When you are working out to improve your fitness levels, you must be careful about avoiding overtraining as it may injure your body. Overtraining, without providing sufficient amount of rest to your body, can cause muscle injuries, strains, sprains and tendinitis. It may even prevent muscle growth and weaken your immune system resulting in flu, cold and other health problems. Following are some tips provided by boot camp fitness programs to avoid overtraining and gain in strength.
Minimize the Frequency of Workouts
Some fitness freaks undergo rigorous training five to six times a week and do not allow the body sufficient amount of rest. Many other fitness enthusiasts concentrate on the different body parts on different days of the week. Instead of subjecting your body to this rigor, you should limit yourself to not more than a couple of intense workouts giving a gap of one or two days between each workout. Instead of 5 sets of exercise, do 3 sets and switch to a couple of full body workouts every week. Also, it is recommended that you practice compound movements or multi-joint exercises such as shoulder presses, pull downs, push ups, bar dips, bench presses, dead lifts, lunges, leg presses and squats as they offer more workout to the different body parts, while promoting better muscle growth.
Adequate Sleep
In order to obtain adequate recovery between your training sessions, you need a minimum of 8 hours of sound sleep every day to enable muscle growth and optimal release of growth hormones. You also need to eat sufficient amount of food to provide energy to your body.
Alternate between your Exercise Routines
Doing the same set of exercises every day can inspire boredom and disinterest. To prevent this, you should introduce some sort of variety in to your exercise routine. For e.g. you can alter the order of your exercises or you may take up a few new exercises. If you have been doing squats and bench presses, switch to push ups and bar dips or leg presses and lunges. You may also alternate between upper body exercises and lower body exercises during different workouts. Many fitness enthusiasts maintain the same speed or tempo all throughout their exercise regimen. They should instead start off with a slower tempo and graduate to a faster speed.
Allow a Prolonged Break
When you work out too frequently and too vigorously week after week, you might experience cramps and muscle soreness. In these cases, giving your body two days of rest might not be sufficient. If you push your body too hard, it might not be ready for the next workout. Allow your body 8 to 10 days of rest and let it recover fully. Reserve every 4th week for these periodic rests. This will provide your body with the opportunity to recuperate from muscle tears, pulls, injuries and soreness.
Additional Tips for Avoiding Overtraining
A post workout nutrition, in the form of a protein and carbohydrate shake is a must after intense workouts. Eat a small meal an hour later. Take multivitamin pills to curb nutrition deficiencies and fill your diet with sufficient amount of proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins and omega 3 oils.
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