You can have too much of a good thing, especially when it comes to exercising. There are some inherent dangers of going overboard in your efforts. It's important to give your body a break. {relatedarticles}If you work out every day without a recovery period, the muscles won't grow. But the problems don't stop there. Your immune system weakens, making you more susceptible to illness. It also sets you up for injuries such as muscle strains and tendonitis. When you do too much, you can actually hinder your progress. Going from not exercising at all to exercising every single day, for example, can lead to overtraining your body. One way to prevent overtraining is to reduce how often you work out. Perform two intense, total-body workouts a week, training on every third day. You can also reduce the number of sets you do. Diversify your routine so that you're working different muscle groups instead of taxing the body the same way over and over again.
When exercising becomes an obsession and starts causing trouble in other areas of your life, you may need to take a pause from the gym and become aware of how you're truly feeling both physically and mentally. {relatedarticles}Some symptoms of overtraining include fatigue, depression, sleep disturbances, and frequent bacterial and viral infections. One way to prevent overtraining is by keeping careful daily records of your sleep quality, fatigue and stress levels. The best treatment for overtraining is actually rest. The more you've trained, the longer you need to rest.