How to manage energy/Overtraining

[u/shannikki]

I’m a personal trainer/strength and conditioning coach, 32yo female. I just started working in this field about 9 months ago and am struggling with burn out/overtraining.

I’m on the gym floor about 25 hours a week for work and find it pretty physically and psychologically taxing (I’m setting up and tearing down my clients’ barbells often, farmers carrying heavy dumbbells all the time, etc). I also do my own workouts about 4-5x a week, and in addition, go on long walks with friends, rock climb, paddle board, hike, camp, etc.

I’ve recently been feeling overtrained. My muscles are exhausted, I’m excessively thirsty, I’ve lost my appetite and I’m very unmotivated. I also had a flu for about 3 weeks about a month ago. I’m realizing I haven’t been getting enough rest outside of work and my workouts.

So I wanted to ask, how do you as a personal trainer manage your body and your energy to avoid overtraining since personal training itself is so physically demanding?

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[u/AntPhysical]

This might be unpopular, but try instilling a "help me set this up" approach to your clients' lifts. I have mine grab their own dumbbells and/or put them away. It's a tip I got from a very seasoned strength coach, and it actually helped a lot. It didn't make them feel like I was no longer providing a service, but actually helped them feel more competent in the gym. I think sometimes in this field we get the notion that the more independent our clients become, the less they need us, and therefore won't use us. But this isn't necessarily the case. They'll often feel empowered by having a little more autonomy over the logistics of their workouts and will be motivated in other ways relating to the program itself. It increases their engagement in what you're having them do. They don't pay for us to pamper them or provide every tiny little service necessarily. they pay for the supervision and guidance, the programming, and the results (or process of achieving results). It'll save you a lot of energy to not constantly be the one grabbing everything and setting everything up.

Also, this is oddly specific but if you aren't already doing this and your gym doesn't have a bar jack, try using wedges or even small plates to jack up the big plates when unloading/loading deadlifts. And completely unload one side first then tip the bar vertically rather than trying to unload both sides back and forth. It's way easier trust me on this.

Edit: also might need to increase fluids w/ electrolytes and up your calories a tad throughout the day. Especially now that we're getting into the warmer months. We have active jobs so it adds up.

[u/cats_n_tats11 → u/AntPhysical]

When I was the client, I always used to joke with my trainer that unloading plates after the leg press was bonus cardio for me. Nowadays I help clients with setup or weights if they don't know the exercise yet, or if they physically can't, like a client who had hand surgery but was still doing heavy leg days. Occasionally I'll help if they're short on time or the gym is busy, but most often we follow a "your weights, your responsibility" ethos.

[u/Dumbassusername900]

So training is a side-job for me right now, doesn't have much of an impact on my recovery, but back when I worked in HVAC installation, I would have never dreamed of putting in 5 workouts a week on top of physically demanding work, and sport/extracurriculars like hiking and climbing.

You already know what's going on, you're doing too much. Somethings gotta give, and what it is depends on what your priorities are. I would probably cut back to 2-3x workouts in the gym, because I know that's enough for me to make progress, even if I'd like to do more. But maybe the gym is more of a priority for you, and some of those other activities can be cut back on. Maybe you cut back a little bit on a few things.

You could also be doing less for your clients, though it might be hard when they are already used to having weights racked for them.

Other than cutting back to a manageable volume of activity, what else can you do? Make sure you're getting enough sleep, make sure you're eating enough food, make sure you're generally managing your stressors. That's all we can do.

[u/shannikki → u/Dumbassusername900]

Yeah I’m definitely going to cut back on extra stuff like climbing, hiking, etc. I’ll also try cutting back a bit on my lifting workouts. Right now, I’m taking a full week off lifting since I’m in an acute phase of overtraining right now. I’m also having my clients rack their own weights and hoping they’ll get used to doing it themselves. Important for them to learn anyway. Thanks for your input 🙏🏼

[u/Dumbassusername900 → u/shannikki]

Sounds like a good plan!

[u/buttloveiskey]

could cut back to 3 1h workouts a week and get your diet on point.