Everywhere we turn we are inundated with the utopian ideal of the human form. There is a standard portrayed by the media, which we are all unfairly measured against. Prowess on the athletic field, coupled with the lure of substantial compensations, drive many to begin training at a very young age.

The emotional demands of competition, the desire to win, a fear of failure, unrealistically high goals, and other’s expectations all help to fuel our drive to train. But how much training is appropriate?

A person’s rate of adaptation to training is limited and cannot be forced beyond his or her body’s capacity for development. Unfortunately each individual responds differently to the same training stress, so what might be excessive training for one person might be well below the capacity of another. For this reason, it is important that individual differences be recognized and accounted for when designing Training Programs.

Although the volume of work performed in training is an important stimulus for physical conditioning, it can be overdone, leading to problems of chronic fatigue, illness, overtraining syndrome, or performance decrements.

In contrast, proper rest and reductions in the training volume can enhance performance.

We will examine how the quantity of training can affect your performance, beginning with what happens when the maximum required training is exceeded, moving to the varying intensities of training, to overtraining syndrome and it’s underlying causes. We'll delve into predicting overtraining, and finally end with the treatment and prevention for overtraining.

All well designed training programs incorporate the principle of progressive overload. In general, this principle holds that to maximize the benefits of training, the training stimulus must be progressively increased as the body adapts to current stimulus¹.

Our bodies respond to training by adapting to the stress of the training stimulus. The only way to continue to improve with training is to progressively increase the training stimulus, or stress. So how does training hard turn into excessive training?

Excessive training refers to the training in which the volume, the intensity, or both are increased too quickly, without proper progression. Training with too high a volume or intensity, produces no additional improvement in conditioning or performance and can lead to a chronic state of fatigue that is associated with muscle glycogen depletion.

Research shows that training 3 to 4 hours per day, 5 or 6 days each week, provides no greater benefits than when training is limited to only 1 to 1.5 hours per day².

In addition such excessive training has been shown to significantly decrease muscle strength. Therefore, trainers and trainees should make sure that their programs are periodized and slowly progressive.

Finally, the concept of training specificity implies that several hours of daily training will not provide the adaptations needed for athletes who participate in events of short duration. So, if the training volume, and intensity are implemented with a steady progression, specific to that sport, then what should be the intensity of training?

The level of training intensity relates to both the force of muscle action and the stress placed on the cardiovascular system. With regard to muscle action, intensity is highest when the muscles exert maximal tension.

Training intensity can determine the specific adaptations that occur in response to the training stimulus. High-intensity, low-volume training can be tolerated only for brief periods. Although it does increase muscle strength, aerobic capacity will not be improved. Conversely, low-intensity, high-volume training stresses the oxygen transport and oxidative metabolism systems, causing grater gains in aerobic capacity.

Attempts to perform large amounts of high-intensity training, or trying to imitate the training programs of elite athletes, can have negative effects on adaptation. The energy needs of high-intensity exercise place greater demands on the glycolytic system, rapidly depleting muscle glycogen. If such training is attempted too often, such as daily, the muscles can become chronically depleted of their energy reserves and the person might demonstrate signs of chronic fatigue or overtraining.

Many athletes are obsessed with training. Some attempt to do more work than they can physically tolerate, in an attempt to measure up to the media’s portrayal of beauty, or the demands of their sport. This is called overtraining . The stress of excessive training can exceed the body’s ability to recover and adapt, which results in more catabolism (breakdown) than anabolism (buildup).

Once again, athletes’ experience varied levels of fatigue during repeated days and weeks of training, so not all situations can be classified as overtraining. Fatigue that often follows one or more exhaustive training sessions is usually corrected by a few days of rest coupled with a carbohydrate rich diet.

Overtraining on the other hand is characterized by a sudden decline in performance that cannot be remedied by a few days of rest and dietary manipulation.

Unfortunately, most of the symptoms that result from overtraining, are subjective and identifiable only after the individual’s performance has suffered.

The first indication of overtraining is a decline in physical performance. The athlete can sense a loss in muscle strength, coordination, and maximal working capacity.

Other symptoms include: decreased appetite and body weight loss; muscle tenderness; head colds, allergic reactions or both; occasional nausea, sleep disturbances; elevated resting heart rate and; elevated blood pressure³.

The underlying causes of overtraining are a combination of emotional and physiological factors. Hans Selyes noted that a person’s stress tolerance could break down as often from sudden increase in anxiety as from an increase in physical stress.

Training physically is not the only drain on a body. The emotional demands of competition, the desire to win, fear of failure, fear of rejection, unrealistically high goals, and other’s expectations can be sources of intolerable emotional stress.

Overtraining is also associated with alterations in the neurological and hormonal systems. Some studies suggest that overtraining is associated with abnormal responses in the autonomic nervous system. Physiological symptoms accompanying the decline in performance often reflect changes in the neural systems that are controlled by either the parasympathetic or the sympathetic nervous systems.

Sympathetic overtraining can lead to: increased resting heart rate, increased blood pressure, loss of appetite, decreased body mass, sleep disturbances, emotional instability, and elevated basal metabolic rate.

Parasympathetic overtraining signs include: early onset of fatigue, decreased resting heart rate, rapid heart rate recovery after exercise, and decreased resting blood pressure.

Of the two conditions, symptoms of sympathetic overtraining are the most frequently observed Nilson et al. Have proposed that young athletes are more prone to the symptoms of sympathetic overtraining, while older athletes are more likely to show signs of parasympathetic overtraining⁴.

The body’s hormonal responses are also altered as a result of overtraining. The ratio of testosterone to cortisol is thought to regulate anabolic processes in recovery, so a change in this ratio is an important indicator, and perhaps the cause, of overtraining⁵.

A decrease in testosterone coupled with increased cortisol might lead to more protein catabolism than anabolism in the cells. Overtrained athletes often have higher blood levels of urea, and because urea is produced by the breakdown of protein this indicates increased protein catabolism. This mechanism is thought to be responsible for the loss in the body mass seen in the overtrained athletes.

Unfortunately there are no preliminary symptoms that warn athletes that they are on the verge of becoming overtrained. By the time it is realized it is too late.

The best predictors of overtraining syndrome appear to be heart rate, oxygen uptake, and blood lactate responses to a standardized bout of work. Performance decrements are also good indicators.

The best way to minimize the risk of overtraining is to follow cyclic training procedures , alternating easy, moderate, and hard periods of training: also known as periodization.

As a general rule, 1 or 2 days of intense training should be followed by an equal number of easy aerobic training days. Repeated days of hard training cause a gradual reduction of muscle glycogen. The body has the ability to store 500 grams of glycogen, 400 are in muscle glycogen, 95 in liver glycogen and 5 grams in blood borne glucose. Unless these athletes consume extra carbohydrates during these periods, their muscle and liver glycogen reserves can be depleted.

As a consequence, the most heavily recruited muscle fibers would not be able to generate the energy needed for exercise. Keeping a journal of your daily training programs and charting your sets, repetitions, exercises, rest between sets, and most importantly, your target heart rate during particular lifts, can help you analyze your progression.

If all these factors are constant, then adjust your carbohydrate intake to an extra 360 calories per day. The extra 360 calories would add up to an additional 2500 calories a week, which corresponds to the calories needed to gain a pound in muscle.

If you continue to lose muscle mass, analyze all the emotional stress in your life to identify any possible contributing factors. Allow for adequate periods of sleep a night; men need 8 hours a night and women need 7 hours a night.

Above all, use the emotional demands of competition, your desire to win, realistic goals, and support from loved ones to help you train. A consistent program that is periodized and progressive will always yield the best gains. Adjust your programs and keep training.

"What lies before us, and what lies behind us, are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." Ralph Waldo Emerson.

If you have any questions or suggestions for future articles, please feel free to e-mail me, Patrick Gamboa B.S., at patrick@issaonline.com or call me at (805)884-8111 ext 135.

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3. Wilmore, J.H., &Costill, D.L., (1994) Optimizing Performance in Sport, Physiology of Sport and Exercise , 13, 304.
   
   
4. Nilson, K., Schoene, R.B., Robertson, H.T., Escorou, P., & Smith, N.J., (1981). The effect of iron repletion on exercise-induced lactate production in minimally iron deficient subjects. Medicine and Science in Sports and Ecercise , 13, 92.
   
   
5. Kuipers, H., & Keizer, H.A., (1988). Overtraining in elite athletes: Review and Directions for the future. Sports Medicine, 6 79-92.