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Planning to Avoid Overtraining

Over-training refers to the physical, psychological and emotional state that occurs when the training comprises loads and intensities that exceed the recovery capacity of the athlete, resulting in a decline in fitness and performance.

Coaches who fail to balance appropriate training loads with adequate recovery, and fail to effectively monitor their athletes’ adaptation to the training program, run the risk of causing chronic over- training, resulting in poor performance and a loss of training enjoyment.

Coaches also need to understand how different forms of training, such as speed, skill, aerobic and strength training, have varying impacts on the athlete and require a range of recovery times. For example, high-intensity anaerobic training, such as sprinting, strength training and power training, can place significant stress on the musculoskeletal and central nervous systems, and generally requires 48 to 72 hours between sessions in order to recover. In contrast, aerobic training – while demanding on the cardiovascular system – has minimal impact on the central nervous system, and generally requires only 24 hours’ recovery.

It is the role of the coach to quantify the impact of the various forms of training on the athlete’s ability to adapt and recover, and the coach can apply appropriate training loads and provide the necessary recovery time in order to allow the super-compensation process to take place.

Amount and intensity of training

Coaches need to be able to quantify the impact that training load and intensity have on the athlete, in order to avoid the negative impact that chronic over-training can have on training and competition enjoyment, desire and performance. By monitoring training loads, coaches are able to apply appropriate training loads and effectively plan training, resulting in better training and competition performance, and general enjoyment of the sport.

Example of monitoring training loads for athletes

Many modern coaches adopt a method called rate of perceived exertion (RPE). RPE was devised to monitor the training load for many forms of training such as speed, strength, power endurance and skill training. RPE’s methods of monitoring training loads are being adopted by many AFL, soccer, Rugby Union, Rugby League and individual sport athletes in Australia today.

Determining RPEs for a session

Players rate the difficulty of a session from 1 to 10: 1 = very, very easy, 5 = hard and 10 = maximal. The player’s RPE is multiplied by the length of the session in minutes. For example, an RPE of 5 × 60 minutes = a load of 300. Players’ training loads are recorded for each session of the week.

All players’ weekly training loads are monitored, along with muscle soreness, fatigue levels and sleep quality. This information is used to apply/adjust training loads for the week. Training loads will vary significantly between professional and amateur athletes. Professional athletes perform significantly more training and experience considerably higher workloads compared with amateur athletes, so the management of training loads and recovery is a necessity for professional-level coaches.

Physiological considerations

In looking at the physiological considerations around overtraining and how to plan to avoid it you should focus on two (2) areas, which cause lethargy and increase the risk of injury. The two areas are the muscles and nutrition.

The key focus for avoiding overtraining is to understand how it is caused at the muscular level. Every high intensity training session causes minor injuries to muscle cells. These are usually micro-tears (often felt as delayed onset muscle soreness or DOMS), and they require time to heal. These micro-tears usually stimulate much of the physiological adaptations that occur from training, but if they have not fully recovered before the next training session the small “injuries” are re-injured and become larger. The longer this goes on the larger the injury and this can lead to other injuries.

This physiological consideration will also lead to lethargy in the athlete as the constant low level pain wears the athlete out. In addition to this, the small tears also cause muscular weakness, decreasing performance and strength. As these build up over time, the muscles become constantly weak, making normal activities draining on the athlete.

The other physiological consideration is nutrition. In recovery one of the most important considerations is nutrition. High intensity training sessions, or long or frequent training sessions deplete the body of nutrients. This can be as simple as a depletion of carbohydrates needed for exercise. But high intensity frequent training also requires larger amounts of protein for recovery and adaptation. If the body does not get this, then adaptation and recover do not occur. This leads to further feelings of lethargy as there is not enough energy in the body to maintain the training schedule and complete daily activities. This leaves the athlete feeling tired even during normal life activities, let alone at training.

These are just two of the many physiological considerations around overtraining. For HSC PDHPE it is important to know that these physiological considerations cause lethargy and lead to injury.

Coaches need to be aware of a variety of physiological signs of over-training, including:

• a drop in performance

• chronic muscle soreness

• difficulty sleeping

• persistent fatigue and a feeling of lethargy (constantly feeling tired)

• rapid weight loss

• body fat loss

• frequent colds and infections

• increased incidence of injury

• increased resting heart rate

• loss of muscular strength, speed and power

• loss of aerobic capacity

• delayed recovery

• early onset of fatigue

• inability to complete workouts

• lower testosterone levels in males

• infrequent menstruation cycles in females

Psychological Considerations

In addition to physiological considerations, in avoiding over-training coaches must be aware of various psychological signs of overtraining, including:

• a loss of training and competition enjoyment, motivation and drive

• feelings of depression

• a loss of enthusiasm, desire and drive

• frequent mood disturbances

• feeling irritable

• loss of appetite.

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