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One counterintuitive facet to building muscle is that people need to rest. When thinking of exercise, people generally think they need more. And yet it is possible, even common, to train too much. When exercisers overreach or even overtrain, their bodies force them to take longer breaks, ultimately undermining overall fitness progress. It's important for people to be aware of the risks of overreaching and overtraining in order to get the greatest benefit from their program.
Muscle Fatigue
During anaerobic exercise, both ATP and creatine phosphate are quickly used, causing the body to begin glycolysis – the process of metabolizing glycogen to produce more energy. Lactic acid is one byproduct of glycolysis. As more energy is burned, more lactic acid is produced, inhibiting muscles' ability to contract. This produces what people commonly refer to as muscle fatigue.
In addition to being unable to sustain maximum work capacity, muscle fatigue has consequences that don't seem immediately obvious. In a study of recovery after strenuous exercise, researchers found that athletes' immune systems were lowered in the days immediately following exercise. Athletes may be more susceptible to infections due to this attenuated immune competence within this first period of recovery after demanding endurance exercise. Furthermore, inadequate rest following prolonged, intensive exercise might cause a chronic systemic inflammatory state that in turn leads to a syndrome of impaired performance and progressive fatigue. This progressive fatigue is of greatest concern.
Overreaching
Overreaching is the state of temporary overtraining, the kind that lasts from two days to two weeks. It is short-term, which distinguishes it from true overtraining. Symptoms are similar to fatigue, but also include things like increased resting heart rate, excessive fatigue, reduced power output, excessive thirst, and even depression. The amount of exercise it takes to overreach is different for everyone. Since people have different fitness levels and responses to stress, two people on the same program can overreach at different times. It can also happen to anyone, from the newest gym member to world-class athletes. When studying trained athletes, it appears that overreaching may be induced after a period of 7 days. When athletes overreach, if they don't take care to lower workout intensity and allow rest time for muscle recovery, they are likely to suffer an injury or experience overtraining.
Overtraining
Overreaching versus overtraining is not a simple, black-or-white state. Instead it's cumulative, where continued overreaching without adequate rest ultimately leads to overtraining. The first phase along the fatigue continuum relates to the fatigue experienced after an isolated training session. Further intense training with insufficient recovery can lead to overreaching and increased complexity and severity of symptoms. Finally, if high training loads are continued with insufficient recovery from the overreached state, the overtraining syndrome may develop. Each step along this continuum requires more rest in order to recover.
Overtraining is the most serious condition; it requires significantly more time to recover – from several weeks to several months. Its symptoms are also more pervasive, though they may still be subtle. Overtrained individuals may experience a loss of appetite, mood swings, insomnia, difficulty concentrating, and severe fatigue, among many others. Athletic performance invariably declines with athletes unable to maintain even current levels of fitness. Overtraining also has a very strong mental component. Complex sets of psychological factors are important in the development of OTS, including excessive expectations from a coach or family members, competitive stress, personality structure, social environment, relationships with family and friends, monotony in training, personal or emotional problems, and school- or work-related demands. So, just as people's bodies respond differently to training, their minds respond differently to life-stress, which does contribute to overtraining.
Overtraining is a complex condition that demands rest and recuperation. It's also a condition that's avoidable. Overtraining is not a foregone conclusion. If athletes give themselves adequate recovery time, they won't suffer these deleterious effects. In speaking of recovery time, a distinction must be made between workout recovery – which takes between twelve and forty-eight hours – and muscle recovery – the body's process of actually rebuilding muscle. There are things one can do to help the body rebuild muscles more quickly.
Accelerated Muscle Recovery
Given that the cause of muscle fatigue is ultimately a lack of energy, replenishing glycogen stores can have a favorable impact on muscle recovery. The level of necessary glycogen depends on the type of training; endurance athletes tend to need more glycogen than do weight lifters. Many athletes replenish their glycogen stores with a high protein, high carbohydrate shake soon after finishing their training session. It's also important to cool down. If skipped, it can take as long as four hours for lactic acid to disperse from one's muscle tissue. Cooling down and stretching helps remove it faster. Massage can also help. It increases lymphatic and blood circulation, stretches out the muscle tissue, and lowers swelling. Also helpful are things like applied heat or cold, meditation, and even acupuncture.
More broadly, athletes must get sufficient sleep each night: seven to eight hours for most people. During sleep the body repairs and regenerates. Get too little and it won't be able to complete those repairs. People should also eat a diet rich in the nutrients necessary for repairing the stresses of exercise on muscle tissue. The body needs adequate raw materials from which to repair itself and adequate sleep time to make those repairs.
Adequate Muscle Recovery Time
Serious athletes who become overtrained might find themselves reluctant to take the necessary weeks or months to recover, especially due to a fear of losing all the work they've put in. This should be resisted. People need to take the necessary time to heal. While it may feel like a setback in the short-term, muscle memory exists. It's not starting all over again; it's building oneself back up.
Many people just want to reach their goals. It's common for them to push themselves too far only to suffer an injury or bout of fatigue that sets them back further than when they started pushing. Both regular exercisers and serious athletes must understand that this is shortsighted. If they take the long view, they'll see that allowing time for their muscles to recover protects them from the damage caused by overreaching and overtraining. At the same time, they'll see the long-lasting fitness improvement they all want. Simply put, achieve more by resting more.
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