Overtraining is more frequent than we usually think. When we are not able to measure or analyze how much we train, we run the risk of going through the amount or intensity of training and falling into overtraining.

Although no one is free to overtrain, it is common for athletes who are obsessed with training to fall into excesses. When you are in that “to have” spiral you train more to get better, that obsession may lead you to not identify the symptoms of overtraining.

What is overtraining?

Colloquially we can say that the overtraining is an excess of training that takes to the organism to excessive and chronic fatigue. Technically we define overtraining as excessive stress due to training that exceeds the body’s ability to recover and adapt to training loads, entering a state of catabolism that exceeds anabolism.

An athlete may experience various fatigue states due to training. In order to detect overtraining, it is necessary to differentiate between acute fatigue after intense training and chronic fatigue, which is constant over several days or weeks and leads to a marked decrease in athletic performance.

What are the symptoms of overtraining?

The worst thing about overtraining is that your symptoms appear when it is too late, let’s say there is no advance notice. Although there are symptoms that are not so easy to identify, others are very clear and can give us to understand that something is not going well and that we are just going through the training. As general symptoms when we are overtraining we have …

• Loss of appetite and body weight.
• Frequent headaches.
• Sleep disorders.
• High resting heart rate.
• High blood pressure.
• Increased frequency of infections.
• Loss of strength and coordination.
• Inflammation and muscle aches.
• Significant reduction in sports performance.
• Feeling fatigued throughout the day.

As we say, it is not always easy to identify these symptoms and, sometimes, the athlete overlooks pensanso that is something transient or sporadic. The first thing we have to notice is that there is a clear decrease in sports performance : we are not able to train at intensities or volumes that we could before or, in competitions, the results do not come close to what was used get.

So far we have only talked about physical symptoms, but there are also emotional symptoms. Emotional stress that can lead to training : fear of failure, anxiety for competition or self-demand, can also contribute to overtraining. In these cases, there may be a loss of interest in competing and training, which, coupled with the physical symptoms we have seen, make the performance of the athlete even more affected.

How to treat overtraining?

When overtraining is already in place, the best way to treat it is with a reduction in volume and intensity of training or, if overtraining is very pronounced, to do absolute rest . How long? it will depend on the athlete and the symptoms he has but normally one or two weeks of absolute rest can make everything calm again.

Obviously, when there are some very clear symptoms and the health of the sportsman can be affected, nothing better than to go to the doctor to treat the picture of overtraining.

How to prevent overtraining?

You have to be very careful with the times of recovery and rest. Also, good nutrition and hydration are also ways to prevent overtraining. Keep in mind that excessive and prolonged stress is what leads to overtraining and rest and feeding are ways to recover from that stress.

Undoubtedly, the most important factor to prevent overtraining is a good periodization of training, planning well the volumes and intensities. Cycle workouts, which alternate intense periods with light periods, can be a way to alleviate that stress that causes overtraining.

And, on a day to day basis, every workout or intense week should be followed by a workout or lighter download week. If one day I train intensely, food and rest should be taken care of even more.

CONCLUSIONS

• The best way to avoid overtraining is to plan well the workouts: volume, intensity and rest periods. Along with adequate food.
• A clear decrease in performance, increased heart rate, difficulty sleeping or chronic fatigue are symptoms that we are overtraining.
• Active or total rest is the only way to recover from an overtraining scenario. But if the fatigue is excessive, we must go to the doctor to avoid greater evils.