Can Too Much Lifting Make You Worse at Lifting?
Overtraining in Resistance Exercise: An Exploratory Systematic Review and Methodological Appraisal of the Literature
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
This review looks at what happens when people train too hard without enough rest, especially in weightlifting. It checks how we can tell if someone is overtrained and whether science has good ways to measure it.
Surprising Findings
Half of the studies (10 out of 22) saw no performance decline despite extreme training loads.
This contradicts the popular belief that high volume + high intensity = guaranteed overtraining. The body adapts more resiliently than assumed.
Practical Takeaways
Track your actual performance—like how much weight you lift or how fast you recover between sets—instead of relying on heart rate variability or mood apps.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
This review looks at what happens when people train too hard without enough rest, especially in weightlifting. It checks how we can tell if someone is overtrained and whether science has good ways to measure it.
Surprising Findings
Half of the studies (10 out of 22) saw no performance decline despite extreme training loads.
This contradicts the popular belief that high volume + high intensity = guaranteed overtraining. The body adapts more resiliently than assumed.
Practical Takeaways
Track your actual performance—like how much weight you lift or how fast you recover between sets—instead of relying on heart rate variability or mood apps.
Publication
Journal
Sports Medicine
Year
2019
Authors
C. Grandou, L. Wallace, F. Impellizzeri, N. Allen, A. Coutts
Related Content
Claims (9)
Overtraining that really messes you up is super rare — most people don’t train hard or long enough to actually hit that point.
If someone's strength keeps dropping during weight training, that might be the best sign they're overtraining—because no blood test or body measurement has proven to reliably catch it early.
Doing the same intense weight workouts all the time might lead to worse performance and overtraining in people who already lift regularly.
Most studies on intense weight training don’t check how well people recover afterward, so we can’t tell if the training helped, hurt, or caused serious burnout.
When people do really intense weight training, not everyone gets overly tired or performs worse — in fact, more than half of the studies didn’t see a drop in performance.