What are the symptoms of excessive fitness exercise?

The most typical sign of excessive fitness exercise is never the muscle pain that everyone thinks makes it impossible to walk, but the abnormal decline of body, mood, and exercise ability. Many people ignore the early signs. By the time they develop nausea, vomiting, and joint injuries, it will take a long time to recover.

Last month, there was a guy in the gym I used to go to who was preparing for a competition. He trained his legs for 2 hours a day for a week in a row in order to hit the PB in squats. The 180kg squat set was already very stable. But when he added 140kg that day, his eyesight went black. He stood holding the barbell rack for a long time and felt nauseous. After he went back, he couldn't sleep at 2 a.m. for three or four days. When he woke up in the morning, his resting heart rate was 20 beats higher than usual. The coach asked him to stop training for a week. He didn't do anything, just eat and sleep, and then he slowly recovered.

In fact, many people have misunderstandings about excessive exercise. Some people think that as long as the muscles are sore, it is excessive, while others think that as long as there is no injury, you can continue to exercise. Both of these views are a bit extreme. It's like a person who hasn't exercised for a long time and suddenly does a leg workout, and then he hisses and gasps in pain when going up and down stairs for the next three or four days. This is normal delayed onset muscle soreness. As long as the resting heart rate is not much higher than usual, and you eat and sleep normally, it is not an overdose at all. Just rest for two days and continue training. But if you have been training regularly recently and did not suddenly adjust the plan to increase the amount. Instead, you wake up in the morning and lie down in bed to feel your pulse. If it is 8-10 times higher than your daily benchmark for two or three days in a row, then don’t doubt it. Your body can no longer bear it, and your sympathetic nerves have been stretched and unable to relax. Further training will only be counterproductive.

There are also emotional changes that many people don’t take seriously. Working out is supposed to relieve stress, but lately I feel frightened when I think about going to the gym. I can’t concentrate at all during practice. I can’t relax even if I check my phone for ten minutes between sets. I feel inexplicably irritable when I have nothing to do. I get angry every time I talk to my family and friends. I’m not interested in what I did before. I can’t get excited even when doing interesting things. This is all a symptom of excessive exercise leading to high cortisol levels. I went through this trap last year when I was trying to lose weight. I ran for 40 minutes on an empty stomach every day and then added an hour of strength training. After more than ten days in a row, when I went out to eat with friends, I would get in trouble with the waiter because the food was served slowly. Now that I think about it, it’s really outrageous.

What is more intuitive is that the performance of the exercise has dropped off a cliff. I can usually bench press 8 weights steadily, but recently I have tried my best to push 5. The movements are still shaking badly. Don't think it is because you are not in good condition that day and work hard to practice. At this time, the control ability of muscles and nerves has declined. Practicing hard will only deform the movements, but it is easy to strain and sprain the joints, which is not worth the gain.

Don’t ignore some minor signs, such as you are clearly tired from training, tossing and turning in bed and unable to fall asleep, or you keep waking up after falling asleep, and when you wake up in the morning, your body is as heavy as if you haven’t slept. Or you usually have a good appetite, but you suddenly can’t eat and feel bloated after just two bites. Even if you are usually in good physical condition, you often have a stuffy nose, colds, or minor problems recently. In fact, these are all alarms sent by your body.

Don’t worry if you encounter these situations. Take a break for a day or two and eat more rice, noodles and high-quality protein. It is much more efficient than working hard. Fitness is a long-term thing, so the amount of training in these two days should not be missed.