So you’ve been extremely consistent with your workouts these past weeks. You’ve even gone to the gym on your days off to do some abs or light cardio. You were motivated, making terrific progress, and feeling great. Then you started dreading your training sessions. Of course you went to the gym, but your workouts seemed to take forever to get through. Your volume, intensity, and load decreased. You started waking up in the middle of the night, and even had difficulty getting to sleep. Everyone says you are irritable and you admit that you do feel lousy. What happened to you? This is a typical case scenario of someone who is overtrained. You never thought that it could be possible to exercise too much, did you? Your philosophy was always, “If a little is good, then more is better.” Learn how that philosophy can harm rather than help you in your quest for peak health. This article describes overtraining and offers some solutions and prevention for this very common problem.

We’re Under So Much Stress
For any positive physical change to take place in a person, whether it be body composition or performance improvement, the body must be put under some degree of stress. Unfortunately, we can’t sit on the couch with the remote control in our hand and expect to lose weight, gain muscle, or run faster. However, where some degree of stress on the body is good and promotes positive changes, an overload of stress will cause a cascade of detrimental effects. Stress is considered both the positive and negative forces that can disrupt the body’s equilibrium [1]. Hans Selye proposed the General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS) to describe what happens when the body is under stress [2]. When the stressor is introduced, the body goes into an alarm stage and prepares for action. The body then tries to resist the stressor and adapt. If the stress is continuous and the body fails to adapt, exhaustion results and eventually, cell death. This is what happens when extreme exercise stress leads to overtraining.

What is Overtraining?
Overtraining can be described as an increase in training volume and/or intensity that results in long term (several weeks, months, or longer) performance decrements [3] or plateaus [4]. Accompanied with this decrease or plateau in performance is severe fatigue, immune system deficits, mood disturbance, physical complaints, sleep difficulties, and reduced appetite [5]. Overtraining has also been called burnout, staleness, and chronic fatigue. It is the body’s failure to tolerate or adapt to a training program. Although research cannot pinpoint exactly how overtraining takes place, the current theory involves the neuroendocrine system and the regulation of hormones and neurotransmitters [3]. Where overtraining is a negative result of pushing the body past previous physiological limits, overreaching is a beneficial aspect of a training program. Overreaching or supercompensation cycling is a planned period of increasing the training load that lasts for a few days or weeks [6]. It may originally decrease performance, but with proper rest and nutrition, it will result in higher gains. Remember that the body must be challenged in order for change to take place, but there is a delicate balance between challenging the body and defeating the body that must be determined for progress to continue. Overreaching on a continual basis without adequate recovery leads to overtraining.

Consequences of Overtraining
It is well known that strenuous exercise causes muscle damage. The more intense the training, the greater the muscular breakdown [7]. It stands to reason then, that high intensity training will require longer recovery periods than low intensity training. When high intensity training sessions are frequent and close together, the recovery sessions should provide a balance for adequate muscle repair. If this doesn’t occur, the muscle continually breaks down. This muscular damage stimulates the immune response in the body for repair. When the immune system is constantly stimulated by intense exercise, it doesn’t have time to recover either. This leads to immunosuppression and the increased possibility for illness and infection. Muscle damage also impairs adequate nutrition in the muscle [8]. Additionally, the muscular tissue breakdown also leads to pain, which in turn affects strength output and performance. All of these factors can lead to mood disturbances.

Prevention is the Best Treatment
As with all problems, hindsight is 20/20 vision. Prevention is always the best tool we have to decrease injuries and illness. You can avoid overtraining with a carefully planned out exercise program. Tudor Bompa, PhD, has authored several books on the topic of periodization. Bompa says that a high level of performance can only result from years of a well-planned system of hard training [6]. This is the basis of periodization. Dividing your training into separate segments that focus on variations of volume, intensity, and load, and frequently changing the exercises and routine is the best way to avoid overtraining and plateaus. In addition, try keeping training and meal diaries, and maybe even a personal thought diary [9]. You may be able to see overtraining trends develop and stop them before they proceed. Set goals, but avoid unrealistic expectations. Accept the occasional plateau and fatigue as your body’s warning system. It is true that for body composition and performance changes you have to train hard, but you also have to rest and recover hard. Realize that resting is as integral part of exercise as the exercise itself. Make sure that your exercise program is balanced and fun.

References
1. Arnheim, D.D. and W.E. Prentice, Principles of Athletic Training. 9th ed. 1997, St. Louis: McGraw-Hill. 246-262.
2. Selye, H., The evolution of the stress concept. Amer Scientist, 1973. 61: p. 692-699.
3. Fry, A.C. and W.J. Kraemer, Resistance exercise overtraining and overreaching. Neuroendocrine responses. Sports Med, 1997. 23(2): p. 106-129.
4. Stone, M.H., et al., Overtraining: A review of the signs, symptoms, and possible causes. Journal of Applied Sport Science Research, 1991. 5(1): p. 35-50.
5. Fry, R.W., et al., Psychological and immunological correlates of acute overtraining. Br J Sports Med, 1994. 28(4): p. 241-246.
6. Bompa, T.O., Periodization: Theory and Methodology of Training. 4th ed. 1999, Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.
7. Kentta, G. and P. Hassmen, Overtraining and recovery. A conceptual model. Sports Med, 1998. 26(1): p. 1-16.
8. Costill, D.L., D.D. Pascoe, and W.J. Fink, Impaired muscle glycogen resynthesis after eccentric exercise. Journal of Applied Physiology, 1990. 69: p. 46-50.
9. Eichner, E.R., Overtraining: consequences and prevention. J Sports Sci, 1995. 13 Spec No: p. S41-48.