Is there such a thing as overtraining?

This is a question that was popped by one of the athletes when they were having a session with their physio and me. Feeling absolutely shocked to hear the question, we decided to go further and ask multiple athletes working around about their experiences with overtraining (or lack thereof). To our complete shock, they did not think that over-training is possible.

Exerting themselves, yes but that is not overtraining!

Overtraining, as a concept, is a subtle realisation in an athlete’s life. Any athlete wants to be the best in their sport and, for that, one of the core demands of that particular sport is training. But when and how do athletes end up overtraining?

It is common knowledge that athletes have to train extensively to reach their peak potential and form. Reaching that level also requires a good balance of interspersed periods of rest and recovery.

Overtraining is often seen in sports that have higher endurance such as swimming, cycling, running, etc. There is not a lot of data to actually back this up with statistics.

Athletes to the start have their regular exercise or training load, from which they increase to something called overreaching and finally to overtraining.

When the accumulated amount of training actually ends up decreasing the athletes' performance, this is called overreaching. Overreaching is when the muscles are sore to a level where they are highly intense. The athletes push through this muscle soreness without adequate rest and push themselves more than their body limits. This could end up in exhaustion of the muscles and hence, a decline in performance.

This decline in performance can also be taken as a reason to train even more and train even harder.

However, overreaching effects can be reduced and eradicated simply with a good amount of rest.

But if these signs of overreaching are ignored, this could lead to overtraining. Athletes tend to see this decline in performance as a reason to train more. Because the amount of training they were doing before did not give them the result they were hoping for. The extra load of training leads their body to break.

The feeling that there is no recovery seen between training sessions along with a sense of overall fatigue in the athletes' body and difficulties in pushing their bodies to work out could be considered overtraining.

There are various signs of overtraining like increased muscle soreness which gets worse the more the athletes train, decline in performance, and inability to reach the level they already were at.

But there are a few things that also need to be considered, especially with the growing age of the athletes.

Along with that, other contributions that are to be taken into consideration with the possibilities of overtraining also include inability to sleep, increased irritability, enhanced PMS, weight loss or weight gain, recurrent colds, and persistent thirst.

Additionally, we also have to keep in mind that there are a few factors here that can overlap. These include less glycogen (that leads to low immunity), any organic diseases like cancer, chemical or hormonal imbalances, degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson's, Anorexia, previous physical trauma, and certain vitamin deficiencies.

There are not a lot of things one can do to cure overtraining, but adequate rest for the athletes' muscles, a good diet, a good amount of sleep, etc. One can start slowly with stretches and some exercises before going further to the level they previously were. It is a frustrating task to start from the bottom but to excel again, this is absolutely necessary.

So a humble request to the athletes:

Listen to your bodies when they ask you to. A good recovery period is absolutely necessary for even the smallest amount of training. Stretches and cool-down exercises after the main set of practice are of the essence.

As Richard Baker rightly said “ To get rich, never risk your health. For it is the truth that health is the wealth of wealth.”