Do you feel somehow stuck when it comes to your cross training workouts? Do you feel like something is not going the way it’s supposed to, but can’t put your finger on it? Or maybe you’ve had enough of not being able to advance and instead you keep scaling back weights and reps on hard cross training workouts?
If any one of these questions is a “yes” for you, then It’s time to let go and be the best you can!
- Burnout
For both gym newbies and veterans, the temptation to give 100% day in and day out is strong. After all, in order to know your limits, you have to keep pushing more and more, right? The natural instinct is to believe that more is better. This mentality is not only misguided, but it can also lead to injury and physical and mental burnout.
Burnouts occur after a high-intensity exposure for a long period of time. If it’s not taken seriously, you may end up dreading the thing you love most – in this case – cross training. Here are 3 things you need to avoid so you don’t reach cross training burnouts.
- Giving 100% effort every day. We’re not suggesting that you shouldn’t be 100% interested in your workout or that giving it all is not good. We’re just saying you don’t need to crush each and every one of your workouts. On some days it is best if you just go through with your workout. Or you can go like this: give maximum effort to one workout and just go through the next workouts or scale down the workload a bit. The important thing you need to know is how to adjust. Listen to your body.
- Taking long periods of time off. It’s best if you go to the gym and take it easy than to not go at all and lose all the progress you’ve made. Going back to the gym after more than one week off will be hard and discouraging.
- Not having a strategy. You need a plan regarding your reps, rest time between reps, weights and everything else. Doing a workout without a game plan usually means having a bad workout. And experiencing bad workouts each time you hit the gym will have you discouraged in no time.
- Overraining
This is common in many types of activity and it happens when you train more than your body can recover from. Your central nervous system sends nerve impulses that control your muscles. When chronically overstressed, these nerves impulses can weaken and become inefficient, leading to a host of overtraining symptoms. Once overtraining sets in, it takes time to recover completely because your nervous system is somewhat short-circuited. The cheapest and most effective ways to avoid overtraining is to get proper sleep, have an adequate nutrition, lower your body’s stress levels with yoga, meditation, and why not – working out outside for a change.
Here are some factors that can lead to overtraining:
- Sudden increase of exercise frequency
- Intensity of your workout sessions
- Increase of duration
- Not giving your body enough time for an adequate recovery
Some common overtraining symptoms include tiredness, restlessness, tightness, decrease in performance, increase of injuries, decreased strength and endurance, and elevated blood pressure. Here are the top 6 signs you’re over-training:
- Not seeing results
- Feeling especially sore after a hard workout
- Lacking motivation
- Chronic soreness in your joints, bones and limbs
- Feeling lethargic all day
- Repeatedly failing to complete your normal workout
To avoid all these signs and symptoms, make sure to train smart and allow your body adequate time to recover.
- Getting discouraged
In life, there isn’t any assurance that each day will be happy and successful. In your journey to getting fit, there will be bumps along the way and things that will simply get you discouraged. You need be able to go from being discouraged to encouraged when the situation call for it. One way to do that is to have in mind constructive and uplifting quotes that can return your focus on peaceable ideas again. Here are some benefits of being encouraged and staying positive:
- Helps you maintain positive relationships
- Improves your self-esteem
- Increases your energy levels
- Improves your workout performances
- Increases your creativity
- Maintains your inner peace
Getting motivated to workout has a greater impact than you think. Your body will look, feel and function like it's brand new and you will feel a lot stronger than you think you are.
Now that you’re equipped to spot the most common cross training problems and learned how to fix them, there’s nothing else for you to do than to go train hard, smart and with purpose.