What happens if you overwork your body

However, if you're not careful, you may overwork your body and fall victim to a range of symptoms that may stop your training routine in its tracks. Keep your eyes open for these 7 signs of overtraining to avoid interrupting your progress while you recover from your injuries.

Waking up with sore muscles is not unusual after a day of vigorous exercise. If your muscles remain sore for more than a day, however, they may be overworked. Continuing to exercise vigorously while your muscles scream for relief won't help you achieve your goals and may even lead to an injury.

Your overall health and diet play a critical role in your ability to ward off illnesses. If you've overworked yourself, however, then your body's resources will be devoted to recovering from your training instead of preventing sickness.

If you've noticed that you seem to be getting sick more often and have a longer recovery period with each illness, you might be overdoing things in the gym. Sluggishness can be caused by a number of factors, including poor sleep and stress from work.

Want to learn more about spending your time well and doing more meaningful work? Get our latest blog posts in your inbox every week. Jory MacKay is a writer, content marketer, and editor of the RescueTime blog. Dear Jory, This is the second article that you authored which I have read. As a marketing and PR professional suffering from burnout, I cannot tell you how much your insight and wisdom about burnout has helped better understand this syndrome.

I hit a wall and I was fortunate enough to have my job in a toxic environment eliminated!!! Now, I have to pick up the pieces and the healing process is very painful. But your articles give me so much hope and encouragement. Thank you, Sandra. Read More From Burnout. But how much of ourselves we give up every day.

But this is ridiculous. Why celebrate working ourselves to the bone? Overwork leads to impaired sleep, heavy drinking, and depression According to numerous studies by Marianna Virtanen of the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, overwork and the resulting stress can lead to all sorts of health problems, including: Impaired sleep Depression Heavy drinking Diabetes Impaired memory Heart disease Put bluntly, the more hours we work, the less healthy we become.

Yet we still do it and do it to ourselves! Overdoing anything can leave you in deep doo-doo. This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here. More From Forbes. Jul 31, , am EDT. Jul 24, , pm EDT. Jul 10, , am EDT. Jul 9, , am EDT. Jul 7, , pm EDT. Jul 6, , pm EDT. Edit Story. Jeremiah is a professional mountain bike rider for Cannondale Factory Racing. He's a twelve-time member of the U. Check your resting heart rate. Every day, before you get out of bed, take your pulse.

There are plenty of free apps that make it easy. Some even log results. Most of the time your heart rate will stay within a few beats per minute. The same thing happens when athletes overtrain and their bodies struggle to recover.