Does Over-Training Exist?

It’s completely normal to feel tired, lethargic and drained from time to time when you’re partaking in a hard training program.

Athletes experience this all the time, particularly between the midpoint and end of a competitive season. This is why you always see injury rates pick up about halfway through the in-season. It’s the same for bodybuilders too. Lifting weights places a stress on your body, particularly your muscles, joints and nervous system.

Mix weight training, cardio, competition and the stresses and angst of everyday life, and you can end up in quite a state. Sore joints, injuries sprains and strains, colds, lethargy and irritability are all key signs that you may be overdoing it.

When this happens to you, you almost always jump to the conclusion of overtraining.

It’s an easy assumption to make. Overtraining is an industry buzzword, and seems to be used as an excuse for many top competitors as to why their performance is suffering, or by the coaches looking for a reason why their team may not be performing.

But is this really overtraining, or is everyone just looking for that excuse?

What is Overtraining?

First up, it’s crucial to understand that overtraining is a serious issue. True overtraining can last months, if not a year or more. Overtraining represents a long term imbalance between stress and recovery.

You don’t become overtraining from just one workout, and the if you hear anyone say that their grueling sprint session or lower body max effort workout left them overtrained, you know they’re not telling the entire truth!

The same goes for a week. Even the hardest training week of your life won’t cause overtraining. Sure, you may not feel too great training 20 or 30 hours in a week, and if you’re not a pro athlete, there’s really no need for this. Even if you do decide to throw caution to the wind and virtually move into the gym for seven days, the chances of truly overtraining are still non-existent.

Overtraining in two weeks? Nope. In actual fact, a planned two week period of training at an increased frequency, volume and intensity, to the point where performance suffers can actually make you fitter and stronger in the long run, provided you implement proper recovery strategies.

Once you get to a month, you’re starting to get into overtraining territory. And at two to three months, you can now start contemplating overtraining as a potential.

To put all of this into perspective and show how difficult it really is to achieve a true state of overtraining, take a look at weightlifters, particularly those from the former Soviet Block countries and the Chinese. While both of these nations have long been at the top of the sport, they’re renowned for their intense training programs.

Routines often involve lifting twice a day, for two to three hours at a time, six days per week and with loads close to single repetition maximums. They train the same basic lifts day in, day out – front squats, back squats, snatches, cleans and jerks. Yet despite this, while they may feel run down from time to time, they excel when it comes to competing. If they were overtrained, this would absolutely not be the case.

What Is True Overtraining?

Now you see how difficult it is to achieve a fully overtrained state, consider what true overtraining might be.

First thing’s first, your average recreational exerciser who does half an hour on the elliptical a few times per week, maybe bench presses once or twice and occasionally follows a routine haphazardly for a few months at a time will never be overtrained.

If you’re a slightly more serious gym goer, it’s possible that you’ll achieve a state known as over reaching.

Over reaching is a very mild form of overtraining. It’s what was mentioned earlier in this article, regarding the planned few weeks of intense programming, designed to induce extreme fatigue and lethargy. For a few weeks you may feel pretty disheveled, your lifts will go down, you may pick up the odd injuries and you’ll experience joint and muscle soreness, but this will pass soon enough. Once you’re back on top form and rested up, this accumulation will actually lead to better performance, as your body adapts to such an extreme demand.

This is, of course, reliant on you taking the necessary steps to recover, such as eating enough calories and nutrients, maintaining your mobility and postural work, sleeping well and getting treatments such as sports massages or ice baths.

If you don’t recover well though, this is when you can start to look at overtraining.

True overtraining would involve a sustained period of over reaching, or perhaps several planned over reaching cycles performed back to back. Without adequate recovery, this will start to take its toll, particularly on your nervous system.

Even this may not be enough for full overtraining though. True overtraining usually requires a combination of stresses, and training alone may not provide this. You need to have other demands placed on you, such as stress at work or at home, a particularly nasty injury (which could result from prolonged over reaching,) an illness or a weakening of your immune system.

Once all these factors are in place, and stay in your life for several months, then you’re a candidate for overtraining.

This is certainly not a place where anyone, athlete or not, wants to be.

Recovery from Overtaining

It takes a long time to become overtrained, and will probably take you just as long to undo the damage again.

Rest up by taking a complete break from training – that means no competitions, no games, no lifting, no cardio, not even a body weight squat or pushup. Save all your energy for recovery.

You should also aim to relax as much as possible. Get rid of all your internal stresses and try to manage your external ones as best as you can. Speak with your boss, spouse or friends – whoever is a main cause of stress and see if you can come to a resolution to help you chill a little more.

Finally, realize that you’re not superhuman. Everyone needs a break from time to time, and as horrid as overtraining is, it might help you slow down and stay healthier in the future.