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6 Signs You Might Be Overtraining

By Adam Marsal

Cycling might be an extremely demanding sport. No matter if you ride on a professional level or just recreationally, there might come a point when you push too hard. For some time, your body could take it but everybody has their limits. How do you recognise that the time for slowing down is now?

You get dropped during a regular ride

While normally, you take the well-known climb easily, this time things go wrong. You can’t find enough power and the motivation drops. Even more precisely, it’s all shown on your power meter in case you use one. This can happen to anyone once or twice without the need for worrying, however, as soon as it turns out to be a more frequent state, start paying attention.

© Profimedia, LaPresse

You must force yourself to have a ride

While in the past, you were eager to spend any second of your free time on the bike, your overall focus slackened off. The appetite for daily rides has dissolved somewhere between feeling not too well, nor ready to go. Mind that as long as you’re not a pro, the cycling should be fun in the first place, and workout in the second.

You work like a machine

Some of us can ride without break for an incredibly long time. Everybody needs time to recover, though. When a look at your calendar assures you that you had no training gap for a few weeks, have a rest.

You have a shallow sleep

Everything in your body seems to be upside down. Even though you’re tired as hell, you can scarcely sleep. Numerous studies proved that overtraining could impact sleep patterns causing insomnia or restless nights.

Your heart rate is somehow affected

In some surveys, there has been proved that overtraining leads either to suppressed or elevated heart rate. If a remarkable change appears in just a short period, it might be a sign of overtraining telling that you should slow down a little bit.

© Profimedia, Alamy

Your health is weakening

When a sickness starts repeating itself, your immune system might be overloaded. While normally the training is benefiting the whole organism, when you put too much strain on your body, the system is unable to repair itself effortlessly. Please, don’t underestimate these signs as you only have one health to take care of.