8 Signs You’re Overtraining (And Your Body Is Begging You To Rest)
More is not always better, and in the gym it can quietly work against you. Overtraining is what happens when your training outpaces your recovery for long enough that the body starts going backwards instead of forwards.
The Cleveland Clinic describes it as a “prolonged imbalance between stress and recovery”, and the fix is rarely another session. It is rest. Gay men are worth a special mention here.
A 2025 study in the Journal of Eating Disorders found that gay men report significantly higher exercise addiction and muscle dysmorphia than straight men, so the urge to train through every warning sign runs deeper for a lot of us.
Here are eight signs you have crossed from training hard into training too much, and what to do about it.
1. You’re tired all the time, and a rest day doesn’t fix it
Normal training makes you tired for a night. Overtraining makes you tired for a week. If a full day off, or two, leaves you just as flat, your recovery isn’t keeping up with your output. Persistent fatigue is the most common early warning the body sends.
2. Your numbers are going backwards
You keep showing up and putting in the work, yet the weights feel heavier and the reps drop off. A plateau is one thing. A steady decline despite equal or greater effort is a classic overtraining marker, and pushing harder usually makes it worse.
3. You’re wired but you can’t sleep
Overtraining scrambles the nervous system, so you end up exhausted and restless at the same time. Trouble falling asleep, broken nights, or waking up unrefreshed all point to a body stuck in overdrive. Since sleep is where muscle actually repairs, this sign compounds quickly.
4. Your resting heart rate has drifted off its normal
Check it for a few mornings before you get out of bed. A resting heart rate sitting noticeably higher than your usual, or in some cases unusually low, suggests your body is under more load than it’s clearing.
5. You catch every bug going round the office
Hard training stretched too far suppresses the immune system. If you’re collecting colds and sore throats you’d normally shrug off, that’s your defences running low, and frequent illness sits on every clinical list of overtraining signs.
6. Your mood has gone flat and your fuse is short
This one isn’t only physical. Irritability, anxiety, low motivation and a general greyness often show up before the body fully gives out. If the thing that used to uplift you now leaves you snappy and deflated, take note.
7. The soreness and the niggles won’t clear
Ordinary soreness fades in a day or two. Overtraining leaves muscles heavy well past the usual window, and small injuries like tweaked shoulders and grumbly tendons start stacking up. Pain that lingers is a request for time off, not a badge of honour.
8. The gym stopped feeling good at all
When training turns joyless, or worse, into something you feel you have to do or else, that’s worth sitting with. For some men the line between discipline and compulsion gets blurry, and the body quietly pays for it.
What actually helps
The cure is almost boringly simple. Back off. Cleveland Clinic guidance is to cut your training volume by 50 to 80 per cent and let recovery catch up, which can take weeks or months depending on how deep you’ve dug the hole. Sleep more, eat enough, and treat easy weeks as part of the programme rather than a failure of willpower.
Walking and gentle movement are fine. If a few weeks of proper rest doesn’t shift it, see a doctor, since some of these signs overlap with thyroid problems, low iron and depression.
And if the drive to keep going is tangled up with how you feel about your body, the Butterfly Foundation (1800 33 4673) and QLife (1800 184 527) are free to call.
None of this means stop for good. It means the strongest move some weeks is to rest, and trust that the work still counts while you do.
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to recover from overtraining?
Mild cases ease within a week or two of reduced training. More serious overtraining syndrome can take months, which is exactly why catching it early matters.
How many rest days do I need each week?
Most people training hard do well with at least one or two full rest days a week, plus a couple of easier sessions, so muscle gets time to repair between efforts.
Is it overtraining or just normal soreness?
Normal soreness clears in a day or two. If fatigue, poor sleep, low mood and dropping performance turn up together and stick around, it’s far more likely overtraining.
