The Scientific Reasons Why You Feel Too Exhausted To Work Out
Working out is one of life’s essentials. If you’re not doing it, it’s like failing to brush your teeth: you’re going to run into health troubles fast.
But sometimes when you hit the gym, you just don’t feel like it. You know you should be training, but you simply can’t muster the energy to actually get on and do it.
What’s going on here?
It turns out that there are some pretty good scientific reasons why you might feel too exhausted to train, and it’s not just laziness. Our bodies are exceptionally good at telling us when we have the energy to work out, and when we don’t.
In this post, we run through some of the factors that could be affecting your ability to exert yourself and what you can do about them. Take a look at the examples below.
Your Glycogen Stores Are Empty
Have you been doing a lot of intermittent fasting recently? Do you regularly go many hours without meals?
If so, your glycogen levels could be low and that might be leading to feelings of exhaustion.
Glycogen is one of the ways your body stores energy. It’s a long chain of sugar molecules found in the liver and muscle cells that breaks off to provide energy when you train.
When glycogen levels are high, you can train for hours at a time. However, when glycogen levels are low, you run out of energy quickly.
What’s happening here isn’t necessarily a blood sugar dip. You could have plenty of carbs just before a workout. Instead, it’s the lack of accessible energy that’s the problem.
To solve this issue, you’ll need to carb up - sorry keto dieters. Eating carbs over several days will replenish muscle and liver glycogen levels, giving you more energy you need to train. Think oats, rice, whole grains, or even sweet potatoes. Spread them out, don’t just overload one meal.
Also, if you’re looking for another layer of support, NMN powder could be worth exploring. Products like these are designed to help maintain your body’s NAD+ levels, which play a big role in cellular energy. It’s not a quick fix like a caffeine shot, but over time, supplements may support how your body produces and uses energy—especially when paired with proper nutrition and training.
Other small changes can help too. Getting enough sleep, staying hydrated, and giving your body time to recover after intense sessions all feed into the bigger picture. Some even find that low energy during fasting windows eases up when they include things like electrolytes or NMN powder as part of their daily routine.
You Aren’t Eating Enough Carbs
Related to this is the fact that you could be skipping too many carbs. If you don’t have carbs in your system, you won’t have the energy you need to train and burn off unwanted fat.
Not all carbs are the same. In fact, there is a world of difference between eating white bread and eating a strawberry. Both contain carbs, but the way that they’re packaged is entirely different. In the white bread, there is no fiber and relatively few nutrients, whereas in the strawberry there is lots of fibre and an enormous array of nutrients. What’s more, these nutrients actually signal to the body to become healthier, changing your weight and energy levels.
Eating carbs but reducing your total calorie intake will provide you with the quick energy you need while also reducing your weight. Women, for instance, wanting to shed the pounds should aim for around 1,200 to 1,400 calories per day. Eating this amount of energy in the form of carbs still yields an energy deficit of around 600 calories per day - enough for weight loss - but also provides carbs to fuel workouts.
You Have A Thyroid Issue
Your exhaustion before you work out might not have anything to do with your energy levels at all. Instead, it could be a thyroid issue.
The thyroid is an organ in the neck which releases hormones to give you a sense of awakeness and alertness. However, if you feel fatigued all the time, it could be a sign that the thyroid is not producing enough of the hormones that you need. Other symptoms of low thyroid include weight gain, muscle pain and depression.
If you have these symptoms, you’ll need to talk to your doctor. They may give you medicines that replace the lost hormones and make you feel normal again. Around 60 percent of people with thyroid issues have no idea that their thyroid gland is the source of the problem.
You Are Dehydrated
When it comes to training, maintaining proper hydration levels is essential. Even small drops in the amount of water in your system can lead to fatigue, headaches and all sorts of other nasty issues.
Remember, during workouts, you’re likely sweating. This means that you’re losing a combination of water and salt through your pores.
As such, you need to take on both throughout the day. If you can, include a small quantity of miso in your meals. This should provide the salt that you need. Also, be sure to have a large drink of water, particularly in the morning, as the body can sweat a lot during the night.
You can check whether you need to take on more water during training by weighing yourself before and after on accurate scales. If your weight goes down by more than 2 percent during a training session, you need to take on more water. So if you weigh 100 pounds and your weight declines by more than 2 pounds, then you aren’t drinking enough and that could be the reason you feel so tired.
You Have Anemia
Anemia is a condition in which your body isn’t producing enough red blood cells - the type of blood cell that transports oxygen around the body. Usually, you’ll have millions of these per milliliter of blood, but in people with anemia, concentrations can drop to dangerously low levels.
The main cause of anemia in women is low iron status. If you don’t have enough iron in your diet, red blood cells can’t construct the chemical mechanisms that allow them to collect oxygen molecules and transport them to cells in your body. Anemia typically affects women who cut out iron-rich foods from their diet, such as animal products, or those who have heavy periods.
The result is a continual feeling of tiredness and exhaustion. You may find yourself getting puffed out at the gym easily, even after training regularly.
If you think you might have anemia, get your blood iron levels checked by your doctor. They will then provide you with supplements designed to raise your iron levels and provide recommendations for how you can change your diet.
Your Diet Lacks Protein
If you’re working out, your protein requirements naturally go up. Your body needs you to eat the building blocks it requires to construct new tissues.
However, some people don’t provide their bodies with the protein that they need, leading to a feeling of tiredness and fatigue.
In this case, fatigue is actually a defense mechanism. It’s something that the body is using to ensure that it no longer has to exert itself so that it can preserve the protein that it already has.
One way to solve this problem, according to OpenFit - a supplement company that sells the Ladder product line - is to take on proteins - specifically branched-chain amino acids - before you work out. These proteins are in a form that your body can readily use and transform into new muscle tissue.
As you learn more about Ladders pre-workout supplements, you soon see how they can assist people who lack energy. Stimulants are important, but there are also ingredients that help to stave off fatigue long-term and boost blood flow to the muscles that need them.
Other ways of upping your protein intake include using whey powders or eating more beans. Experiment with different types of protein and see which work best for your body.
You’re Living Life Way Too Hard
Life needs a little resistance. But when you feel like you’re carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders every day, it becomes a little too much. Combine that with gruelling sessions in the gym and your body will inevitably tell you “enough is enough.”
Our ancestors didn’t run around all day as we do in the modern world. Research suggests that traditional hunter gatherer populations spent around six hours per day working and exercising and then spent much of the rest of it resting and enjoying themselves.
Our modern lives are nothing like this. We wake up at 6 am, train for an hour, then get ready for work, spend all day in front of a computer until 6 pm, and then spend our evenings cooking, going to clubs, and looking after kids. It’s all exhausting.
These kinds of schedules simply aren’t sustainable. People can cope with them for, perhaps, a couple of years. But eventually, the body cries out for rest and relaxation.
The solution? Give yourself a wellness break. Pamper yourself, even if that means just staying at home during your time off from work.
You Have Allergies
Lastly, you might be feeling exhausted because you have allergies. Allergies have an annoying habit of draining your energy levels and leaving you feeling tired. In some cases, they can actually constrict the airways, making it harder to get the oxygen you need into your body. Remember, every cell in your body requires oxygen, so if you are in oxygen debt, then it can severely affect you.
If you think that you might have allergies, go to your doctor. They can provide you with antihistamines that counteract the effects of the allergen. The type of medication you receive will depend heavily on the substance that is affecting you (for instance, pollen).
