When Less is More

Being a hard-core gym rat weightlifter type, even in advanced age I find that the temptation to keep working out beyond what I planned to happens to me all the time.

When I have finished my planned workout, there is always the little voice in my head that says, why not do a just a few sets of kettlebell snatches or a few pullups wont take much energy and so forth.

Couple this with the normal inclination to do one more set of (exercise) that most of us experience during our workouts, the little gremlin of fatigue begins to hang around our bodies longer than we would like.

 

Not Yet a Problem Situation

When most of us think about the dreaded condition of overtraining IMHO we tend to think of it in black and white terms. We are either fully energized and ready to kick ass or are suffering from an all out crash and can barely summon the strength to lift our much needed protein shake.

Unfortunately, this obscures a situation that in my view is more common. That is a mildly degraded performance.

This subtle erosion of our strength in training is hardly noticeable. Our inclination is to say that we are just having an off day.

The reality is that we may not be fully recovering from our previous work.

We may get back 95 % but consistently fall short of full recovery.

Over time these small deficits can grind us down. We recover pretty wellbut not quite 100%.

 

Find your problem source

If you inspect your training records you may notice that you have been doing more work than you can recover from.

It may be inserting extra sets of some exercise because you feel great. Or it can be something like adding an entire workout day to your schedule because you feel great on some days.

The cumulative impact of doing just a little bit more will rarely lead to a major crash, but it can mean you are tired a lot of the time or feel like you are not sleeping well.

Whatever your unique situation, take steps to bring your work in line with your recovery.

This may mean putting yourself on a strict workout diet.aka. I will only work out four days a week Or put rules in place to limit extra sets or useless extra reps

After all.you are in charge!

 

The One Magic Solutionalmost

If you are feeling run down and not recovering, you can try this trick.

On your days off, take a nap or even go back to bed for the time you would spend in the gym.

Extra sleep is one of those nearly magic things that we tend to waste because it seems like something that gets in the way of being on social media.

 

Just in case you forget to drink water

Occasionally busy people forget to drink water during the day. This can lead to feeling very sluggish.

You can make a mental note to drink a glass of water every few hours and it may help you avoid feeling like dirt.

At the other extreme are the people who seem to bring a 55-gallon drum full of water with them when they go out to do their three sets of cable triceps presses.

They get their exercise in walking back and forth to the commode.

 

Coda

Slowly grinding yourself down is one of those things that can happen without us being aware of what is going on. Being aware of the potential for this gradual erosion of your powers is the best way to prevent it happening.

Lift Big!

Richard