heard of the term “overtraining.”

People often confuse this term with feeling fatigued, but take note: overtraining is not as simple as that. Its consequences are quite sobering, especially for those who are serious about their progress.

Let’s take a closer look at overtraining and how you can best avoid its worst effects.

What Isn’t Overtraining?

It is not soreness. It is not being out of breath. It is not getting tired as you train.

These things are all normal and are signs of you stressing your body… which is a good thing! Stress is the only way your body can learn how to adapt and get better at whatever you’re doing. “Without struggle, there is no progress” – this rings just as true when it comes to training.

Overtraining is also not a bad session every now and then. No one is perfect and nobody has a perfect life, so bad days are bound to happen.

Finally, and this may come as a surprise to some, but overtraining is also not training “too much,” despite its name.

So What The Heck Is It?!

In the context of Muay Thai, overtraining occurs when a fighter pushes their body beyond its ability to recover. This happens when training intensity, frequency, or duration is too high without enough rest, leading to physical and mental burnout.

Overtraining is bad because it can lead to a host of negative effects, such as:

• Decreased Performance: Instead of improving, you may notice slower reactions, lack of power, and reduced endurance in your Muay Thai sessions.
• Increased Risk of Injury: Muscles, joints, and tendons become overworked, leading to a higher chance of sprains, strains, or more severe injuries like stress fractures.
• Mental Fatigue: Overtraining can cause irritability, lack of motivation, and even anxiety or depression, which can significantly affect focus during training or a fight.
• Weakened Immune System: Pushing the body too hard can make you more susceptible to illnesses, reducing overall health and recovery.

Striking the right balance between hard training and recovery is essential to maximize progress and longevity in Muay Thai.

Can Overtraining Have Any Benefits?

To give a bit of balance to this article, let’s also consider an alternative viewpoint: overtraining can be good for you, though not with any regularity whatsoever.

As we’ve seen above, overtraining as a habit is destructive and easily causes more harm than good. But it can, as described by the boys on MTGP, improve your life as a fighter.

It can be a way to build up mental toughness – something every fighter needs to push through moments of adversity. Perhaps more practically, it gives you a blueprint of your body. Overtraining clearly outlines your personal physical boundaries. In other words, overtraining intermittently, with a great deal of time in between, can show you where your body is at, where it can go, and where it can’t.

Signs Of Overtraining

The symptoms of overtraining are not restricted to how you perform physically in the gym – they’re mental, sexual, and physiological. It’s not something a person does, but how a person feels as a whole. A lot of its signs are quite similar to that of depression.

One of the best ways to figure out if you’re overtraining is to see how you have felt over the past several sessions.

• Is there a constant level of fatigue you just can’t seem to shake off?
• Do you feel tired no matter how much you sleep?
• Is the fatigue and exhaustion in both your body and mind?
• Do you often lie awake despite feeling extremely tired?
• Is your appetite gone?
• Is your sex drive much lower than usual?
• Are you getting sick?
• Are you not healing as fast or as properly as usual?
• Do you feel like you’re getting worse at what you do instead of getting better despite all the training you’ve been doing?

If you’ve answered yes to many of these questions, chances are that you’re overtraining.

Overtraining leads to some serious complications. Your body thinks it’s continuously stressed (which it is) and in danger, so you’re producing stress hormones and breaking your body down unnecessarily. Your adrenal glands can get burned out as well, and you won’t be able to properly respond to a real threat. Overtraining can take weeks and months to get over, not just days. Overtraining is NOT just “something in your head” and something you can just suck and get over. It’s real and it affects your progress and health tremendously.

Prevent Overtraining, Keep Progressing

Ladies and gentlemen, as much as you’d like to be superhuman, you are not. Though this four-letter word may sound like awful weakness to some, every single one of us needs it: REST.

This is probably the hardest thing to do for someone who’s motivated to get better. But don’t be stubborn – take a week off if you feel like you’re dragging your feet around everywhere for days. Go back to the gym when you are 100% back to your old self both physically and mentally.

To prevent overtraining, you also have to rest, but just enough between training sessions. Get enough sleep, eat well, make sure you’re supplementing where you need it, and work hard in the gym. Preventing overtraining can do so much for your progress in Muay Thai. It will also keep your sane and motivated to continue on your journey.