Overtraining Symptoms
What is it?
Overtraining syndrome is experienced when an athlete doesn’t adequately recover after repetitive intense training, resulting in negative outcomes such as fatigue, declining performance, and potential injury. Training inherently involves progressive overload, i.e., the modification of training stimuli including volume, duration frequency and intensity of training in an effort to force the body to adapt. Optimal training is achieved when the athlete progressively overloads, and positive physical adaptation occurs, increasing performance.
Although progressive overload is a prerequisite for athletic development, when insufficient recovery is experienced or additional external loading factors act on the body, fatigue can accumulate faster than the body can adapt. Left unchecked this fatigue will progressively put an increased burden on the body, stunting performance and decreasing the body’s capacity to adapt.
The big signs
- Altered heart rate, sweating volume and overheating during training
- Reduced performance
- Psychological disturbance – depressed, grumpy, irritable
- Insomnia
- Frequent sickness
Prevention is the key
Overtraining is much easier to manage if it is avoided altogether. Knowing some basics can allow even athletes to plan their training appropriately, allowing for better gains and less risk of injury. General guidelines include progressing your load gradually, ensuring adequate recovery, plan training, and ensure you have proper nutrition.
Progress load gradually
A popular rule in exercises is the 10% rule. Simply put, don’t increase your training load more than 10% per week. This a good catch all, although it may not be appropriate for beginners who may experience fairly rapid responses to training in the early stages. Progressive overload involves the modification of volume, duration, frequency, and intensity of training sessions. Increase to all these factors each will drastically increase training load, so only increase one or two of these factors at a time gradually (and slowly) exposing your body to load.
For the runners out there, don’t forget your shoes. A change in shoes will change the load going through the body so allow time for your body to adjust.
Rest and recovery
Give your body the appropriate time to rest (both physically and mentally). Training every day is fine once your body has developed a tolerance. In the early days, ensure there is variety in your training to allow parts of the body to rest whilst others are training. Rest days or sometimes even rest weeks – are important to allow the body to recuperate.
Have a plan
Often, my patients that experience overtraining did not have a plan. Having some form of training plan, whether formally written or an app like Strava, will help keep track of your activity and improve your consistency. Don’t be too strict with your plan, let it have some flexibility! Life happens, so there must be some give and take with training to deal everything else that life throws at us.
Eating and drinking correctly.
Nutrition is essential for training. Without proper access to carbs and protein the body will lacks energy and building blocks to train and recover afterwards. Make sure that you are eating drinking enough to meet your training needs.
This blog is not an exhaustive look at overtraining. Overtraining is a complex multifaceted condition. Using the above is a great start to avoiding the worst of it, but if you have read this and feel you are already experiencing the effect of overtraining, it might be time for you to come visit the team.
