2852: The Overtraining Signs Fitness Fanatics Always Miss

Summary

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Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth

Episode 2852: The Overtraining Signs Fitness Fanatics Always Miss
Hosts: Sal Di Stefano, Adam Schafer, Justin Andrews, (Doug Egge producer)
Release Date: May 7, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the often-missed warning signs of overtraining in fitness enthusiasts. The hosts break down “six weird signs” of overtraining that appear before the classic symptoms such as performance plateaus or persistent fatigue. The conversation aims to help listeners catch overtraining earlier and build smarter, healthier training routines. The episode is characterized by the hosts’ typical candid, evidence-based, and sometimes humorous approach to fitness myths and realities.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What is Overtraining?

• Defined as doing “more than necessary for what you’re looking to achieve.”
• Overtraining can sneak up on people, especially dedicated or “fanatic” gym-goers (03:00).
• Early signs often go unrecognized until multiple symptoms stack up.

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2. Six “Weird” Early Signs of Overtraining

a. Broken Sleep

• Not classic insomnia—falling asleep is easy, but you wake up multiple times, often at consistent times each night (05:00).
• Adam: “You go to bed, you’re tired, you’re exhausted, you go to bed and then you wake up at like 2:00am or 3:00am…what’s going on? I can’t go back to sleep.” (06:00)
• Linked to hormonal imbalances—melatonin drops, cortisol spikes at the wrong times.

b. Increased Cravings (for Comfort Foods)

• Different from the healthy appetite boost from effective training.
• Characterized by intense cravings for sweets or savory snacks, especially at night (09:38).
• Justin: “I want more sweets and I want…especially at nighttime.” (09:38)
• Distinguishing: Productive muscle gains make “beef and rice” appealing; overtraining makes you crave fast food or junk (10:31).

c. Irritability

• Feeling suddenly short-tempered or moody, especially if others point it out (11:00).
• Seen frequently in hard-training athletes, especially in competitive seasons when training ramps up.
• Adam: “You’re not training, you’re redlining…and you’re just not feeling good.” (11:21)

d. Low Libido

• “Good exercise…will almost always promote libido,” says Adam (12:01).
• If sex drive drops despite normal routines, chronic overstress or overtraining could be the cause.

e. Low Mood & Motivation

• Classic symptom is lack of excitement about training, feeling unmotivated, or just “going through the motions” (14:52).
• Connected to low testosterone, for both men and women.
• Symptoms are often reversed by a break or by dialing back intensity.

f. Recurring Injuries

• Repeated tweaks, strains, or more frequent injury than normal (21:10).
• Adam: “The more, the better kind of attitude…He gets hurt so often. You’re overtrained.” (21:34)
• Two big risk factors: lack of sleep and doing too much (21:55).

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3. Bonus Signs

a. Repeated Illness

• Overtraining can compromise the immune system, making you more susceptible to illness (25:05).
• 4-5x more likely to get sick if exposed to a virus while training too hard.

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4. Challenging Fitness Myths

• Soreness is NOT a reliable indicator:

  • Chronic trainees often don’t get sore but could still be overtrained (17:10+).
  • “I used to think soreness was the best indicator…it can be, but it’s not the best.” — Adam (17:19)
  • Sometimes constant soreness is just a lack of protein/nutrients, not overtraining.

• Deloads and Planned Rest:

  • Research shows groups training with scheduled deloads (rest weeks every 4–6 weeks) had comparable or superior gains to those training straight through (22:30, 23:24).
  • Example: One study group took a week off every month and achieved the same results as those who trained all weeks (23:00).

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5. Practical Solutions and Mindset Shifts

• Experiment with Lower Volume:

  • Frequent theme: Pulling back intensity or volume often leads to better sleep, recovery, and renewed progress (20:34).
  • Don't ignore cumulative life stress; what was once “just enough” can become too much over time.

• Know Yourself & Your Triggers:

  • Develop awareness of subtle signs before they cascade into more serious issues.
  • Acknowledge the “no days off” mentality can be counterproductive.

• Scheduled Deloads & Rest Weeks:

  • Backed by both experience and research, including 29% better strength gains with deload weeks.

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• “You’re not training, you’re redlining. That’s right. You’re redlining and you’re just not feeling good.” – Adam (11:21)
• “I used to think soreness was the best indicator…it can be, but it’s not the best.” – Adam (17:19)
• “Sometimes…I found it was my clients that…weren’t getting sore anymore.” (17:09)
• “If you just keep getting sick…your immune system gets affected.” (25:01)
• “One week off, you’re not losing gains. And all the fitness fanatic people get so caught up in this like no days off…some of those days would really serve you.” (23:58)

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Important Timestamps

| Timestamp | Topic | |-----------|-------| | 03:59 | Intro to “6 weird signs” of overtraining | | 05:15 | Sign #1: Broken Sleep | | 09:38 | Sign #2: Increased Cravings | | 11:00 | Sign #3: Irritability | | 11:52 | Sign #4: Low Libido | | 14:13 | Sign #5: Low Mood & Motivation | | 21:10 | Sign #6: Recurring Injuries | | 24:52 | Bonus: Repeated Illness | | 22:30–23:45 | Studies on deloads and rest for gains | | 17:10–19:53 | The fallacy of using soreness as an indicator |

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Tone & Takeaways

• The hosts cut through fitness dogma, emphasizing self-awareness, evidence, and the idea that more is not always better—even for the most committed.
• They encourage listeners to schedule breaks, recognize less-obvious warning signs, and not fall into “I’m not sore, so I’m fine” or “no days off” traps.
• Taking structured breaks leads not only to sustained gains but often to better strength and physique outcomes in the long-run.

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Resources Mentioned

• Free Overtraining Rescue Guide: mindpumpfree.com
  7-day program designed to accelerate recovery and reset progress.

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For ongoing updates and more resources, follow the hosts on Instagram @mindpumpmedia or visit mindpumppodcast.com.

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Transcript

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[Adam Schaefer]

Andrews, you just found the most downloaded fitness, health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Today's episode we got six signs, six weird signs that you're over training by the way, we have a free 7 day overtraining rescue guide. It's free every single day for the next seven days. There's stuff in there that helps you guide you to amplifying and accelerating recovery. So you hit the gym again the following week feeling fresh and strong. You can find [e-mail] this episode is brought to you by our sponsor, Kion. They have some very high, high quality supplements. They have well sourced creatine. They have fish oil, it's very high in epa. They have essential amino acid supplements that have been shown in studies to dramatically increase protein synthesis in people that use them on a regular basis. If you like supplements that are clean and quality ones that are third party tested, you want the best. That's Kion hands down. Go to getkion.com that's G-E-T-K-I-O-N.com mindpump. That link will get you 20% off. We also have a promotion going on right now. Buy one maps 15 style workout program. Get one for free. Buy one, get one free. You gotta go check it out. Go to maps15bogo.com all right, real quick.

[Justin Andrews]

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[Adam Schaefer]

Over training. It gets in the way. No gains, no progress. You're doing too much. And everybody knows some of the common signs of overtraining. But there's some weird signs of overtraining that a lot of people miss. In fact, some of these signs come before you hit those hard plateaus, before you start to go backwards in your progress. So today we're going to talk about the six weird signs you're over training.

[Justin Andrews]

Let's get weird.

[Guest or Co-host (possibly Mike Matthews or another expert)]

Do you think it's common that you, you would see just one of these or do they almost always come in like pairs or threes? Like do you, do you find that

[Adam Schaefer]

typically it's more than one, but some of these happen before the other ones. Like there's one, I'll cover the first one is actually a very common sign of going too hard that people just don't realize. They just don't realize that this oftentimes mean means they need to back off. And by the way, over training can be defined as doing more than is necessary for what you're looking to achieve. And if you continue down this path that it starts to get real obvious.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

So over training is just doing too much. Okay. But oftentimes people don't realize they're over trained until the signs get so loud that they are faced with the reality of like, I think I'm, I'm burnt out.

[Justin Andrews]

Your body just wants to shut down. Stop you.

[Adam Schaefer]

That's right. So the first one is broken sleep. So this looks different than insomnia. So insomnia. Although this could be classified as insomnia, insomnia, people typically think of that as like, I can't fall asleep or I'm just having a really bad time.

[Justin Andrews]

This is like when you're waking up multiple times. The middle of the night.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yes. It's like restless. I've experienced this. It's like you go to bed, you're tired, you're exhausted, you go to bed and then you wake up at like 2:00am or 3:00am and then you're 3:33 every night. Dude.

[Justin Andrews]

I don't know.

[Adam Schaefer]

For you, creepy, you get the weird number one and you're lying in bed and you just feel like, I can't, like, what's going on? I can't go back to sleep. I remember when Mike Matthews communicated this to me, he was talking about how he just thought he had crappy sleep for the longest time. Couldn't figure it out. Couldn't figure it out. Cut his volume down considerably. And lo and behold, he was able to get really, really good sleep. And this is a common early sign. And the reason why this one can be difficult to identify is because, number one, it's common. But number two, you tend to fall asleep. Okay, so it's like you don't fall asleep. Yeah. It's just you wake up for some reason and this has to do with things like hormones.

[Guest or Co-host (possibly Mike Matthews or another expert)]

And I was just gonna ask you, would you attribute this more to just the body being inflamed and over trained and sore and trying to recover, or cortisol levels being off? Like, what would you attribute the main reason for this?

[Adam Schaefer]

Probably hormonal. So melatonin production starts to drop off. Cortisol spikes too early.

[Guest or Co-host (possibly Mike Matthews or another expert)]

Yeah, like inverted, where it's high at night versus.

[Adam Schaefer]

Well, that's when you're over. That's when you're really pushing over training. Okay, but early, over training, you might, you might have higher spikes of cortisol just to get you moving. And it might happen earlier.

[Justin Andrews]

I wonder too, because initially I bet after like a good hard training session, you have great sleep. Like it knocks you Out. So there might be that association initially. And then the more frequently you do that now, you know, you're getting this, like, interrupted sleep. I wonder if they think it's something else.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah, no, as. And you know, again, this is like a really. Because bad poor sleep or broken sleep can mean a lot of different things, but for hard training, athletes or people are really consistent with their workouts. If you normally don't have issues with sleep, if you normally sleep pretty well and then, and you know, you've been kind of training consistently, like you've been doing well in terms of not skipping, and then suddenly this becomes an issue again. It's not hard to parse this out. It's like, all right, well, I'm going to take. I'm going to do a deload week and see what happens. We had a caller, remember we had a caller once who couldn't figure this out and it turned out to be that he was just working out.

[Guest or Co-host (possibly Mike Matthews or another expert)]

It's not hard to parse out and figure out if that's, if that's the reason. But it, I think it's. It's not the first place people look because there tends to be the spectrum and at both ends equates to poor sleep.

[Adam Schaefer]

Oh, not active.

[Guest or Co-host (possibly Mike Matthews or another expert)]

So not active. Right. Which I've talked and communicated about. I've definitely figured out if I'm below a certain step account and I don't work out, impact sleep. If I get a great workout, get a certain amount of steps, great sleep, but then the other end of that spectrum is over training and pushing too hard too much will also disrupt sleep. And so I think a lot of people have probably made that correlation of, oh, oh, I sleep better when I work out. And so they assume that any workout at any time is going to be a positive impact on sleep, when in reality you could be tipping over on the other end of the spectrum.

[Adam Schaefer]

Again, this is really, this is if. This is if you're someone who's consistent, like, you don't miss your workouts, you've been doing it for a while, and then this suddenly starts to become an issue and you're trying to fix it with like, supplements and sleep routines and like, what's going on? Why am I waking up at 3 o' clock in the morning every day and it's tough to go back to sleep. Like, what's going on? It's an easy. Again, just cut your volume and your intensity down for a week or two. And if that's the, if that was the case, you'll sleep Better you'll know right out the gates. Next up, increase cravings especially for hyper palatable like comfort producing foods. This one I notice for myself if I start pushing it too hard too often.

[Justin Andrews]

I want more sweets and I want especially at nighttime.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah, dude, savory snacks.

[Guest or Co-host (possibly Mike Matthews or another expert)]

I mean I've del to bad sleep. So again this was me asking you about like do you think they come in pairs? And it's like I definitely. If I'm over trained and that causes bad sleep and then the bad sleep thing causes the cravings like crazy independent of just overtraining and not bad sleep. I don't know if I've noticed the correlation to so this looks different than

[Adam Schaefer]

appetite because good strength training will typically spike your appetite a little bit.

[Guest or Co-host (possibly Mike Matthews or another expert)]

Right, right.

[Adam Schaefer]

So if you're lifting weights and you're doing a good job and your body's like I want to, it wants to build muscle and strength. An increase in appetite is actually a good sign. One of my clients would tell me that they're hungrier then I knew and I would look at a combination of things if their strength was also going

[Justin Andrews]

up a little more anabolic.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. Then I'm like, okay, we're moving the right direction. This looks more like cravings.

[Guest or Co-host (possibly Mike Matthews or another expert)]

Totally. And there's an easy way to tell the difference. It's like when I, when my metabolism is ramping up and I'm building muscle and I have an increased appetite. My, you know, ground beef and rice sounds great.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah.

[Guest or Co-host (possibly Mike Matthews or another expert)]

You know, but when I'm poor sleep and dragging ass and cravings are bad. That doesn't sound good.

[Adam Schaefer]

It's like fast food.

[Guest or Co-host (possibly Mike Matthews or another expert)]

Yeah, I want something. Yeah, I want something greasy.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

The gas station all of a sudden like Reese's. Sounds good.

[Adam Schaefer]

Totally. Totally. Next up, irritability. If you're finding yourself short and irritable. If your partner is letting you know that you might be a little short and irritable. Look, by the way, you'll see this with so you know who over trains relatively frequently are hard training athletes. In season it's actually common for hard training athletes to be pushing it a little too hard. And especially as you get deep into the season, especially if competition starts ramping up and you notice you're just, you're just not in a good mood. You're just pissed off and it's because you're just, you're, you're not training, you're redlining. Yeah. You're red lined. That's right. You're redlining and you're just not feeling good. Low libido is another one. This one's actually quite common where you're just, you're just not in the mood.

[Guest or Co-host (possibly Mike Matthews or another expert)]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

You know, and not wanting to engage in that way. Good exercise will almost always. Or appropriate, I should say exercise will almost always increase.

[Justin Andrews]

Promote.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. Libido.

[Guest or Co-host (possibly Mike Matthews or another expert)]

Now so far, the ones that we've covered so far, I know we have more, but do you, do you think there's an order at which these normally reveal themselves or do you think it's just totally dependent upon the individual? Like someone might not notice one or the other or do you think it's pretty common? It's like this tends to be the first thing that most people notice than some of these things. Because when I look at this, I think the broken sleep is one of the first things it is to notice.

[Adam Schaefer]

It is.

[Guest or Co-host (possibly Mike Matthews or another expert)]

And then a lot of times broken sleep to me leads to increased cravings. Right. And then the increased cravings, broken sleep a lot of times leads to irritability. Right. And the combination of all those a lot of times messes with the libido. And so I feel like there, there seems to be now. Well, some people may not perceive it in that order because they're not, they're not aware of what broken bad sleep looks like. And so maybe they think they, maybe they notice it. And maybe a lot of people aren't in touch enough with appetite and cravings and the difference of that or paying attention to. So they might see it as irritability or low libido as some of the signs. And I think this is why this gets away from a lot of people is just the lack of connection that they have to all these signs. And it's not until kind of all of them are hitting them that they realize like, man, something is wrong. I've got this, this, this and this. And now, excuse me, I think these

[Justin Andrews]

the less obvious ones. Right. Because you. Otherwise you would have put like excessive soreness or fatigue and which is kind of like the first indicators. But then. Yeah. That sleep, I would say would be the first real like, you know, off schedule type of things to notice.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. The thing about fatigue is interesting because initially with broken sleep, you might not even notice too much fatigue. You might actually feel more wired.

[Guest or Co-host (possibly Mike Matthews or another expert)]

You get that adrenaline down.

[Adam Schaefer]

Sure. Yeah. So you just kind of go about your day feeling wired, which some people can mistaken as energy or maybe they'll just ramp up their stimulant intake. Caffeine goes up, keep going, keep doing the workouts and they have to keep waking up again at 3am which leads to all these other ones. Low libido comes a little later. And that's just, you know, low libido is a sign, is a sign of a lot of things.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, like you're tipping into unhealthy ranges.

[Adam Schaefer]

Oh yeah. I mean, you know, you guys have no, you guys know, you guys have been hard training seasons where you're pushing it. Libido suffers. It's, it's not like you're feeling great when you're pre contest or when you're, you know, training your absolute limit. Libido goes out the window. Next is low mood. So low mood is like kind of lack of motivation. So this could feel like typically you're, you're consistent, you're motivated for your workouts, but you know, and maybe you're so consistent that you'll do them no matter what, but you just don't look forward to them like you normally did. Or halfway through you're like, man, I

[Justin Andrews]

got more of your excitement levels have decreased like substantially.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Totally takes it out of you.

[Guest or Co-host (possibly Mike Matthews or another expert)]

Something you didn't put on this because it's not like one of those things you feel this would be something that you have to go get measured. But I think it's connected to the two of these libido. And you know, low or irritable mood is low testosterone. And so if you've been, if you've been beating your body up, poor sleep for a long time, I can't tell you how many times I've had a client that before we resorted to going to hrt, we fixed a lot of this stuff and automatically testosterone levels come up. Testosterone levels come up. All of a sudden, mood gets better, you're less irritable, you're more motivated to go to the gym. You know, like a lot of these things, libido goes up a lot of times. And so sometimes the low test levels, which is part of it, is part of this and connected to these. And it's obviously, unless you've got the blood work to go do that or see that, you may not know that too.

[Adam Schaefer]

By the way, a man and woman's testosterone will drop. So women need testosterone just like men do. They just have less of it. But it's just as important for women as it is for men. Women will also have something called estrogen dominance when they're over trained. So their ratio of estrogen to progesterone and testosterone changes. Yeah. And it throws off and, and they just, you just end up not feel it definitely will throw your hormones Off a little, you know, side note, by the way, sometimes people will not fix any of these issues and will go on hormone replacement therapy, which really kicks the can down the road because it

[Guest or Co-host (possibly Mike Matthews or another expert)]

masters those couple things we talked about. It could all sudden now their libido is up. Now they have a motivation to go to the gym.

[Justin Andrews]

Goes up in the gym, still not getting good sleep.

[Adam Schaefer]

That's right.

[Justin Andrews]

Factors aren't really happening.

[Adam Schaefer]

That's right. And can you over train on hormone replacement therapy? Yeah, yeah. You can overtrain a lot of steroids, even so. And you'll see this sometimes with men where they'll go on testosterone and already over training, they'll get on testosterone and then they'll increase the volume on top of it and really put themselves in a hole.

[Guest or Co-host (possibly Mike Matthews or another expert)]

You know, we mentioned like soreness a lot of times, like, you know, consistent soreness and not recovering as is one of the early indicators. Sometimes. Sometimes though, I found that it was my clients that have been beating themselves up for a really long time that weren't getting sore anymore.

[Adam Schaefer]

That's right.

[Guest or Co-host (possibly Mike Matthews or another expert)]

New signs. And so that's why they thought they weren't over trained. So sometimes that happens to me. Yes. So a lot of times because you're so adapted, you can handle so much

[Adam Schaefer]

punishment in the gym. Exactly. I used to think soreness was the best indicator it can be, but it's not the best.

[Guest or Co-host (possibly Mike Matthews or another expert)]

No, I, I would disagree. I think it's because I think it's more common with someone like you who is so adapted to training so much so you, and you're normally going like, well, I'm not really that sore. So I'm not, I'm obviously not pushing too crazy. And so you, you tell yourself that which allows you to keep ramping up the intensity or ramping up the volume

[Justin Andrews]

because you're not an acute issue versus a chronic. Right?

[Guest or Co-host (possibly Mike Matthews or another expert)]

Yeah.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah. So, yeah, I mean I think it's a good gauge to see like workout wise where your intensity you can kind of monitor. But yeah, I think like long term for sure you're going to get adapted. So it'd be hard to measure it by.

[Guest or Co-host (possibly Mike Matthews or another expert)]

And a lot of times my clients that were over sore and constantly it was a lack of protein and nutrients. So a lot of times that was the fix. Not that they can't, they can't go hand in hand or both be, be in this situation. But I found that the people that complained a lot of times of like, man, I'm just constantly sore, you know, it's like they were inconsistent with hitting their Protein or they were low calorie and fixing that a lot of times and, and, or potentially reducing volume when they were over training. But I thought the overtraining symptoms were more common in my people that didn't think they were over training because they weren't sore.

[Adam Schaefer]

You're right. I'm so glad you said that because I, I've experienced that and that's not uncommon with people who work out a lot. They'll actually say, I don't get sore.

[Guest or Co-host (possibly Mike Matthews or another expert)]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

Anymore. So I must not be.

[Guest or Co-host (possibly Mike Matthews or another expert)]

So I can't be over trained.

[Adam Schaefer]

I can't be. I remember the first time I experienced this. The first time I experienced this, I was in my 20s and I decided that I would try an old school double split routine. So double split routine is like, you're working, you're working out twice a day. You're doing these body parts in the am, These body parts in the pm. You're hitting a whole body three days a week, but with super high volume because you're training twice a day, six days a week. And I remember, I thought it was going great because I had no soreness. In fact, I was sore the first few days I did it and then the soreness went away and I just kept working out and I'm like, I'm not sore. But I knew something was wrong because, number one, I wasn't progressing.

[Guest or Co-host (possibly Mike Matthews or another expert)]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

I started getting all these other symptoms that were happening and then my strength started to decline. And that's when I knew, like, I'm not getting sore, but that doesn't mean I'm not over training. Yeah. So I'm glad you.

[Guest or Co-host (possibly Mike Matthews or another expert)]

Yeah, yeah. No, because I was just thinking about, like, what was the most common is actually a lot of the clients that didn't think that because that's your first, like kind of the average person with even trainer. I mean, like, because I agree. I have similar stories myself. It's like, oh, I'm not, I can't be over training. I'm not even getting sore. You know, I've got room to push it. And so you think that way.

[Adam Schaefer]

You ask them, you say, oh, how do you feel? I feel fine.

[Guest or Co-host (possibly Mike Matthews or another expert)]

Yeah.

[Adam Schaefer]

Are you sore? No, I don't get sore. So.

[Guest or Co-host (possibly Mike Matthews or another expert)]

And I, and I, I would say that, you know, over training is probably more common with the fitness fanatic than it is the average person. Although the average person who can overdo it can overdo it. And chronic over training.

[Justin Andrews]

Yeah, but chronic is different.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. Yeah, totally.

[Guest or Co-host (possibly Mike Matthews or another expert)]

Right. Because their gauges are all off. They're. They're far adapted to all that volume and intensity.

[Adam Schaefer]

They believe they can tolerate it and

[Guest or Co-host (possibly Mike Matthews or another expert)]

they're not getting super sore. So they think, oh, that must not be it. When you simply. And I. And I've ex. This is also on the spectrum. Like you don't have to be crazy over train to still be over trained enough that less volume will give you better results.

[Adam Schaefer]

Right.

[Guest or Co-host (possibly Mike Matthews or another expert)]

And so there's been times where maybe all these, these, you know, flags weren't going off for me where I'm like, oh, my sleep's bad, at least bad, but just like, you know, I'm just, I'm not, I'm not seeing great results or I'm kind of plateaued. I know I've been pushing the weights pretty good. It's like, I wonder if I actually just scale back a little bit, what happens? And man, I've seen times where it's like I just pull back.

[Adam Schaefer]

And yeah, over training can often look like this. Obviously you can do it by just beating the absolute crap out of yourself, but it can also look like this. You're doing more than what is necessary and you get away with it and you get away with it, but it becomes, it gets cumulative over time. And suddenly the workout that you're getting away with now is starting to be way too much. Even though it stayed the same or you're kind of hitting that limit and lifestyle changes a little bit. There's more stress at work or diet isn't as good now. That workout that you were tolerating now becomes far too much and you're just not responding like you used to. Last is repeated injury. This one is. It's funny, I was actually talking to, I have these conversations with my family members about this one all the time. And I have a family member in particular. He does jujitsu, he lifts weights. He's got this like, the more the better kind of attitude. And I mean, I'm not exaggerating. Probably once a month he's injured, his low back will get hurt or tweak his neck or his shoulder. He thinks it's just, oh, I do jiu jitsu. It's like, dude, you get hurt so often you're over trained. Like if you backed off, you would see be more resilient. Yeah, there's two things dramatically increase your injury. Two things aside from doing terrible form and doing something stupid, right? Two big things, lack of sleep and doing way too much. Those are both like, do those long enough and you're guaranteed to hurt yourself. And the studies on that are pretty remarkable.

[Guest or Co-host (possibly Mike Matthews or another expert)]

Well, the studies, and we've talked about this study quite a long time ago that I thought, I was super fascinated with when you brought it up. And I don't remember how new that study was when you brought it, brought it to the podcast. But I found it so interesting when they took those three groups of people that I think they went 12 weeks, maybe it was 16, I can't remember how long it was. But basically one group trained every single week for the entire, you know, 16 weeks. And then another group took a week off every other week.

[Adam Schaefer]

It was every four weeks or every four weeks.

[Guest or Co-host (possibly Mike Matthews or another expert)]

A whole week off, right? Yeah. So they, they took a whole week off of training every month is what it was. Yeah, every month they took a whole week off. So only trained three of the four weeks and they saw the same results as the people that trained all the time. Which when you think about that, I think it was over the course of three months, if I recall. I think it was at least 12 to 16 weeks. So it was over three or four months. So in other words, they did a whole month, they took a whole month less of training and they got the same results as the people that.

[Adam Schaefer]

I just read another study that compared high training athletes and they had one group do a deload week every. I think it was every six weeks and the other one just kept going. The group that did the deload week had 29% better strength gains. 29% better strength gains from having a scheduled week where they're going to go much.

[Guest or Co-host (possibly Mike Matthews or another expert)]

And it's funny because I know we've, we've all experienced this and talking this and I still experience this. It's like I'll have times where just get busy and a week go, I just don't make it to the gym for a week. And then I come back and I'm like, stronger.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah.

[Guest or Co-host (possibly Mike Matthews or another expert)]

And you're always just like, dude, it's so overdoing it. Yes. You know what I'm saying? It's like, it's, it's so wild. And even if I wasn't totally overdoing it, it just shows you how much the recovery part is so important. And one week off, you're not losing gains. No. You know, and in our strength training. No. And all the fitness fanatic people get so caught up in this, like no days off and never missing. And it's like, you know, it's, it's wild how much some of those days off would really serve you. And the real key is that you just don't go off the rails on those days you don't go from. I'm training consistently, so I take a week off and a week off means I eat terrible, I miss protein. I don't. I stay up late at night.

[Justin Andrews]

Structured.

[Guest or Co-host (possibly Mike Matthews or another expert)]

Yeah, yeah. But if you just literally just, hey, I'm gonna stay active. I'm probably gonna scale back maybe on my total calorie intake a little bit, still hit my protein intake, still get good night's rest and take a week off of training and back up. Why most people would see tremendous results by having that week.

[Adam Schaefer]

Here's a bonus one, Repeated illness. So that one wasn't on the list, but that's a common one if you just keep getting sick. Yeah, like man, I'm getting sick all the time.

[Justin Andrews]

Just bogging yourself down. Your immune system gets affected.

[Adam Schaefer]

Oh, you're. So if you are over trained or if you just train really, really hard and you're exposed to someone with the virus, you are four to five times more likely to become infected. Yeah, I just looked that up.

[Justin Andrews]

Wow.

[Adam Schaefer]

Yeah. And that was for me was common when I was younger. This is when I knew because I was hard headed with everything else, but getting sick is a nice slap in the face. When I would get sick real often, that's when I knew like, okay, I'm pushing it too hard. Yeah, I need to take some time off. Look, what we have is we have a seven day over training rescue guide. Okay, so this guide gives you seven days which each day is giving you something different to do to amplify, maximize and accelerate recovery. And so if you haven't taken time off in a while, you want to get better results. Don't know what to do with your week off. This guide is totally free. You can get [e-mail] and every single day it gives you something different. And it's designed to maximize and speed up recovery and adaptations so when you get back to the gym, you're stronger and more fit. So again, it's mindpumpfree.com to get that free seven day overtraining rescue guide. You can also find us on Instagram. It's mindpumpmedia. We'll see you there.

[Sal Destefano]

Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy and and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Super [e-mail] the RGB Super Bundle includes Maps, Anabolic Maps, Performance and Maps Aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs with detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos. The RGB Super Bundle is like having Sal, Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Super Bundle has a full 30 day money back guarantee and you can get it now. Plus other valuable free [e-mail] if you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five star rating and review on itunes and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time, this is Mind Pump.