Overtraining: the signs and what to do about it

True overtraining, months of being run down, is rare in lifters. What's common is doing a bit more than you recover from for a few weeks: fatigue builds faster than fitness, and progress stalls. The fix is usually simple.

The signs

• Missing reps you hit easily two weeks ago, on several lifts at once.
• Soreness that doesn't fade between sessions.
• Sleeping badly, feeling flat, or dreading workouts you used to enjoy.
• Resting heart rate higher than usual, or heart rate variability lower, for several days.
• Aches in joints and tendons that keep coming back.

What to do

1. Take a deload week: about half the sets, lighter effort. See deload week.
2. Check the basics: sleep, food and stress outside the gym.
3. Come back with a little less: fewer sets, or stop each set a rep further from failure. See reps in reserve.

How to avoid it

Plan easier weeks before you need them, raise volume gradually, and treat a bad week as information rather than something to push through. See periodization explained and how to break a strength plateau.

In Liftsmith

Liftsmith plans a deload after each block. If you miss reps three workouts running, a coach's note offers to start the deload now, and when several lifts stall at once it suggests a deload rather than pushing harder.