Most people think that training as hard as possible and spending hours working out is the way forward. However, train too much and you will overtrain and won’t see results. Instead, focus on training properly and allowing plenty of recovery time. Here’s some advice to help you stop overtraining and recover properly:
Don’t Train For More Than An Hour
The best sign of overtraining is when your workouts exceed an hour. There is simply no need to be in the gym working out for that long, no good can come of it. You should be working out hard for 45 minutes max. Any longer and you’re overtraining and overworking your muscles. It’s like cooking a steak, leave it on the grill for too long and all the meat burns and goes all horrible. The longer you train, the more time you take out of your recovery period. By all means, you can still be in the gym for over an hour if you want to stretch and have a cooldown – which is highly recommended! But, your actual workouts shouldn’t be too elongated.
Stop Doing Too Many Sets Of The Same Exercises
A lot of the time you see people doing so many sets of the same exercise, and then move onto a very similar one and do loads of sets of that! A good example is if you were squatting and did, say, 5 sets of 12 reps. Already, you can probably reduce that to 4 sets, and it would be better. But, you then see people move away from doing squats with a barbell and do squats with a dumbbell for 5 more sets. Stop it, you’re overtraining and making it harder for your muscles to recover.
When it comes to recovery, you need to do it properly. Here are two vital things to take into consideration:
Sleep Properly
Getting a proper night of sleep after your workout is very important regarding recovery. Sleep helps your muscles relax, and all the essential nutrients and vitamins go to work inside your body. Muscle damage gets repaired in your sleep, and your metabolism actually gets regulated when you sleep too. This can help speed up your metabolism and help you burn fat better. The secret to sleeping better and recovering properly lies in your mattress. If you want the best mattress around, then you can visit bestbedsboutique.com/best-innerspring-mattress-today/ to find out what it is. A good mattress can also stop muscle pains from occurring. If you’re sleeping on something bad, with limited support, then your muscle fibers start working to try and support you, which is why you end up waking up sorer than after your workout!
Stretch and Recover Properly
You need to stretch out your muscles after you worked them as they become very tight. This is usually why you feel sore the day after working out. Your muscles are tight and full of lactic acid, stretching releases them. You can visit here; http://www.active.com/fitness/articles/12-post-workout-static-stretches if you want to see the best stretches to do after your workouts.
Stop overtraining, and start recovering properly, to see the biggest fitness gains!
