Are You Overtraining or Under-Recovering? Signs to Watch For

Mari Diallo
Jan 11
2 min read

Training hard is how champions are made. But training hard without recovering smart is how athletes break. Pushing past your limits is necessary — crossing into overtraining is optional. Recognising when you’ve gone too far might save you weeks or months of lost progress.

Here’s how to tell if your body is warning you, and what to do about it.

What Is Overtraining (or Under‑Recovering)?

Overtraining syndrome is a state when your training load outpaces your recovery capacity. You push, your body pushes back — and eventually cracks. It’s not just “being sore for a few days.” It’s chronic fatigue, diminished performance, hormonal stress, mood changes, and sometimes immune issues.

In sports science, there’s a gradient: functional overreaching (short‑term fatigue that recovers with rest) → nonfunctional overreaching → overtraining syndrome when you keep pushing without rest.

The key differentiator is recovery — if you’re not recovering, you’re losing.

Physical & Performance Warning Signs

These are the red flags your body sends when it’s tipping over:

Performance decline: your usual weights feel heavier, sprints slow, endurance drops.
Persistent, unusual soreness or stiffness that doesn’t improve with rest.
Elevated resting heart rate (especially in the morning).
Sluggish recovery from workouts — you feel “beat up” longer than usual.
Frequent illness or infections (immune system suppressed).
Chronic muscle or joint pain; recurring injuries.

Mental & Emotional Signals

Your body will talk, but your mind often speaks first:

Mood shifts: irritability, depression, anxiety, lack of motivation.
Trouble sleeping: falling asleep, staying asleep, or not feeling refreshed.
Loss of appetite, weight fluctuations.
Feeling burnt out, no longer enjoying training you once loved.
Mental fog, lack of focus, difficulty making decisions.

Why Overtraining Happens

You can’t deny the grind—but underestimating recovery happens more often than you think.

You ramp volume or intensity too fast without gradual progression.
You skip deludes, taper phases, or rest blocks.
Nutrition and sleep fall off—without proper fuel and rest, recovery lags behind stress.
Life stress (work, school, relationships) stacks on top of training strain.
Technical inefficiencies or muscular imbalances cause extra internal load (you’re compensating).

What to Do When You See the Signs

Don’t panic. Here’s a practical roadmap.

Pull back training intensity or volume. Use an active recovery or low load week.
Prioritise sleep (7–9 hours, consistent schedule), hydration, and quality food.
Use recovery modalities: mobility work, massage, compression, contrast therapy.
Reassess programming: insert deludes, cycle intensity, vary movement patterns.
Treat mental stress as real stress—use breathing, meditation, journaling to manage it.
Track your markers (morning HR, mood, readiness) so you can catch it early next time.

At ETA, we coach not only your lifts but your life. When overtraining threatens your gains, we step in with support, restructuring, and recovery strategies to bring you back stronger.

You don’t get bigger, faster, or sharper by pushing until you break. You do it by building sustainably. Listen to your body. Respect your limits. Then expand them.