Why exhausted after workout

Aim for easy workouts that allow you to train at least four times a week. And that will help bring your whole body up to speed. Suspect you might be suffering from adrenal fatigue?

Take a salivary cortisol test to find out. For a list of labs, go to www. You simply collect your saliva in a vial four times a day and send the vials to the laboratory for analysis. Results arrive in about two weeks. Because adrenal fatigue is caused by a too-taxing lifestyle, it usually takes lifestyle changes to resolve the problem. Here are the priorities to emphasize:. That means no skipping breakfast.

Make a point of eating small, frequent meals throughout the day, and maybe having a light, healthy snack before bedtime. Each meal should include a good dose of healthy carbohydrates blood sugar comes from carbs , but try to focus on low-glycemic-index foods like brown rice and vegetables, which produce a steadier, longer-lasting glucose elevation than high-glycemicindex foods, particularly those made from refined flours and simple sugars.

For a list of low-glycemic foods, go to www. SLEEP: If you have adrenal fatigue, shoot for at least eight hours of sleep each night, and strive to get to bed fairly early.

Then they may end up staying awake for hours. Reframing is the art of consciously evolving negative thoughts into neutral or positive ones.

This might mean challenging negative assumptions and tendencies to assign blame, or it might be as simple as choosing to reflect on positive things instead of brooding on the things you dread.

Learned Optimism , by psychologist Martin E. Seligman, PhD, offers a variety of methods for developing a more positive outlook through reframing. Simple relaxation exercises, such as visualization, meditation or even just lying still and focusing on your breathing for a few moments, can also have a profound effect. When you resume, aim for gradual, incremental increases in intensity and be sure you have built in adequate recovery time.

This article has been updated. It originally appeared in the March issue of Experience Life magazine. Your email address will not be published. City and state are only displayed in our print magazine if your comment is chosen for publication.

Be sure to drink plenty of water before your workout or sporting event to prevent dehydration. Afterward, you should continue to hydrate.

You can weigh yourself before and after exercise to determine the number of pounds of fluid that you lost. Exercise drains your body's stores of glucose.

Normally, you have glycogen stored in your muscles, which powers contractions throughout your workout. You also have glucose floating around your bloodstream, ready to fuel cells that need it. During exercise, your body can use both the glycogen in muscles and the glucose in your blood, causing blood sugar levels to drop.

This is known as hypoglycemia. There are a wide range of symptoms that stem from hypoglycemia, which you might feel during your workout or after. Physical symptoms include shakiness, fast heartbeat, nausea, headache or general weakness. There are also mental symptoms like confusion, anxiety or nightmares. In extreme cases, you can have seizures from hypoglycemia.

To prevent low blood sugar during or after exercise, make sure you eat something with carbohydrates close to your workout. You probably don't need a full meal, but a quick snack with 20 to 30 grams of carbohydrates , such as an apple , should help.

You can also have a sports drink, like Gatorade, that contains carbohydrates. If you're suffering from extreme fatigue after exercise, or you simply want to prevent it, you should adjust the style of workout you do. In general, the harder your workout, the more likely you are to suffer from extreme fatigue. The style of training you do matters as well. There's a difference between lengthy and intense weightlifting workouts , according to a small July study published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology.

The study, which included only 12 participants, looked at high-volume weightlifting workouts in particular, in which there are many sets and repetitions performed for each exercise.

They compared those workouts to high-intensity yet shorter weightlifting workouts. The subjects who engaged in high-volume weightlifting workouts experienced greater muscle damage and took longer to recover from training compared to the high-intensity group.

In other words, the total amount of work you do in a workout might matter more than the intensity of the workout. Preparing for your workout with proper nutrition and hydration can help you avoid extreme fatigue after a workout. An article from the Hospital for Special Surgery recommends eating a well-balanced diet with carbs, protein and fat. They also recommend increasing your carbohydrate intake if you exercise regularly or harder than usual. The Hospital for Special Surgery also recommends drinking 10 to 12, 8-ounce glasses of water per day to prevent dehydration.

While exercising, they recommend drinking to milliliters of fluid every 10 to 12 minutes. Instead of water, you can drink an electrolyte-enhanced beverage during training for improved hydration.

After your workout, you should cool down instead of stopping suddenly. This helps keep the blood flowing while your body cools down completely. The longer and harder you keep pushing it, the more they can build up in your system. As your body becomes acidic, everything slows down.

The enzymes that supply your muscles with energy all become less efficient, she explains. Luckily, the more fit you get, the better your body slays those hydrogen ions. So keep at it! If you feel dead after every single workout, sooner or later it's going to catch up to you. And when that happens, you need to slow your roll. A good rule to follow: Don't do more than two balls-to-the-wall workouts in a row. When your cells don't have enough oxygen, they can't function at top notch.

Having too-low iron levels , which can happen in women who cut out iron-rich meat and animal products or have heavy periods, most often causes anemia. Other signs of anemia include insomnia, dizziness, leg cramps, pale skin, and easy bruising. Sound familiar? Talk to your doc ASAP and get tested. This is a big one in women who are working out in an effort to lose weight , says Hamilton. So if you find yourself struggling through workouts and just happen to be dieting, try bumping up your calorie and carb intake seriously, avoid any extremely low-carb ketogenic diets.