Are you overdoing your exercise? Understanding 'overtraining syndrome'

People who exercise are familiar with the mantra 'no pain, no gain'.

However, if you take this too far, you can push yourself into the overtraining zone.

Overtraining syndrome (OTS) is a condition that happens when you exercise too often or too intensely for long enough that it starts to hurt your body.

It’s important to give your body time to rest and recover after any intense physical activity, especially if you’re trying to push your limits to get better at a sport or activity.

And while overtraining syndrome causes physical symptoms, it can also affect your mental and emotional health, says Winile Mothsoane.

"You would know when you're exercising, and you don't experience that good feeling of 'oh, my workout was amazing', and instead you're feeling depressed about it, and the kind of tired you are feeling is actually exhaustion. You will know because even your mood will change - that is because your body is just not adapting anymore, you are pushing yourself and not recovering properly."

One of the biggest problems they see professionally is that people don't think recovery is part of their training, Mothsoane says.

A good training session may leave you with discomfort, but you feel good about it. It's when you no longer have that feeling that you should know something is wrong, she emphasises.

"When we are exercising,g the body is going to respond, and the response is going to be discomfort, but it shouldn't be pain. You should know the difference between pain and discomfort, and this discomfort should not be in your joints; it's mostly in the muscles."

When you are constantly in pain, it means that instead of building muscle, you are now starting to break them down, she says. "And that is where the injuries start."

"There's a lot of pressure being put on these muscles... and if you apply just enough to stimulate this, the brain goes on to say 'let's increase the size of these muscle fibres'. The increase happens when you are recovering or resting... and then when you go again, you realise 'I can actually lift a little bit more now or run a bit further', and that is because there has been that support from your system."

To listen to Winile Mothsoane in conversation with Gugs Mhlungu on 702's Weekend Breakfast, click on the audio link below: