Fatigue and Muscle Recovery

 While regular exercise provides many useful benefits in energy, endurance, weight management and performance improvement, too much exercise can leave you feeling fatigued and run down.  Be sure to moderate your activity over time, and recognize how you are feeling after exercise. You may feel sore from time to time, but ongoing soreness and fatigue is a sign of over training. 

    You can avoid over working your body  by alternating hard workouts with easier workouts different days.   If you do perform a much harder or strenuous workout, be sure to give your muscles at least two days to recover before another hard workout. You can do this by alternating the muscles you work each day, and/or varying the type of exercise such as interval training M, W, F and swimming or yoga on the other days.

 Vary the intensity of your exercise routine  by using the principle of gradual progressive overload.   Increasing the intensity of your workouts over time, perhaps only 10-20 % each workout or week, will allow your body to safely develop strength and stamina to take additional loads.    Be sure to rest  on your off days, such as Saturday, and regularly get a good night’s sleep.

Lastly, Drink plenty of water to stay hydrated and eat healthy food to feed your muscles and maintain lean muscle. Remember, Consistency and variety in physical activity is the key to staying in shape and avoid over working your body, or worse injury.