Overtraining, like riding your bike...
Overtraining, like riding your bike…
Overtraining… one of the most
overused words in the fitness world. Plenty in the fitness industry use it as a
mechanism of criticism towards an athlete’s methods or a coach’s training
techniques… but only a percentage of them can tell you what the phases of overtraining
are, what the physiological impact is, and why it’s important to know the signs
and symptoms. I’m going to do my very best to make you an informed, critical
thinking athlete, that will be able to make educated decisions about their own
concerns with overtraining.
Think of us like a little kid
on a bike; the first thing our parents tried to do is get us off the couch and
on to the bike, then they give us a few pointers, and BOOM they roll us down the hill! I don’t know about your experience
with learning how to ride a bike, but mine was filled with bumps, scrapes, and
bruises… and maybe a few tears. Which has not been that dissimilar from my
experience with fitness J. Once our parents had us up on the bike, their next job
was to make sure we didn’t run into the neighbor’s car or hit the dumpster face
first. As we started to go faster and faster, we started to understand that the
thin line between going fast and crashing hard got smaller and smaller. That’s how
we need to think of overtraining; as novice athletes we try to start out learning
movements and mixing intensities, but to be honest at that level it’s much
harder to reach the level of overtraining we should really be concerned about.
The bike isn’t moving very fast, so the consequences generally aren’t as great.
Now, before someone stands up
and screams “WHAT ABOUT RHABDO”! There are always outliers, and if you put
yourself, or a coach puts a truly novice athlete(6 month of training or less)
in a position where they have real rhabdomyolysis, like the “laying in the hospital
bed for multiple days kind” and not the “I was really sore and my friend read an
article kind” then I personally find your trainer severely irresponsible for
putting you in that position, or you’re irresponsible for not following their
direction and putting yourself in that position. That being said, it’s
extremely rare for novice athletes to be able to provide the intensity and
duration of training required to give themselves real rhabdo. There are also
multiple other variables such as hydration, temperature of training environment,
and nutrition that are huge factors there… that’s an article for a different
day though!
Back on the bike! As I was
saying, when you start to increase the speed of the bike or in this case the
level of intensity and frequency of training, the room for error shrinks, and you
can put yourself at risk of overtraining. The harder you push the pace in
training, the more damaging overtraining can be, so bad that you may even break
your bike and have to go inside… and nobody likes that.
As we get started diving into
detail, I want to give you a few basic definitions to understand, let’s start with
the less damaging of the progression…
Functional Overreaching
A short-term
reduction in performance that later leads to improved performance after a taper
or a period of rest. (1) So, think of this as wanting to cool the engine a little
bit before a big competition or performance, this will generally happen in the
last week before the taper (or deload as we sometimes call it). Once the bout
of intensity occurs, we’ll then allow the body to recover and come back to
neutral, hopefully creating adaptions that allow us to perform at an even
higher level, otherwise known as “peaking”.
Non-functional Overreaching
A short-term reduction in
performance that recovers fully (but does not lead to improved performance),
and only after a sustained period of rest.(1) This is when muscle damage has occurred,
sometimes muscle damage is useful as it will create adaptions and more strength
(see functional overreaching) but in this case so much muscle damage has been
caused that the time it takes to fully heal is so long that the adaptions
created by the muscle fibers are long gone.(2) So, although this is temporarily
frustrating, it causes no long-term negative effects on training. Your muscle
level returns to normal after a period of rest. This process can occur over the
course of weeks to months, where as functional overreaching occurs over days to
weeks.
What Causes Overreaching?
Reductions in performance can
be caused by three things; central nervous system fatigue, metabolic fatigue,
and muscle damage. (3) Metabolic fatigue is when your muscle response slows
down because you’ve outworked the pace at which your body can provide an energy
source, in this case ATP. Both metabolic fatigue and central nervous system fatigue
as far as “overreaching” is concerned are very temporary, generally between 30
minutes and four hours. In most cases(3), any reduction in strength that last
longer than 24 hours is due to muscle damage. So, to simplify it, we’re basically
causing muscle damage, and then training again before our body has recovered
from said damage. In terms of overreaching you shouldn’t be concerned, there
isn’t a high risk here for long term effects, and for higher level athletes it
may become completely necessary to improve.
Now the more important one…
Overtraining Syndrome (OTS)
OTS appears to be an adaption
response to excessive exercise without adequate rest, resulting in negative
feedback from multiple body systems (neurologic, endocrinologic, immunologic)
coupled with mood changes. (4) The important part to know is that OTS is a
clinical diagnosis, where overreaching (functional and non-functional) are
merely just a form of adaption created by muscle damage.
How is it developed?
First, you should understand
that it’s extremely rare to develop a clinical form of OTS. Second, you need to
understand that this is an emerging science, which at this point has some guidelines,
but is not a perfect process. OTS is developed when non-functional overreaching
occurs over longer periods of time (3-5 months on average), the biggest
difference is any type of overreaching generally won’t have an impact on the
immune, endocrine (hormones), or neurological systems like OTS will. (4) Over
the course of time you will notice a swift drop in performance, which leads us to…
What are the signs and symptoms?
Parasympathetic
Alterations*
|
Sympathetic
Alterations**
|
Other
|
Fatigue
|
Insomnia
|
Anorexia
|
Depression
|
Irritability
|
Weight loss
(drastic)
|
Bradycardia (lower than normal heart rate)
|
Agitation
|
Lack
of mental concentration
|
Loss of motivation
|
Tachycardia (higher
than normal heart rate)
|
Heavy, sore, stiff
muscles
|
|
Hypertension
|
Anxiety
|
|
Restlessness
|
Waking up unrefreshed
|
Kreher, Jeffrey B and Jennifer B Schwartz. “Overtraining
syndrome: a practical guide” Sports
health vol. 4,2 (2012): 128-38.
*More common symptoms in aerobic sports/training (running
long distances)
**More common symptoms in anaerobic sports/training (heavy
weightlifting/sprinting)
As you are probably aware,
CrossFit fits into both boxes, it is a combination of aerobic and anaerobic
stimulus. Which is why athletes need to be aware of symptoms in both systems.
Feel free to look up sympathetic and parasympathetic systems to understand more,
but their definitions aren’t as important in helping you understand the effects
on your body. It is important to understand that just because you have some of
these symptoms does not automatically mean you’re being over-trained or that
you have OTS. They are symptoms that are developed by overreaching for long
periods of time, and they are things that should help you understand the impact
training with little or no recovery can have on multiple systems in the body.
How do I prevent OTS or non-functional overreaching?
The biggest step you can take
to prevent anything like this from happening to you is to take extra care of
the systems that OTS negatively impacts. Taking care of your immune system,
your endocrine system, and your neurological system have the biggest positive
impact in preventing overtraining. Getting an adequate amount of sleep, having
a well-balanced diet that includes all the vitamins and minerals required, and creating
adequate recovery strategies with a coach such as pre/post workout nutrition,
contrast baths, hydration, and warm up/cool down techniques are the just some
of the steps you can take. (3)
Back to the bike…
The most important aspect in
learning how to ride a bike always has been, and always will be a good teacher.
For some it was mom and dad, for some it was brother and sister, either way it
was always someone that cared about your well-being… most of the time J . That
coincides identically with training and overtraining; you need to learn how to
train with proper rest and recovery under the supervision of a coach that knows
what they’re doing, and genuinely cares about your well-being around the clock,
not just for the hour you’re in class or at the gym. Sure, you’re going to skid
and crash a few times no matter how good the instructor is, but with your raised
awareness and your coach’s care and supervision I hope you’ll be riding your
bike when you’re 100 years old!
Sources:
1. Simeon P. Cairns. (2013)
Holistic approaches to understanding mechanisms of fatigue in high-intensity
sport. Fatigue: Biomedicine, Health & Behavior 1:3, pages 148-167.
2. Richardson SO, Andersen MB,
Morris T, editors. Overtraining Athletes: Personal Journeys in Sports.Champaign,
Ill, USA: Human Kinetics; 2008.
3. Lehmann M, Foster C, Keul
J. Overtraining in endurance athletes: a brief review. Medicine and
Science in Sports and Exercise. 1993;25(7):854–862.
4. Kreher, Jeffrey B and
Jennifer B Schwartz. “Overtraining syndrome: a practical guide” Sports
health vol. 4,2 (2012): 128-38.
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