My Fitness Tracker Told Me to Try Something New, Is Overtraining Not For Everybody?
They show distance covered and the calories burnt, therefore they are using by many as an exercise monitor especially for people who want to be active and record their improvements on a day by day basis. From counting steps to monitoring heart rate and even estimating the number of calories you burn, these tools provide valuable information that can help you get in a little exercise now and then. However, are fitness trackers moving us into dangerous areas of overtraining that we never knew existed?
The Rise of Fitness Trackers
Fitness trackers have changed the way people work out. Give you real-time updates on your workouts, everyday movement, and sleep habits. This has incentive people to be more active and set goals, holding you in line along the way. But following a status quo of always pushing yourself every rep to be better than the last can actually lead to overtraining, which is extremely counterproductive-you don't see any gains when your body is too tired from exercise and not able to rejuvenate.
What is Overtraining?
If you exercise too much and do not give your body enough time to recover, this will lead to overtraining. Instead of improving or your performance remaining the same, it slowly starts to get worse. Symptoms such as: Syndromes of excessive training etc
Chronic fatigue
Increased injuries
Persistent muscle soreness
Weakened immune system
Mood swings or irritability
Despite this, he will not be producing results.
Could Fitness Trackers Lead to Overtraining?
Daily Goals Retrospective Many fitness trackers have daily goals for number of steps, calories burned, or exercise regimens performed. This can be very motivating, but again it has the potential to create an unhealthy mindset of chasing numbers and not listening to what your body is telling you on any given day. Forcing yourself really hard to meet your daily quotas at the cost of a good night sleep could predispose you to over-training.
20/05 — Misleading Calorie Burn Data Fitness trackers generally use an estimate to calculate the number of calories burnt during a given activity. Nevertheless, they appear artificial and force you to assume that you must DO MORE WORK than what was actually ever initially needed. If these thoughts and feelings go unaddressed, they can also lead an individual to exercise compulsively with periods of no rest and recovery that could cause the body to break down over time.
Skipping Rest Days — A lot of fitness trackers provide rewards for consistency and therefore might encourage the users to work out every single day without paying attention that rest actually is a part of your training. Rest days are extremely important, they repair your muscles and heal them in general. That, combined with you wanting to just ignore those feelings (which is within all of us during a tough workout) can actually drive you even closer to overtraining.
You can Track Sleep & Stress: Though many higher-end fitness trackers also monitor sleep and offer a stress-tracking feature, these two important pieces of information are easy to overlook. Sleep Vigorously And Reduce Stress-By lack of a good sleep or an increase in stress, the body becomes a fertile soil to overtraining. If the only number you care about is steps, heartrate or calories without paying attention to how you sleep or even that your recovery is down on strain, it can end in burnout.
Sign You May Be Overdoing It With Your Fitness Tracker
Since I am someone who wore a fitness tracker and stopped using one, here are signs for you that it might be time to think twice about how dependent you have become on your fitness tracker fun:
Exhaustion Despite Fitness Goals: Running yourself ragged albeit hitting target fitness goals, if you are always tired, sore, or overwhelmed, your body is saying it might be time to take five.
Decreased performance: If you are working out harder but not able to hit the same numbers, overtraining could be in play.
Actually, you on the other hand: That fitness tracker might tell you, that you should take a few more steps today, but your body says something else. Body—especially when it tells us something is NOT right.
Balancing Life & Your Fitbit
Rest and Recover: if you're worn out, have a difficult time keeping up with your regimen or feel sluggish; listen to your body! You're not lazy if you choose to sit one out, no matter what your tracker tells you. Regular rest days help to avoid overtraining and its associated injuries.
Smart data usage• Trackers offer helpful insights, but do not be a data slave. Again, let the data inform your workouts but also LISTEN to your body. If you are tired, if you are so sore, if you are beginning to feel frazzled--then girl step back.
Track Sleep Properly Turn Your Sleep and Stress Data Has to Be Accurate If you your tracker reveals poor quality sleep or higher than normal stress levels opt for recovery, instead of forcing through a workout.
Never Fall into an ‘All or Nothing’ Mindset: Devoting your life to fitness is not about doing everything PERFECTLY. You do not have to work on all your goals every day. It's is a thing, and sometimes progress means knowing when to take a break.
Take-home message — Your fitness tracker should not be determining your well-being
Although fitness trackers are great, they do come with one caveat: they can easily make you over train if is more important to make that daily mileage count than listen to your body. Yes, some numbers and data are useful, but they supplement the awareness of your body signals rather than replacing them. This way, you can ensure long-term fitness success while minimizing the risks of overtraining.