Overtraining and under-recovery: what is really going on

Why under-recovery is the real problem

Picture someone in their late thirties with a demanding job and young children. They train five times a week, sleep six hours a night, eat in a big deficit to lose weight, and have a glass or two of wine most evenings to unwind. None of that training would be excessive for a well-rested, well-fed person. For them, it adds up to a recovery bill they cannot pay.

Recovery draws on one shared budget. Poor sleep, low energy intake, alcohol, illness, work pressure, caring responsibilities and money worries all make withdrawals from it, just as training does. When training is the only thing people track, it gets the blame. Usually it is the other deposits that have dried up.

This is why two people on the same programme can have completely different experiences. The programme is not the whole story.

Warning signs to watch for

One bad session means nothing. Look for patterns lasting more than a week or two.

• Performance dropping despite effort: weights feel heavier, times get slower, heart rate runs higher for the same pace
• Constant tiredness, heavy legs, or feeling wiped out by sessions you used to handle easily
• Resting heart rate noticeably higher than usual, or heart rate variability consistently lower than your normal
• Poor sleep despite being exhausted
• Low mood, irritability, losing enjoyment in training
• Picking up every cold going, or a run of small aches and niggles
• Big swings in appetite, or losing interest in food
• Changes to your periods, or periods stopping altogether

Compare how you feel now with how you felt a month ago, not yesterday. Fatigue creeps up gradually, and people often do not realise how flat they have become until someone else points it out, or a lighter week suddenly makes them feel much better.

Wearables can help you spot trends earlier. Our guide to heart rate variability explains what the numbers mean and how much weight to give them.

Not eating enough: the hidden cause

Under-fuelling is one of the most common drivers of under-recovery, particularly in people combining hard training with a fat loss goal. When energy intake is too low for the training you are doing, the body starts cutting back on non-essential functions. Sports medicine calls this low energy availability, and the wider set of effects is known as relative energy deficiency in sport, or RED-S.

In women, periods becoming irregular or stopping is a key warning sign. It is common but it is not normal, and it affects bone health. Men are affected too, often with low libido, fatigue and stalled progress. Low iron is another frequent culprit, especially in women and in endurance athletes, and our guide to iron and training covers the signs.

If you are dieting hard and training hard at the same time, one of them probably needs to give for a while. A planned break from dieting, eating at maintenance, often brings energy back within a couple of weeks.

What to do if you think you are there

1. Cut training volume by around half for one to two weeks. Keep some sessions, but make them shorter and easier.
2. Drop the hardest efforts completely for now: no maximal lifts, no all-out intervals.
3. Eat at maintenance, not in a deficit, with protein at every meal.
4. Treat sleep as training. Aim for eight hours in bed for two weeks.
5. Cut back on alcohol while you recover.
6. Build back up gradually over the following two to three weeks.

This is essentially a recovery week or two. Our guides to deload weeks and planning a recovery week show how to structure one without losing momentum. If you train at Lycan Strength, tell your coach. Every class is scalable, so you can keep turning up and training with your group while the load comes down.

When it may not be training at all

Plenty of medical conditions look like overtraining. Low iron or anaemia, an underactive thyroid, low vitamin D, diabetes, depression and lingering fatigue after a viral illness can all cause tiredness, poor performance and low mood. If you have cut back for two weeks, slept and eaten properly, and still feel no better, book an appointment with your GP and mention your training.

Some symptoms need urgent attention rather than a lighter week. Chest pain or tightness during or after exercise, fainting or nearly fainting, a racing or irregular heartbeat, or breathlessness far beyond what the effort explains: stop training and call 999 if symptoms are severe or ongoing, or contact NHS 111 or your GP promptly if they have settled.