Exercise Fatigue

Yes, there is a such thing. There are times when our body, and our mind, just won’t allow us to perform a workout to the level we would like it to. It happens. We experience exercise fatigue when we are in a state of mental and physical depletion.


Know the signs. If you have been consistent in your workout routine, but one or two days of your workout all of a sudden become sluggish, you’re experiencing exercise fatigue. 


If you try to lift a certain amount of weight that you’re accustomed to, but no matter how hard you push yourself, you just can’t achieve it, you’re experiencing exercise fatigue. 


When you feel like you’re going through the motions, and your mind just isn’t feeling the workout…you guessed it, you’re experiencing exercise fatigue. 


And I want you to know that exercise fatigue is completely normal. It happens. At some point or another we just haven’t felt like ourselves in at least a workout or two. 


How do we overcome it? 


Just listen to your body. As important as working is, those recovery, those rest days are as important. When we’re fatigued, however, we need to just completely take a step back from exercising. We may need a day or two. Maybe even three. The key point is that we do more harm than good to ourselves if we try to workout when we are exercise fatigued. 


If our nervous system isn’t up for the tasking demand of the workout, putting undue added stress onto our body can increase our risk for injury.


Life stressors can drain us mentally and affect us physically, leading to that exercise fatigue. Lack of sleep will contribute to that as well. 


So when your body (and mind) tells you that you need to rest, listen to it. You’ll be thankful that you did. 

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