Overtraining is fairly common among serious athletes and gym-goers who want to see progress and make gains, especially when they're looking at a tight timeline or competing at an elite level. But going too hard can actually do more harm than good.

Knowing what to look out for and how to give your body what it needs is crucial for avoiding overtraining and maintaining physical and mental health. One of the trickiest parts of training is recognizing when you're overdoing it before symptoms escalate.

So, what are the signs of overtraining? Get answers ahead, along with helpful solutions, including recovery tips, nutrition advice, and insight into which kind of health supplements might help.

What Is Overtraining?

Overtraining is when an athlete trains too intensely for an ongoing period without adequate rest. It typically involves not only strenuous workouts but also too many sessions a week for multiple months or even a year or more.

Some tiredness and moderately sore muscles can be normal after exercise and don't necessarily mean you overdid it. Overtraining means subjecting the body to more physical stress than it can sustain.¹

What Is Overtraining Syndrome?

Overtraining syndrome (OTS) is a medical condition that occurs from chronic overtraining. It might be diagnosed based on signs of muscle damage, severe physical fatigue, mood changes, nervous system fatigue, or a decline in performance.^2,3

OTS can be hard on the immune system. This is one reason daily immune support is a category many athletes focus on during periods of heavy training. In some cases, healthcare providers might do routine bloodwork or lab tests outside your normal physical to ensure everything is functioning properly.⁴

Overreaching vs Overtraining

Overreaching is when you train so hard that you experience severe soreness, tenderness, weakness, or extreme fatigue after a workout, which can last up to 2 weeks. It could also result in an injury. Though 2 weeks is longer than you'd experience muscle soreness and other symptoms following most workouts, overreaching is a temporary, short-term setback.^5,6

Overtraining syndrome, on the other hand, is a long-term condition. The effects can last several months or upward of a year.⁷ When OTS is severe, it can take months of rest and time off from training to overcome.⁸

Who Is Most at Risk?

High-volume athletes, especially those focused on how to increase stamina and endurance or strength at elite levels, are most at risk of overtraining. It's common among runners, swimmers, cyclists, and bodybuilders. People who compete in individual sports have a higher risk than those who play on teams. Also, athletes who do multiple training sessions a day or strenuous daily workouts without rest could face OTS. Female athletes should also watch for menstrual irregularities, which can be an early signal that training load is too high.^9,10

A 2022 research review found that overtraining syndrome affects 20% to 60% of athletes at some point in their careers.

Common Signs and Symptoms of Overtraining

How do you know if you're overtraining? There are physical, mental, and performance-related signs and symptoms to look out for.

Physical Symptoms and Overuse Injuries

The physical symptoms of overtraining can include:

• Persistent soreness and/or muscle pain
• Weakness
• Joint tenderness or swelling
• Fatigue
• Elevated resting heart rate

OTS can affect immune function, so you might notice you are responding to seasonal changes or even illness differently. You may also find it harder to fall asleep or get quality sleep—an effect that can seep into the mental health category.¹¹

Mental and Emotional Symptoms

Overtraining can affect a person mentally and emotionally in many ways beyond the effects of poor sleep. The signs can include:

• Heightened stress and/or irritability
• Occasional agitation
• Feeling unmotivated
• Having trouble concentrating
• Mood swings

These symptoms can affect someone's athletic performance and personal life.¹²

Performance Decline

A telltale sign of overtraining is when athletic performance takes a dip. As mentioned, this can happen temporarily for a day or two after a high-intensity workout or up to 2 weeks with overreaching. But when performance declines for 4 or more weeks, it could be because of OTS.¹³

A decline in performance could mean having a hard time finishing workouts, being unable to lift the same load as before, a slower running speed, a loss of cardiovascular endurance, or taking a long time to recover between workouts.

Why Overtraining Occurs

Knowing why overtraining happens can help you avoid it, so let's go over the main causes.

Excessive Training Volume or Intensity

Overtraining can happen when you push too hard with your workouts without sufficient rest. This could mean training intensely for too long or too many days a week. Or it could be a result of lifting progressively heavier weights without giving your muscles time to adapt.¹⁴ Pushing too hard can also lead to overuse injuries, which sideline athletes far longer than a rest day would have.

Inadequate Rest and Recovery

Strength training causes temporary "micro-tears" in muscle tissue.¹⁵ It takes at least 2 days (sometimes several) for your body to mend the damage, build stronger muscles, and get back to normal functionality.^16,17

This is why taking rest days between high-intensity training sessions is crucial. To repair and adapt, your body needs not only time off from training but also restorative sleep.¹⁸

Poor Nutrition and Hydration

Nutrition and hydration are critical for powering through workouts and helping the body recover from exertion. When you don't drink enough water, fuel with carbohydrates, replenish with protein, or get electrolytes, your body could lack the energy it needs for a successful workout and make you feel unwell in the process.^19,20,21 Protein powder supplements are a common option that athletes explore to help meet their daily needs.

Psychological Stress

Competing in an athletic event or feeling pressure to make quick gains or look a certain way can be mentally draining. Beyond being compelled to perform athletically or setting unrealistic goals for yourself, emotional burnout or stressors from everyday life can pile on and interfere with your training ability.²²

How to Avoid Overtraining: 4 Strategies

Here's what to focus on to prevent overtraining.

1. Create a Structured Training Program

Think in the long term when structuring a training program, whether that is on your own or with a personal trainer. Plan a gradual progression that increases the intensity, weight, or duration over time.²³ You can also use periodization. This is where you cycle through varying volume and intensity levels throughout a training program to avoid injury or burnout.²⁴

2. Prioritize Recovery

Recovery really isn't something you can brush off. To prevent overtraining, make sure you're taking rest days and getting restorative sleep so your body can repair and grow stronger. Caring for your muscles with things like massage, compression, or foam rolling can help with soreness.²⁵ You can also do exercise for muscle recovery on rest days, such as walking, dynamic stretching, or mobility work.²⁶

3. Balance Nutrition and Hydration

All 3 macronutrients (carbs, protein, and fats) are vital for optimizing performance—potentially minimizing the urge to overtrain. Carbs provide energy for powering through a workout, while protein and omega-3s from healthy fats help with recovery and muscle growth.²⁷

It's also important to drink plenty of water before, during, and after a training session. Electrolytes (potassium, sodium, and magnesium) can help balance fluid in your body and replenish what you lose through sweat.²⁸ You can get electrolytes from whole foods (like bananas, nuts, and leafy greens), sports drinks, or supplements.²⁹

4. Practice Mindfulness and Stress Management

Competitive athletes and serious strength trainers may feel pressure to perform at an elite level or make quick gains, which can take an emotional toll. And it can go both ways: Stressors from your personal life can become overwhelming and impact your athletic performance.³⁰

Mindfulness practices and stress-management techniques can be immensely helpful. Try deep-breathing exercises, meditation, talking to loved ones, spending time in nature, or setting aside time to relax each day.

How To Recover From Overtraining

If you're experiencing the symptoms of overtraining or overreaching, look to these recovery strategies:

• Rest and active recovery: You may need to scale back or possibly stop training for a while to heal from severe muscle damage.³¹ Focus on walking, mobility work, and active recovery before safely reintroducing workouts.³²
• Nutrition and hydration support: Aim to eat well-rounded meals with a balance of lean protein, complex carbs, and healthy fats from whole foods. Drink lots of water and replenish with electrolytes.
• Targeted supplement support: Supplements may be used as part of a recovery plan.

When to Seek Professional Help

Overtraining syndrome is considered a medical condition. If you're experiencing persistent symptoms, don't hesitate to reach out to a healthcare professional, such as your primary care provider or a sports medicine specialist. Your provider can go over your symptoms, do a physical exam, check your vitals, or suggest blood or lab testing.

Since overtraining can have a psychological component, some people may want to seek mental health support, like talk therapy.³³

Putting It All Together

Knowing the warning signs and prevention strategies can help you avoid overtraining. And if you do experience it, a healthcare provider can work with you on a recovery plan.

NSF-Certified for Sport® supplements are third-party tested for safety, quality, and purity, helping athletes make safer decisions when creating their sports supplements stack.

References:

1. Sports Health. Overtraining Syndrome: A Practical Guide. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3435910/
2. Cleveland Clinic. Overtraining Syndrome. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/overtraining-syndrome
3. PeerJ. Progressive overload without progressing load? The effects of load or repetition progression on muscular adaptations. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9528903/
4. Sports Health. Overtraining Syndrome: A Practical Guide. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3435910/
5. American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) Health & Fitness Journal. Overreaching/Overtraining: More Is Not Always Better. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9068095/
6. Sports Medicine. Does overtraining exist? An analysis of overreaching and overtraining research. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15571428/
7. Sports Medicine. Resistance exercise overtraining and overreaching. Neuroendocrine responses. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9068095/
8. Sports Health. Overtraining Syndrome: A Practical Guide. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3435910/
9. Sports Health. Overtraining Syndrome: A Practical Guide. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3435910/
10. Physical Rehabilitation and Recreational Health Technologies. Overtraining syndrome in bodybuilding and the difficulty of searching for informative biomarkers for disadaptation diagnostics. https://phrir.com/journal/article/view/345
11. Network Physiology of Exercise. Overtraining Syndrome as a Complex Systems Phenomenon. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/network-physiology/articles/10.3389/fnetp.2021.794392/full
12. Sports Health. Overtraining Syndrome: A Practical Guide. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3435910/
13. Applied Sciences. Recommendations for Advancing the Resistance Exercise Overtraining Research. https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/12/24/12509
14. Sports Health. Overtraining Syndrome: A Practical Guide. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3435910/
15. The FEBS Journal. Mechanisms of skeletal muscle repair and regeneration in health and disease. https://febs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/febs.16577
16. International Journal of Sports Medicine. Short-term Recovery Following Resistance Exercise Leading or not to Failure. https://www.thieme-connect.de/products/ejournals/abstract/10.1055/s-0035-1564254
17. Current Opinion in Physiology. Recovery after exercise: what is the current state of play? https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2468867319300379
18. Johns Hopkins University. Workout recovery: Sleep, eat, move, plan. https://wellbeing.jhu.edu/blog/2020/08/11/workout-recovery-sleep-nutrition-movement-planning/
19. Sports. Monitoring Exercise-Induced Muscle Fatigue and Adaptations: Making Sense of Popular or Emerging Indices and Biomarkers. https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4663/6/4/153
20. Mayo Clinic. These 5 things may help improve recovery after a tough workout. https://mcpress.mayoclinic.org/nutrition-fitness/these-5-things-may-help-improve-recovery-after-a-tough-workout/
21. Nutrients. Rehydration during Endurance Exercise: Challenges, Research, Options, Methods. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8001428/
22. Pediatrics. Overuse Injuries, Overtraining, and Burnout in Young Athletes. https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/153/2/e2023065129/196435/Overuse-Injuries-Overtraining-and-Burnout-in-Young?autologincheck=redirected
23. PeerJ. Progressive overload without progressing load? The effects of load or repetition progression on muscular adaptations. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9528903/
24. Frontiers in Psychology. The Effect of Chronic Exercise on Energy and Fatigue States: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Trials. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.907637/full
25. Journal of Functional Morphology and Kinesiology. Effects of Self-Myofascial Release on Athletes' Physical Performance: A Systematic Review. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10801590/
26. Frontiers in Physiology. An Evidence-Based Approach for Choosing Post-exercise Recovery Techniques to Reduce Markers of Muscle Damage, Soreness, Fatigue, and Inflammation: A Systematic Review With Meta-Analysis. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5932411/
27. Nutrients. Nutritional Compounds to Improve Post-Exercise Recovery. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9736198/
28. Nutrients. Rehydration during Endurance Exercise: Challenges, Research, Options, Methods. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8001428/
29. Journal of Applied Physiology. Optimizing the restoration and maintenance of fluid balance after exercise-induced dehydration. https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/japplphysiol.00745.2016
30. Sports Medicine and Health Science. Beyond physical exhaustion: Understanding overtraining syndrome through the lens of molecular mechanisms and clinical manifestation. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666337625000174
31. Cleveland Clinic. Overtraining Syndrome. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/overtraining-syndrome
32. Sports Health. Overtraining Syndrome: A Practical Guide. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3435910/
33. Cleveland Clinic. Overtraining Syndrome. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/overtraining-syndrome