Wanna hear a scary story? You’re training for your big race, and 
you…….get sick, like really sick right before your big day. Or you pull a muscle, and you can’t run for a month, or you feel like you can’t get out of bed for a week. Oooooohhhhhh Scary, huh? When it comes to training, more is better, right? NO!!! Jebus Baby Christ, NOO! Your body doesn’t like that, your head doesn’t like that and your close friends and family probably don’t like it either. It’s the equivalent to NOT sleeping. Your body needs a day to calm down, regroup and heal. If you train or work out hard every day, and then have your busy life on top of that, and don’t take at least ONE day off of your training, you’ll get sick, injured or burned out. Here are a few over training traits.
Performance
- Decreased performance (strength, power, muscle endurance, cardiovascular endurance)
- Decreased training tolerance and increased recovery requirements
- Decreased motor coordination
- Sleep and eating disorders
- Headaches, gastrointestinal distress Muscle soreness and damage Joint pains (taken from here)
If you are scared about taking a day off, try the following things so you are assisting your training without working it.
- Massages. They are awesome and do wonders to help your body heal so it can get back into action.
- Epson salt bath. They are magic and make your sore muscles feel less cranky.
- Long slow walk to keep your body moving.
- Treat yourself to a power punch meal that help muscles heal. Veggies and protein will be happily accepted to your body.
For more on overtraining, check out these articles, while laying in bed, on your day off!
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3435910/
http://www.acsm.org/docs/current-comments/overtrainwithresistance.pdf