Hormones and Over Training

All right sorry I have been slacking on my fitness posts lately. Life got a little intense for a bit so here we go. Today I wanted to share just a little bit of information about how hormones effect our bodies while training. I found this interesting!

Testosterone plays a fundamental role in the growth and repair of tissue. Since men produce 10x more then women they have an advantage over us when lifting weights since their tissues can repair faster then ours. 

Estrogen has many functions but it also increases our fat deposition around the hips, buttocks, and thighs. 

{I found this science really unfair - but then again our curves make us sexy right!?}

Cortisol has the opposite effect as testosterone. It breaks down tissue, which can be a good thing or a bad thing. It can help breakdown fat, carbs, and protein in very small doses. But when our body has too much Cortisol it will start to break down our muscle tissue, this is due to over training, stress, poor sleep and inadequate nutrition. If we are overtraining we are actually not doing our bodies any good because as you're trying to build muscle your hormones could be breaking them down. Also if you are eating junk, and not sleeping well you could be contradicting your work in the gym. It all makes a difference and the science backs that up, no way around it!

Now I am not saying don't push yourself at the gym, not at all. But I think we can all listen to our bodies and know when we are over training. Remember when you go to the gym that it is about health not just the weight loss. I myself and most women have a hard time keeping this in sight, and the scale often is an easy way to reflect our healthy eating and efforts at the gym but going too far is not good for our bodies. We also need to keep in mind all the other factors that play into our overall health such as sleep, stress, and nutrition.

This information was taken from the

NASM Essentials of Personal Fitness Training Fourth Edition

Editors: Micheal A. Clark, Scott C. Lucett and Brian G. Sutton