Exercising too much, is that possible?

Exercising is linked to health in everyone's mind these days, and rightly so, as the benefits of exercising both mentally and physically are endless. Yet even with sports (as with everything), too much is not good. When we experience its negative effects, we call it overtraining.

If you are a fanatic athlete, don't be alarmed immediately. Overtraining is not something that happens very easily. However, it is good to understand the cause and symptoms well, so you can recognize it in time.

Everyone has different limits and boundaries; overtraining takes you beyond them. When we train, we need rest to recover, and when the load/recovery scale is not balanced, we ask more of our body than it can handle. So it can happen that when someone trains every day, eats too late or too little afterward, has a stressful job, for example, or sleeps little in addition to that, they may think they are working out healthily but in fact are using "up" the body. As one might expect, overtraining can be recognized by chronic fatigue, but your training results can also be an indication. Are you training regularly but notice that your athletic performance is only getting worse? That could be a sign that you are asking too much of the body. Insomnia, eating problems, weight loss or gain, irritability and depression can also be a sign of overtraining.

Fortunately, overtraining is also easily curable: by resupplying the body with what it needs. Do you suffer from the above symptoms? Then check your lifestyle and training. Here are some tips:

Are you drinking enough water? Make sure normal water is your source of fluid and that you drink at least 2.5 liters of water per day.

Make sure you sleep at least 8 hours a night. This is so incredibly important for all the processes in your body that we cannot emphasize this enough.

Are you eating the right way with enough valuable nutrients? You can use our tools in the menu to calculate your calorie needs and macros!

In terms of sports, the advice is different for each goal. If you do a lot of sports, at least make sure that at each session the muscles you are about to train are not sore from your previous workout.