Overtraining takes a toll on your body, and you simply won’t feel too good. Here is some information about it so you can avoid it!
There are many terms to describe overtraining. Sometimes it is called burnout, staleness, training stress syndrome and chronic fatigue. Generally, though, these all mean the same thing. They describe how athletes or people reach a level in which performance decreases due to training demands that are too high without the right amount of recovery. It is important to be pushed to get performance improvements but passing your threshold to the point of overtraining makes for a long road back to your previous levels of performance.3 Let’s look at what overtraining really is and how you can avoid it or what you can do about it if it is too late.
Overtraining vs. Overreaching
In the world of exercise and sport performance, everyone strives to improve. To do so, training loads are increased to give the body the stimulus it needs mixed with the much-needed recovery periods. But without appropriate amounts of recovery, the increase in training load can be harmful.3 Feeling fatigue and seeing decreases in performance are a biproduct of training hard to increase performance. This makes it more difficult to determine if an athlete is simply causing the intended increase in stimulus or if, indeed, overtraining is happening.2
When successful, increases in training loads above previous levels are called overreaching. When overreaching is combined with the right amount of rest, it is called periodization. This usually leads to peaks in performance at predetermined instances. When overreaching is extreme and the person is incapable of recovering the accumulated fatigue from training, it is called overtraining syndrome (OTS).3 Here, we’ll just call it overtraining. In many cases, it might take months for someone to recover from overtraining.2
Here are two definitions to better summarize the difference between overreaching and overtraining:
- Overreaching – is “an accumulation of training and/or non-training stress resulting in short-term decrement in performance capacity with or without related physiological and psychological signs and symptoms of overtraining in which restoration of performance capacity may take from several days to several weeks.”
- Overtraining – is “an accumulation of training and/or non-training stress resulting in long term decrement in performance capacity with or without related physiological and psychological signs and symptoms of over training in which restoration of performance capacity may take several weeks or months”
What are the Symptoms of Overtraining?
Other than performance decreasing, overtraining can have an important negative impact on your health and well-being. Some of the main symptoms include:
Generally, overtraining usually includes mood disturbances that affect a person’s normal behavior. Much of the research around overtraining explain that mood changes are one of the most obvious signs of an over trained athlete.3 It has even been suggested that symptoms of overtraining has similarities to clinical depression. Specifically, when it comes to brain function, neurotransmitters, and immune responses.1
Overtraining can even have a strong adverse effect on sleep. Sleep is one of the key components of recovery.3 It is a bit like a vicious cycle because sleep can affect so many different systems of your body. The impact that excess training can have on the immune system is also frightening. It often comes in the form of upper respiratory tract infections, poor ability for wounds to heal and even intestinal difficulties. For those who are interested in the scientific reasoning, it is suggested that this happens because of lowered glutamine levels in the blood of over trained athletes. Glutamine is an amino acid that helps feed some immune cells.4
Diagnosis of Overtraining
To diagnose overtraining, a person must have shown consistent performance decreases even with weeks of recovery. The person will also have noticeable mood disturbances and no evidence to suggest other possible causes of underperformance.3
It is important to consider that overtraining can only be diagnosed if the person has had a significant period of recovery. With overtraining, the performance would diminish even with appropriate recovery time. There are also many physiological characteristics that may cause underperformance like asthma, thyroid disease, diabetes and many more. These would not automatically point to overtraining.3
Assessment of training, nutrition, sleep, and mood are all important to examine overtraining onset. There are many screening tests that only a doctor can provide to help confirm diagnosis.3
How to Overcome Overtraining:
- Multidisciplinary approach
In an ideal world, a multidisciplinary approach would be the best solution. Involving your physician and a mental health expert can be a helpful cross-disciplinary approach. These professionals would be able to decide whether full rest is necessary and how recovery should happen.3
However, even with full rest, it has been shown that “relative” rest might be more beneficial than full rest. This would include a volume of training that would progressively be increased with time. Nonetheless, your health professional may prescribe medication for treating the observed symptoms. If such is the case, close monitoring is necessary and only a licensed professional should administer treatment.3
- Prevention
The best form of treatment is prevention. The best way to prevent overtraining is to keep a close eye on the training load (intensity, volume, frequency) in comparison with one’s performance metrics and mood. Keeping track of how you or your athletes feel for a given training load measured by perceived exertion may give you an idea of whether or not overreaching is reaching dangerous levels. If someone is finding a workout difficult for what should be considered easier for their fitness, it may be a sign that recovery is necessary. You should always advocate for decrease in training load if you have doubts. 3
If you have any concerns about your current training or exercise programs, please consider the help of a professional who may help you by using periodization. This would help anyone follow a program that is tailored to them and can, ideally, provide the appropriate rest needed. Even though overtraining can happen to many people who train hard, it is important to keep in mind that the more a person tries to achieve lofty performance goals, the more there is a risk of overtraining.
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