THE JOB OF dedicated coaches is to motivate, teach and encourage their players to achieve the most from their ability. Many coaches, as well as motivated athletes, are unaware that working too hard can sabotage an athlete’s progress.
Some players reach a point in which their performance stagnates or even decreases. The typical reaction in this scenario is for the athlete to spend even more hours training in order to correct the drop in performance. In addition, the coach asks more of the athlete and the player ends up putting in extra hours in hopes of achieving better performance.
As the days and weeks go by, the player’s performance keeps getting worse and finally the athlete does not enjoy the sport anymore. Eventually, the person quits the game that he once loved. Although this is a bleak scenario, it happens all too often due to a lack of understanding with respect to training and overtraining.
What Is Overtraining?
Scientific reference to overtraining notes that exhaustion after exercise is one of three kinds.
1. Acute Exhaustion. Marked by breathlessness, from which recovery is rapid.
2. Muscular System Fatigue. This requires one or two days of rest to recover.
3. Chronic Fatigue. Exhaustion which slowly poisons the nervous system, from which recovery is prolonged and could last for weeks or months.
Overtraining Symptoms
There has been a research crusade to fully understand and analyze the overtraining syndrome. In reference to overtraining, the most important job of a coach is to continually monitor an athlete’s, mood, performance, weight, etc. Once an athlete is mildly overtrained, he or she can’t function at optimum levels.
Some typical symptoms of overtraining include:
Increased fatigue. Recurrent headaches.
Diarrhea. Weight loss.
Lack of appetite. Sexual disinterest.
Low motivation. Increase in colds and flu.
Respiratory problems. Irregular sleeping habits.
Swelling of lymph glands. Allergies that worsen.
Monitoring Training
Good coaches possess the ability to distinguish between generalized fatigue, which is an essential part of proper training, and the slightly increased amount of fatigue that indicates too much training.
A good method of monitoring training is to watch the athlete’s level of fatigue and resistance to the stress while running — not against a stopwatch — but on the basis of the level of effort required to produce that performance and on the athlete’s rate of recovery after the time trial. Once an athlete has to run harder to achieve the same time, overtraining has occurred.
An example would be when an athlete runs a mile. The coach should monitor the time, but more importantly the amount of time it takes the athlete’s heart rate to return to an acceptable level.
A program design should entail testing the athlete before preseason when the athlete is most rested, then again at 3- to 4-week intervals throughout the season.
It should take your player a similar amount of time to reduce his or her heart rate from its elevated level to an arbitrary number (such as 90 beats per minute). If it takes more than 10 to 15 seconds longer than during the preseason test, then your athlete is most likely overtraining.
Other Overtraining Indicators
Other clues for overtraining are a drop in the athlete’s afternoon post-workout body weight, an increased fluid intake in the evening and the time when a player goes to bed. Contrary to what one may think, players who are overtraining go to bed later than normal, but wake up either at the same time or earlier than normal, resulting in fewer hours of sleep (another indicator of overtraining).
Another overtraining indicator that’s commonly used by thousands of athletes and coaches today is the early morning or “wake-up” pulse rate. Although the waking pulse is predominantly used today by most coaches, probably due to the ease of use, it’s not the most accurate way of monitoring an athlete’s susceptibility to overtraining.
There’s A Time For Rest
Overtraining is a serious problem for all motivated athletes because the normal reaction to poor performance is to train harder and longer. The usual reason that athletes do not perform up to their prior form is usually linked to pushing themselves beyond their limits.
The coach must monitor players’ situations very carefully and protect them from reaching an overtrained state. Once an athlete has reached an overtrained state, the only acceptable cure is complete rest from the activity.
A motivated athlete never welcomes this cure, but if the athlete’s body reaches the overtrained state, then there’s no other option.