Being tired is normal. It can be mental or it can be physical, and also it can be both. The problem is differentiating between them, and in particular, when it is both.

Physical tiredness is when we exercise exceptionally hard and that stress is enough to force your body to adapt. For a time afterwards you will be rebuilding your cells and refilling your depleted energy resources. This does not take too long if you eat correctly and sleep well. You will feel very tired and often sore but those sensations go away as your body heals itself. This is normal.

In this normal but miraculous adaptation of your body, your body doesn’t just heal itself, it goes beyond, it overcompensates. So if you time your next exercise event immediately following your recovery, then your overcompensation, also called supercompensation, is built upon another supercompensation, so that you gain fitness and gain and gain. Understanding this will not make you mentally tired, it makes you empowered.

Mental tiredness is bit more tricky. The complex world of our brain, which has both conscious thought and subconscious thought, uses the same message as physical tiredness and mimics the message: ‘you’re a little bit tired’ and our conscious brain perceived it as true. Then the message can be manipulated and blown out of proportion, we can believe we are exhausted.

Even a suggestion from outside your body can unintentionally create tiredness; like someone saying how tired they are…”aren’t you tired too…?”Your subconscious brain agrees and you can then spiral down into the same feelings as actual physical tiredness, but it is sort of a placebo…a mind trick. It shows the power of suggestion.

A placebo is a sugar pill. It is used in science to trick patients into believing they are taking medication. But they are not.

Strangely, sugar pills often are as good at healing as medications… or even better! Our mind believes and our body falls into agreement. It works both ways; you can make yourself feel better and also worse.

So it is possible that you are tired because your mind made you tired.

A good coach can help sort these two things out. And luckily you can sort these things out too.

To determine what kind of tired you are, you can make the assumption that if you are physically tired you will have been working hard. You would have been attending all the training and would have done an excellent job. Then you will be physically tired. If you are not training hard then you are not physically tired.

The goal of training is to get tired … and then recover. The recovery process is just as important as the stress. Being tired is good.

But then there is a twist. A very important twist.

Within the complexities of this process our mind can trick us to think we are not tired when we are really physically tired. This becomes a problem.

Our socialised physical fitness experts, aka coaches, sometimes tell us tiredness is weakness. Taking a break is a way to become weak. It is not.

Also, our own socialisation tells us tiredness is weakness. It is not.

Learning to identify true fatigue is the key. If an athlete can push themselves physically then they will get a supercompensation with rest and recovery. However not allowing recovery can be damaging.

Pushing beyond normal stress, maybe because you believe you are not tired, maybe because your brain says you’re not, will begin to make you train too hard when you should rest. If you go too far in your training and your stored energy is gone, there is still more energy available; you will use muscle as a fuel source. Your body is essentially eating itself called becoming catabolic.

Not allowing adaptations, by continuing to train hard, moves an athlete into dangerous territory. This is when an athlete becomes both physically and mentally tired. Both brain and body are not adapting. Your body will not stop if your brain says go.

Although that is very hard to do it is surprisingly common because humans are far more tough than smart.

Here are some markers that show fatigue has set in and you should help your body to recover even if your brain says you are okay:

1. We get angry quickly.

2. We find it hard to eat. Lose your appetite.

3. We get ill easily. Get ill often.

4. It is hard to get to sleep and sleep poorly. We fall asleep when we should not.

5. We make mistakes that are simple. We reread the same things over.

6. Our morning resting heart rate is high.

7. We cry easier or are erratically emotional.

8. We are forgetful.

9. It is hard to make food and often take a short cuts with fast food.

10. We have tiredness in our face like dark rings around our eyes or thin faces.

With mental tiredness a bit of stimulation like dance music will change your feelings. Physical tiredness generally doesn’t change with this sort of mind game, you stay tired.

Mental tiredness is real too and will happen in stressful situations. Things like moving home, arguing and getting angry at your parents or siblings or friends. Divorce or death in a family will be mentally taxing. In occasions like this we need rest and recovery too.

Physical stress also causes mental stress too. A body that is full of pain from very hard training is mentally tiring. However understanding that you’ve purposefully put stress on your body should give you the mental strength to avoid mental fatigue. Mental fatigue will happen when a coach says you’re not tough enough when you are doing your best or you say to yourself you are not good enough when you are trying as hard as you can. A balance is needed. Know when you are being tough smart or tough stupid.

Ignoring tiredness and training through an adaptive phase will interrupt proper adaptation and your fatigue will spiral downwards making you less fit.

Adapting to stress is a skill that is developed by recovery strategies. The first step though is understanding that tiredness is okay and that the recovery from stress is just as important as the training…maybe more important.

So if you are tired…it is okay, listen to your body. Mental fatigue or physical fatigue will require rest which will make you stronger.