Overtraining: What it is, Why it occurs, Symptoms, How to Detect and Avoid

Inability to complete your normal workout

Some people train to failure and that`s fine. But in this case I`m talking about the lack of lifting the weights that are generally up, perform sprints or walks that are normally performed. If you feel increasingly weaker, slower and your resistance is deteriorating despite doing regular exercise, you`re probably training too.

What is Overtraining Syndrome?

There are many hypotheses about what drives this situation, but equally there is some consensus:

Overtraining along with a lack of rest and recovery

Not respect any of these terms may occur that “eventually” we finish paying as inability to perform physical activity due to high fatigue or lack of motivation.

Why Overtraining occur?

Adrenal fatigue

Similarly, adrenal fatigue is another closely related, resulting from this sport “chaos” phenomenon, which occurs due to continued intense training periods, that they affect the adrenal glands. This creates inhibiting stress hormones necessary for regulating the balance of physiological and social functioning.

Fatigue CNS (Central Nervous System)

This is a more complex phenomenon yet. But it has connotations of fragility, complexity and extreme care. Why? For the SNC connects the brain to the rest of the body, basically it … The overtraining can degenerate into CNS fatigue. If this occurs, the neurotransmitter function will be dramatically affected.

CNS symptoms Fatigue

• Decreased performance
• Increased resting heart rate
• Decrease in reflexes
• Irritability
• Loss of motivation
• Decreased sex drive
• mental sluggishness
• Discomfort in any physical effort

Causes of Overtraining

Overtraining

This favors exponentially develop overtraining syndrome, especially if you are inexperienced or are not adapted to high – intensity exercise. As novices, we dosed more because they do not know or have controlled this capability. We must learn to interpret body signals, and although put it on the calendar, if necessary, we rest instead of training.

Exhaustion Nervous System

Given the implication of this concept, you can better understand the theories about its cause, and we apply this interpretation:

In each movement, the brain generates a pilot turn brain activity lights. Flow impulses travel from the brain to the muscles, causing contractile motion. We call this the neurotransmitter way.

After several intense workouts (especially anaerobic),  reflected in decay or throttling path, although the muscles are in shape. Due to the overload principle, we are increasingly stronger, faster, more capable of the activity to which we are accustomed. The endurance athlete will start running faster every week; the strength athlete weights and increase training volume …

Lack of Nutrients

Maintaining a high training volume and intensity, without a corresponding contribution of calories, is synonymous possible to produce an incomplete recovery. Our body needs fuel to perform, devoid be forced to “leave us in reserve”. Also, when training demand the glycolytic pathway, not compensate for the amount of carbohydrates needed will be totally counterproductive. Similarly, do not meet the proteins that are necessary for us, you can produce a lack of amino acids, which are essential for muscle regeneration.

How to detect overtraining?

If you suffer from the following several lists a large number of them …

• Feeling of exhaustion, tiredness, lack of energy
• mild pain, and malaise
• Pain in muscles and joints
• Sharp decrease in performance
• Insomnia
• Headaches
• Decayed immune system (it is more prone to colds, sore throats, …)

• Decrease in the ability to train and intensity applied thereto
• Variants mood changes
• Irritability
• depressive
• Loss of desire to train, doing sports
• Loss of appetite
• substantial increase in the number of lesions

Symptoms of overtraining

Loss of muscle mass

If fat loss is as easy as burning calories by increasing work production, overtraining would not lead to fat accumulation, but that`s not the case.
It is hormones. Sometimes working too much can actually cause loss of muscle mass and fat deposition. The “burning calories” probably done more than ever, but there is a hormonal imbalance between testosterone and cortisol. Too cortisol generally increase insulin resistance and fat accumulation, especially around the abdominal area.

You`re all an anaerobic athlete and you feel restless, excitable and unable to sleep

Anaerobic overtraining increases sympathetic activity at rest.
Symptoms include hyper excitability, anxiety and inability to concentrate (especially in athletic performance), even while at rest or resting. The sleep is disturbed athletes generally anaerobic overtraining, recovery is slowed down and resting heart rate remains high. In short, the body is reacting to a chronically stressful situation by raising stress levels of the sympathetic system.

You`re a real endurance athlete and you feel too tired, weak and useless

Training of excessive force can cause sympathetic overtraining, too much work resistance can cause parasympathetic overtraining, characterized by decreasing testosterone levels, increased levels of cortisol, debilitating fatigue (mental and physical) and an inability to lose body fat.

Pain and / or joint injuries, bone, or muscle

One of the leading causes of injury among athletes is overloading or overuse of a muscle or joint. Repetitive movements that involve the same muscle groups and have a proper rest and recovery, can lead to an overuse injury. Each time the muscles make an effort, injuries and other fibers are produced using the reserved glycogen. Because there are fewer healthy fibers that respond to physical exertion, the chances of injury if the exercise requires the same intensity for less fiber, is superior. The best way to avoid this situation is to exercise different areas depending on the day and effort, and vary the intensity of training.

Weakened immune system

Many factors can compromise your immune system. Changes in diet (especially sugar intake), lack of vitamin D / sunlight, poor sleep habits or mental stress are usual suspects, but overtraining can also affect the immune system. While a moderate day endurance exercise has a beneficial effect on immune responses, more intense and “stressful” exercise, it can have a negative effect though short-lived. A symptom of overtraining may be less resistance to viral infections.

You feel depressed hours and days after a workout

One of the great benefits of exercise is the feeling of well-being after training. Feel your mind clear, you feel energetic, happy and good mood. But what if instead of feeling energetic and enriched after a workout, you feel incomplete and uncomfortable? Exercise raises the overall mood but if you are having a negative effect on your mood, is probably even to get overtraining syndrome.

Being a “Training Addict”

Somewhat related to overtraining syndrome, but on another level, the psychological. Thus, a person may be overtraining for being addicted to training. But how can you really know if I`m obsessed with training? If more of the following points are suffering, it would be very convenient to stop and assess the situation:

• Symptoms of overtraining
• Striving to train, even if you do not feel good
• No sports for fun
• In each workout, need to overcome the previous compulsorily
• Experience stress and anxiety if a train is lost
• Prefer to exercise rather than being with friends
• Thinking of fat if you do not train
• “You can not relax, because it does not burn calories”

This type of behavior triggers such serious situations as diseases such as bulimia, anorexia, and other mental disorders. One of them is called Ortorexia or addiction to sports, besides being strict with food.

When the Sport Stop being Sane …

This is still another disorder, like any disease that involves some “disturbance” in the brain, as these athletes are eager to exercise and train, even without putting limit. Added to this, it conjures up the need to maintain a low weight and fat percentage, and with really exhausted workouts, join restricting calories, thinking that if they do not, they will increase their size will change your body composition, …, and what they do not realize is that it is at serious risk your health.

Their arguments are that for them, the work done is never enough, and you can always do more and more, as they worship their idols, and they think that if they also train over sizing planning, achieve the same performance. Despite injuries and accumulated pain, do not stop training!

In their daily lives they have to deal with:

• Symptoms of overtraining syndrome
• Muscle tension
• Inflammation
• Stress fractures
• Chronic injuries such as tendinitis

They have similar behaviors addicts. The athlete fails to obtain satisfaction through the exercise itself, but it feels need. It is an obligation. While exercise affects subsequent “wellness” in them, it is necessary to practice for a longer time to achieve this feeling. If you can not train, a desire to feel guilty, as if the withdrawal symptoms were.

Fatigue and Overtraining difference between

Another interesting point: we must know differentiate when you are fatigued and when we have a case of overtraining. We`ve all experienced, after a tough session leg, that within the next few hours, a feeling of lack of strength, pain … or after a new activity to which you are not used as a football game, and despite that sport (so you think you`re fit) the next day you wake up like you`ve run a marathon. Well, in these cases, we try a point fatigue, because with a day or so, it will disappear, and will be recovered.

Overtraining is an achievement of “bad habits” where we do not handle any script about the activity we are doing, without paying attention to the signals the body sends us, ignoring until finally, it`s too late …

How to avoid symptoms of overtraining?

Training Schedule

This is the first questionable point and one of the most important when it comes to preventing overtraining syndrome. We must be aware of our abilities, and not wanting to cover beyond what our body leaves us. While it is true that progresses, it is necessary to produce an altered homeostasis by physical stress, this also creates the need to allow your body time to carry out the assimilation of effort, ie, a margin recovery. This is achieved by setting training days and rest or active recovery. All the time to be devoted to rest and recuperation is gained in physical performance capacity and time. Part of any training program leads to develop adaptations which we become stronger and faster. Training time generates the stimulus. During the break our faculties are molded.

Discharge

This concept is more athletic own circle, and may be unknown to other athletes. It is simply  periodic training, dosing strengths, that is, make an intelligent programming and awareness training, to avoid incurring a process of overtraining. In prepare force, which is caused a tremendous impact on the CNS, it is vital to carry this strategy, since it will prevent chronic fatigue, and above all, the assimilative capacity of the coaches and the possibility of improving that so accounts is what we want with our training!

We can take 1 week of discharge every 5-6 weeks of intense training

This week download, we can make lighter activities, for active recreation, such as walking, jogging, or spend more time stretching activities, relaxation, visit the physio … If you get to a state of overtraining, according to the dimension it has taken in your body, it can last days, weeks or even months. So, occasionally take a week of discharge, or merely a rest period, it can be assumed to be in the “dry dock” a lot longer than you can wish for

Sleep

This is a factor that everyone should pay a lot of importance, mainly because when we sleep is when we rest our bodies, and allow it to operate the machinery to begin the reconstruction and regeneration of the system. Looking strength training, sleep phase allows restoring functions through the endocrine system. In this phase the release of certain hormones takes place, such as: growth hormone, testosterone, …

When we sleep, our body repairs all that stress that has been caused during the hours that remain awake. We can see the phase of waking and catabolism, while during the resting phase occurs anabolism

And if there were doubts: when anabolism “exceeds” catabolism, there is muscle growth, ie there is a negative nitrogen balance. Otherwise causes muscle breakdown. Therefore, increasing anabolism, ie, break time, the catabolism ratio to come down, and this will mean a faster recovery, increased growth, and above all, improved physical performance.

The restriction of sleep affects on our body dramatically altering certain amount of hormones important for the development and recovery:

• Cortisol  is released much more. This hormone, which is necessary, but with an “overage” will catabolic connotations, since it is known as the “stress hormone”. If their long in our body, signs occur very contrary to our desires: accumulation of fat in the abdominal area, degradation of muscle tissue for energy processes …; sleep deprivation causes the body to secrete more of cortisol.
• Testosterone  levels fall. The higher these testosterone levels, greater muscle gains. Lack of sleep impacts the decrease in testosterone levels.
• Growth hormone is limited production. During the phase of sleep, the body experiences large segregations of this hormone, which helps build muscle and maintenance. Therefore, limiting your recovery time, you are limiting your ability to secrete more growth hormone.
• Insulin:  the body`s ability to absorb nutrients is reduced to the cells. Less sleep translates into higher levels of insulin resistance, which forces the body to have to secrete much more insulin to compensate, and this in turn enables the extra fat storage, diabetes, heart attack risk … From Similarly, the ability of the cells to be reciprocal for nutrient absorption is drastically worsened.

Make sure that “you are consuming” the amount of sleep that your body needs, in favor of avoiding all these counterproductive to your muscle development factors, athletic performance, and especially health. A step further, important also the quality of sleep!

Nutrition

You know how many calories are needed? Do you know how much protein you should take daily? Still you do not know how much fat eating? The importance of carbohydrates ? Go over each of these points can compensate or adjust values allow you thought they were good but really were not enough.

supplements

When the above we have corrected, we can value add some kind of supplement to help us to contribute nutrients and micro nutrients.

• Protein: facilitates complete the daily requirements.
• Carbohydrates  can use them during workouts intense for rapid assimilation of glucose and maintain the level of intensity. They can be taken with minerals and electrolytes to improve hydration.
• Omega 3 essential fatty acids: they are essential nutrients that meet important physiological tasks in the body, and have benefits for health.

How to Treat Overtraining Syndrome

If you suspect you`re overtraining your body, you must:

• Rest and recuperate: r educe or stop the exercise and give your body few days off.
• Hydrated :  drink plenty fluids and alter your diet if necessary.
• Sports massage : This can help relax mentally and physically.
• Varying your workout routines : exercises different areas depending on the day and effort, and vary the intensity of training.
• Stretching before training :  this is a tried and tested system that prevents injury.
• Eat more protein :  intake of one gram of protein per kilogram of body weight is a great idea because protein helps muscles recover and rebuild during rest periods.
• Meet your caloric needs – not eating enough calories will lead to a variety of ailments that exaggerate the symptoms of overtraining.
• Rest a full month  at least once a year, in the most severe cases

Overtraining and Athletes

Having explained the above, you can emerge a question: do athletes do not overtrain? While it is true that in the face of any preparation or competition, like the Olympics, a professional athlete devotes a large amount of hours a day to train. Therein the previous question arises.

And why athletes can train so many hours and those strengths?  We in our sport planning not serve nor do we compare ourselves with them, because if they are there is for some reason. Among these, genetics, full – time, coaches, doctors …, there is a whole dump them environment, and we, humbly, we must deal with what we have, and even though we got to idolize these people better be smarter and dosing our activity.

Train with Head

By the Principle of Individual Differences, in which it is established that as each person is “unique” each experience a different behavior in response to a training program. These differences include:  genetics, physical condition and state how, experience, injury, sex, … are variables that determine the subject, and lead to propitiate the possible state of overtrain.

While an  athlete more experienced, he is able to tolerate a high volume of training and intensity, one that begins just be adjusted according to their own abilities, and go progressively forward, to be able to “digest” the train itself, since their nervous system still assumes such demand activity.

Play sports to stay fit and get health benefits, maintain a correct and healthy eating, and try to respect the breaks.