People all over the world are overtraining their body without even realizing it, completely setting back their progress significantly while being blissfully unaware of the problem.

A lot of this has to do with the celebration of “overtraining culture” – a population of fitness focused people that are pushing harder and harder in the gym with next to no rest whatsoever and shaming anyone that doesn’t do the exact same thing.

The unfortunate thing is that overtraining is one of the fastest ways to guarantee you don’t get the results you are after, mostly because the body of someone’s dreams isn’t made in the gym but is instead built while you sleep, rest, and recover.

Sure, you have to go through some pretty powerful and some would say grueling exercises to get the kinds of results you are looking for – but all of that time spent in the gym is going to be focused on breaking down your muscles, not building them up.

You need rest or you won’t grow or get stronger.

Here’s how to know if you are overtraining.

It’s become impossible to finish a proper workout

When you are overtrained and overtaxed your muscles simply aren’t going to respond to stimulus the way that they would have otherwise.

If you are overtraining you are going to find it almost impossible to complete even the most basic workout, just because your muscles and your body are going to rebel against you. This is a surefire sign that you need to rest, relax, and recuperate.

You aren’t getting any bigger (or smaller) or gaining any strength

Another surefire sign that you aren’t giving yourself enough time to rest and recover from your exercise program is that you aren’t noticing any results and that you have seemingly plateaued with no real rationale behind it other than overtraining.

A lot of people hit this wall and pushed even harder, but that’s the very last thing that you are going to want to do.

You are pushing your limits every single day of the week

Finally, you will know if you are overtraining your body if you are looking to blast through personal records every single day of the week and going to the gym far more than you probably should be.

There’s nothing wrong with getting highly motivated and really attacking every exercise, but you have to be smart and leverage rest and recovery to get the results you’re looking for.