Are You Overtrained? Everything You Need To Know About Overtraining
Overtraining ins’t an injury, per se. You’re not hurt. Nothing is swollen, nothing is broken. You don’t limp. It’s just that when you run, your legs feel dead most of the time, your workout and race times have both started to deteriorate, and you enjoy running less and less. By overdoing it, you may be predisposing yourself to injury. If you over train, something bad will happen – not can happen, will happen.
Marathon runners are more prone to overtraining than other runners, simply because of the volume of training required. It stands to reason that if you train more, you increase your chances of becoming overtrained.
Probably the key cause of the symptoms of overtraining is the loss of glycogen, the sugar like substance that fuels your muscles and provides the readily available energy that permits them to contract efficiently. Glycogen debt can occur if you’re not eating enough carbohydrates to match the amount of of calories burnt – or if you’re not synthesising enough glycogen. Excessive training appears to inhibit the body’s conversion of fuel into energy, although why this occurs is not fully understood. This condition might be compared to having fouled plugs in your automobile. The engine still runs, but not as well as it would if you bought new plugs.
Some runners increase their training levels to reduce weight. They sometimes train for marathons to provide the incentive to slim down. But one common mistake is to combine an increase in mileage with a decrease in calorie consumption.
The overtrained runner may maintain speed but with poorer form and with greater expenditure of energy. David Costill, PhD of Human Performance Laboratory at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, cited one other runner who, early in his training, could run 3:45/km pace at only 60% of his aerobic capacity. Later, when he became overtrained, the same runner had to use 80% of his capacity to maintain that same pace.
As athletes enlist all available muscle fibres in an attempt to maintain their training pace, they invariably exhaust their fast-twitch muscle fibres than their slow-twitch muscles. This is one reason runners lose speed: their fast-twitch muscles have become exhausted through intensive training.
But glycogen depletion is not the only problem. Another is microscopic damage to the muscle fibres, which tear, fray and lose their resilience, like a rubber band that has been snapped too often.
Despite analysis of blood and urine samples, researchers find it difficult to identify how, or why, chronically overtrained muscles lose their ability to contract. Harm Kuipers, MD and PhD of the University of Limburg in the Netherlands researched the effect of overtraining for nearly a year by training racehorses on a treadmill, alternating hard days of interval sprints with easy days. Horse trainers warned that the animals would become overtrained, but this failed to happen. Finally, with time running out, Dr Kuipers began training the horses hard on their easy days. “Almost immediately,” he said, “the horses began to exhibit symptoms of being overtrained.” The message to runners is, if you want to avoid overtraining, don’t eliminate easy days.
Recognising the signs.
The simplest defensive running strategy you can use is your training diary. Determining where you made a mistake – that “training error” described by Dr James = is the main reason for keeping a training diary. Learn the cause of that mistake and you are less likely to repeat it.
Your training diary can also provide clues that you’re overtraining. For example, if you’ve noted that you feel tired all the time, you may be training too hard. “Perceived exertion may give us our most important clues,” suggests William P Morgan, Ed D of the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Here are some other symptoms to watch for:
- Heavy legs: Your legs lose their snap – and speed. A run at 5:00/km pace feels like 4:30/km pace. Depleted muscle glycogen may be the cause. “You feel like you’re running with glue on your shoes,” says Costill.
- Increased heart rate: This is easily measured: record your heart rate each morning before you get out of bed and cut back your training on days when it’s higher than usual. After doing a research project for Athletics West, Jack Daniels, PhD and psychologist Scott Pengelli advised that club’s athletes to cut training on days when their heart rates were high.
- Sleep problems: You have trouble getting to sleep and may wake several times during the night. Then you have to drag yourself out of bed in the morning. On rising, your heart rate is also elevated, as above. “Sleep dysfunctions often are a sign of overstress,” says Dr Costill.
- Diminished sex drive: The romance has gone out of your life. Somehow you seem to have lost interest in sex. You’re too tired to tango. Whether this is related to lowered testosterone levels caused by training, or just plain exhaustion, no one knows for sure. But overtraining runners or both sexes look and feel like zombies, according to Dr Costill.
- Fear of training: You have trouble pushing yourself out the door to run each morning. So you sit and stretch longer. Your body is telling you to back off. “This is part of the psychological effect of overtraining,” says Dr Costill.
- Sore muscles: Your muscles, particularly your legs, seem sore and stiff. They may even be sore to touch. The reason is muscle damage, caused by too much pounding on the roads. Some muscle soreness is natural after hard training sessions, but if it persists, you’re working too hard.
What should you do if you’re over trained?
- Stop exercising. This is easier said than done for most people who are prone to overtraining. By setting aside a few days, and sometimes up to two weeks, to allow for the body and mind to recover, you will enable yourself to return to an exercise program even stronger and more focused than before.
- Reduce the number of sets and reps, length of time, or intensity of training. For example, if you currently do 45 minutes of cardio before your weightlifting routine, lower to 20 minutes. If you perform 5 sets of an exercise, perform 2-3 instead. If you sit in spinning class at 180 beats per minute, try not to let the heart rate exceed 160 bpm. Continue to adjust variables until your overtraining symptoms subside.
- Introduce recovery days and weeks. Every fourth week, for example, lower both the volume and the intensity of each workout. Or choose two days of the week, such as Sunday and Wednesday, in which you perform only light recovery exercise. This type of strategy is common among athletes, who call it “periodisation”.
- Relieve tension and stress. There are many ways to manage muscular tension and mental anxiety, including massage, meditation, yoga, hot baths, aroma therapy, and soothing music. Try to include a time during the day that involves a relaxation component, even if it is just 10-15 minutes of gentle breathing and light stretching in the morning.
- Identify nutritional deficiencies in your diet. Inadequate restoration of the body’s fuel needs after a workout can lead to a state of overtraining. Directly following any exercise, adequately refuelling the body with a mixture of proteins and carbohydrates should be a priority. As a basic component of the body’s hormones, cells, and tissues, healthy fat should not be avoided, but consumed in moderation. Consume high quantities of fruits and vegetables to avoid vitamin and mineral deficiencies, and be sure to drink water before, during, and after exercise.
- Listen to your body. An excessively sore or weak muscle should be given rest. A good rule of thumb is to allow 48 hours before working the same muscle group. If that muscle group is still sore, you may need to wait even longer – sometimes up to 5 days! This may mean that you need to change your training schedule, but sometime the body needs a break from the normal routine!
Often, overtraining is a gradual onset. An individual who begins an exercise routine may be given the impression that if “some is good, then more is better”. Typically, when starting into an exercise program, it is easy to lose high amounts of weight almost immediately. When this weight loss levels off (or “plateaus”), the temptation is to work even harder to continue to achieve the same results that initially occurred. In doing so, more and more time is spent not only exercising at high intensities for long periods of time, but also fretting and worrying about the apparent lack of results. Overtraining commonly occurs in such a situation – which just makes the problem worse, since it is even harder to get results when the body is broken down and overtrained!
The body does not grow stronger, fitter, or leaner while you are working out. Instead, rest and recovery outside of exercise allows for repair of damaged muscle fibres, restoration of glycogen stores (muscle fuel), and restoration of hormone levels that are essential for normal bodily function. Proper balance of these components is essential to a healthy body, a high metabolism, decreased levels of fat storage.
So remember to allow yourself to rest, The regeneration that occurs during recovery will allow you to see better results from your training and avoid injury, excessive fatigue, and lack of motivation to exercise.
Sources:
* Training Peaks: All About Overtraining.
* Hal Higdon: Marathon, The Ultimate Training Guide.
