Why do you feel weak during your workout?

So you feel weak during your workout and you can not perform to your maximum ability in order to see results.

Believe it or not, this is a very common issue that many people have at one point or at another when they start working out.

Is this something a good or bad thing??

What causes this weakness??

And can you do something to combat it?

All of these questions will be answered in this article so stay tuned.

So is this weakness a good or a bad thing?

The answer to this question is it depends. It depends on what kind of weakness are we talking about.

It is normal to feel a sense of fatigue throughout your workout and it is actually desired because it means that you are pushing your shelf and by doing so, you will progress physically and mentally. So if that is the case then weakness thought your workout is actually a good thing.

But...

If by saying weakness you mean feeling very tired and not being to perform as well as you could before you started having this feeling and even worst you not being able to complete your workout when in prior you could, then this definitely bad for you and for health.

But do not worry because we have the most common reasons why you feel weak during your workout and solutions to each one, so after reading this article you can follow the steps and come back to working out even stronger than you were before.

First, I would like to start by saying that there can be various causes for that weakness.I will list the most common ones that 94% of the people with this problem have.

The reasons you feel weak during your workouts and how to combat them:

1. Lack of quality sleep

The first reason for feeling weak during your workout by far the most common one is sleep.When I say sleep I do not just mean 7-8 hours of sleep (that is essential of course and if you do not sleep for 7-8 hours or more, especially when you work out in the day your body is not able to fully recover from the previous day's workout, which indeed makes you fell tierd throughout your next workout and throughout the whole day.

When it comes to sleep, quantity is not enough and you also need quality. What is quality sleep? To not make this answer very long and with a lot of terminologies, quality sleep means that you get into a part of sleep that is called deep sleep. This is the point where you are most unconscious about your surroundings, your breathing and heart rate slows down and your body focuses all his energy on repairing your tissues and everything else that it needs to do, so when you wake up you are rested and ready to start your day energized and with a very good mood.

2. Dehydration

The second and very common reason for this weakness is dehydration. A lot of people just do not drink enough water witch leads them to be weaker than they originally would be if they just had drunk water. There is a study in which a group of man performed the bench press with their 1 rep max(the maximum weight they can lift with one repetition) and then repeated this in a dehydrated state and their one-rep max dropped 7 kilograms on average, finally they rehydrated the group and their one-rep max came back to their normal.

That means that if you hydrate yourself before and during a workout your will be able to perform better and not feel weak because you can not do the things you normally can.

3. Small food intake

The third reason for weakness during your workout is your food intake. Mostly your carbs (carbohydrates) intake, especially before your workout. If you are not eating enough carbs then your workouts are likely to suffer due to the lack of glycogen in your muscles.

In a study that happened had subjects try to perform squats on a glycogen depleting state they had a significant decrease in the average repetitions that they could perform when they where they were glycogen depleted and when they were not.

Also if you are on a low-calorie diet with less than 20% of your maintenance calories (maintenance calories are the exact calories that if you consume daily you will maintain your current weight) this will definitely decrease your performance and it will make you feel weak. This happens because your body just does not have the energy in order to let you push very hard. But after some weeks your body starts adjusting to your new diet and you will gradually start feeling better than you did on the previous workout until your body fully adjusts to the new diet and you go back to feeling strong.

Note: If you are in a very big caloric deficit of more than 40% then you will continue to feel week because this just too big of a deficit and it will be very hard for your body to adjust. So if you want to lose weight by being in a deficit you should be at 15%-20% less of your maintenance calories.

4)Stressful life

Another reason why you might feel weak throughout your workout is if you have very big stress in your life. Starting a high-intensity workout when you’re feeling super stressed can actually undermine your efforts. A study in the Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology found that mental fatigue negatively affects physical performance. Because your cognition and muscles are both controlled by your anterior cingulate cortex, when your brain is already tired before you start working out, it is likely that your muscles are too.

5. Overtraining

What is overtraining?

Overtraining occurs when a person exceeds their body's ability to recover from intense exercise. Overtraining can lower your fitness level, negatively affect your performance, and cause injuries.

How do you know if you are overtraining:

• If you repeatedly fail to complete a workout or a workout rather than getting easier for you to perform as you progress is getting harder and harder to perform and that happens in an extended period of time 4 weeks + then you might be overtraining.

• if you feel very sore for a very long time, not after your workout and the next day which is normal and good but if that soreness continues for 3 or more days then that is a sign that you might be overtraining.

• If you have a very big loss of motivation and desire to work out when you normally wanted to do it that is also a sign that you might be overtraining.

• If you notice that you are gaining body fat when you are not in a calorie surplus(you consume more calories than your maintenance level) and also you are losing muscle mass then regardless of the fact that you are training hard you probably are overtraining.

• If you are getting sick very easily while you are following a healthy lifestyle (you eat right, you exercise, you get good sleep, etc.) you probably are overtraining.

• If you feel tired thgoughout the day without you doing something very physically or mentally demanding then you might be overtraining.

Solution to overtraining:

The steps you have to take to recover from overtraining are very simple:

First, you should continue with your healthy habits and implement them into your life if you are not doing them now. These habits are:

Getting enough good sleep, eat a balanced and healthy diet, hydrate yourself throughout the day. But the most important thing is to stop working out for a period of time.

You should stop any demanding physical activity for a period of time usually it is 1-2weeks and let your body rest, so it can recover well from the physical strain it was put through. You should return to working out when you feel that you have fully recovered. Do not return to working out earlier even if to takes longer than 1-2weeks because if you do you will start overtraining very soon after.

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