Common symptoms of nonfunctional overreaching and overtraining
• Exercise not enjoyable
• Reduced capacity for training ( early fatigue )
• Loss of motivation and vigour
• Feelings of depression
• Muscle weakness
• Reduced coordination
• Achy muscles
• Loss of appetite
• Weight loss
• Sleep disturbances
• Irritability
• Inability to focus
• Resting heart rate increased or decreased
• Low heart rate variability
• Blood pressure increased or decreased
• Low energy
• Frequent colds
• Chronic muscle soreness
• Irregular menstrual cycles
• Frequent overuse injuries
• Training feels more difficult
• Performance worsens
THE QUICK READ
• Fatigue - physical or mental - is the inability to maintain a task despite trying to continue
• Fatigue is temporary and reversible , with the ability to perform the task returning within a few minutes or a few hours
• Overtraining refers to physiological maladaptations and performance decrements that can last for days or weeks
• Motivated athletes and clients are often at risk of overtraining because they tend to ignore symptoms of overtraining in their quest for greater fitness and better performance .
Simply put , overtraining occurs when the training stress exceeds the capacity of the athlete ’ s body to recover and adapt
extent of the physical stress . For example , if someone new to exercise begins a strength training program , the total extent of strength gains will depend on the total extent of the training stress . In other words , if the person trains three days each week for six months and lifts progressively heavier weights over that time , that person ’ s strength gains will be greater than that of someone who trains just once each week and does not have much of an increase in training resistance . The overall stress of training is vastly different , so it is no surprise that the overall extent of adaptations will be different .
An obvious indicator of overall stress is the presence or absence of fatigue as a training stimulus . Not the kind of all-day , persistent fatigue that is associated with overtraining , but the periodic fatigue that occurs within training sessions . And not within every training session , but perhaps two times each week for someone training six days per week . Each time you fatigue - whether it ’ s an individual muscle group during strength training or the entire body during endurance training - muscle cells are exposed to hundreds of intracellular signals that result in increased protein production over the next days . Those proteins can be the contractile proteins required for increasing strength and mass , the mitochondrial proteins needed for greater endurance , or the structural proteins used to make muscles and connective tissues more resistant to injury .
Fatigue during exercise maximises adaptive responses because periodic fatigue maximises the intracellular signals required to promote those responses . However , fatigue that occurs too often sets the stage for overtraining . Adaptations take time , which is why successful coaches understand that they cannot push their athletes hard every day ; reducing training stress for a day or two after a particularly intense workout allows time for adaptations ( and repair ) to occur , enabling athletes to gradually and progressively increase the training stress . Ample rest , sleep , hydration , and nutrition are also required for optimal adaptations .
Dr Bob Murray & Dr W Larry Kenney Dr Murray is a prolific author and the former director of the Gatorade Sports Science Institute . He has contributed an enormous amount of research and education to the world of sports and exercise science . Dr Kenney is the primary author of one of the most read and highly regarded textbooks on exercise physiology , Physiology of Sport & Exercise , used by virtually every university student studying this area .
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