The universal symptoms of OTS are performance decline and persistent fatigue. These are present in every case. There is a long list of other symptoms that are present in many but not all cases. These include depression, irritability, loss of motivation, insomnia, and changes in resting heart rate. Because there is no single symptom that can be used to make a definitive diagnosis of OTS, it is notoriously difficult to diagnose.
Here are 7 symptoms of overtraining taken from an article on http://www.builtlean.com/
Overtraining Symptom #1: Lack of Motivation
Lost all drive and motivation to train, or really perform any physical activity? Your body is telling you that you need to rest and recover because you are doing too much.
Overtraining Symptom #2: You Feel Especially Sore Following a Big Workout
Highly dependent on nutrition, if you’re eating enough while training hard but still feel intense soreness after your workouts, there is a chance overtraining has set in. Different than the usual soreness from training, it will linger for a few extra days and might be a little more painful.
As most newbies often do too much too fast, overtraining is common in beginners. Remember the first time you trained your arms and you couldn’t wash your hair for a week? Or how about the first time you did legs and dreaded walking up stairs for a week?
Lost all drive and motivation to train, or really perform any physical activity? Your body is telling you that you need to rest and recover because you are doing too much.
Overtraining Symptom #2: You Feel Especially Sore Following a Big Workout
Highly dependent on nutrition, if you’re eating enough while training hard but still feel intense soreness after your workouts, there is a chance overtraining has set in. Different than the usual soreness from training, it will linger for a few extra days and might be a little more painful.
As most newbies often do too much too fast, overtraining is common in beginners. Remember the first time you trained your arms and you couldn’t wash your hair for a week? Or how about the first time you did legs and dreaded walking up stairs for a week?
Overtraining Symptom #3: You Stop Seeing Results
Believe it or not, working out too much can actually cause you to lose muscle and gain fat! If it was as simple as energy balance (burning more than you consume) then the more you train the better. The problem is that hormones play a large role in the equation.
Overtraining causes your body to produce inadequate amounts of testosterone (bad for the ladies too) while producing higher levels of cortisol. The problem for both men and women is that your body increases both insulin resistance and fat deposition. We are training to get strong and lean, right?
Overtraining Symptom #4: You Become Restless and Lose Focus
(I experienced this one big time)
Typically found in strength or power athletes or those who train with high intensity intervals, what happens is your sympathetic nervous system goes into overdrive, causing hyperexcitability, restlessness, and inability to focus.
This restlessness makes it even harder to recover as I can’t stress enough how important sleep is for recovery and consistent gains.
Typically found in strength or power athletes or those who train with high intensity intervals, what happens is your sympathetic nervous system goes into overdrive, causing hyperexcitability, restlessness, and inability to focus.
This restlessness makes it even harder to recover as I can’t stress enough how important sleep is for recovery and consistent gains.
Overtraining Symptom #5: You Feel Sluggish All Day
Another effect of overtraining the sympathetic nervous system, this often happens with endurance athletes. Again, the result of decreased testosterone and increased cortisol levels, in some cases causes debilitating fatigue that feels like you’ve come down with a cold.
I typically recommend intense workouts of shorter duration due to the effects of long duration endurance training. Just because you are physically able to run 10 or more miles each week doesn’t mean that you have to.
Overtraining Symptom #6: Chronic Soreness in Your Joints, Bones and Limbs
Post workout soreness in the form of DOMS (delayed onset muscle fatigue) is normal, but if you experience intense and prolonged soreness, you may have done too much. Basically, if it feels like you got run over by a bus, you should cut back on your volume or intensity.
Overtraining Symptom #7: You’re Sick More Often
Very often caused by a combination of things such as lack of sleep, poor diet, not enough activity and mental stress, if you think you are on point with all of these things and still find yourself getting ill, it may be due to overtraining.
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I certainly experienced the insomnia aspect. And the fatigue. Though I'm feeling fatigue now, but I know that is from crap food, poor sleep and stress. Who ever called it vacation must not have had children.
If sufficient rest is not included in a training program then regeneration cannot occur and performance plateaus. If this imbalance between excess training and inadequate rest persists then performance will decline. Overtraining can best be defined as the state where the athlete has been repeatedly stressed by training to the point where rest is no longer adequate to allow for recovery. The "overtraining syndrome" is the name given to the collection of emotional, behavioral, and physical symptoms due to overtraining that has persisted for weeks to months. Athletes and coaches also know it as "burnout" or "staleness." This is different from the day to day variation in performance and post exercise tiredness that is common in conditioned athletes. Overtraining is marked by cumulative exhaustion that persists even after recovery periods.
Getting myself to the gym seemed to be getting harder and harder. Or I should say, being productive there was becoming harder and harder. I simply didn't have the drive to do much on some days and my body was so tired that I was lifting less instead of more. Not terribly productive. And something I'm currently changing. I don't want to lose the motivation and I don't want my time to be counterproductive. Personally I didn't think I was doing enough for it to be an issue, but my body tells me differently. As did my time in the gym yesterday. I not only felt stronger, I was stronger.
I'm thinking about trying something like this. Though I do a 15 minute "cardio" warm up every day I go. Though this type of schedule would be ideal for me as I generally don't make it to the gym on Saturdays.
I'm thinking about trying something like this. Though I do a 15 minute "cardio" warm up every day I go. Though this type of schedule would be ideal for me as I generally don't make it to the gym on Saturdays.
Day 1: Weights
Day 2: Weights & cardio
Day 3: Cardio only
Day 4: Weights & cardio
Day 5: Weights & cardio
Day 6: Weights
Day 7: Full rest
I need to work in more pool time, up the cardio, work on more stretching and core exercises and try to not burn myself out again. There are (apparently) two important factors in preventing overtraining and burnout. Allow for adequate recovery time in between exercise sessions and ensure variety in your exercises, and training techniques. I've really been ignoring both of those. I tend to find a routine I like and stick with it. I need to change that up. What can I say, it's an ongoing experiment and I'm learning as I go.
Sources:
- http://running.competitor.com/2013/09/training/what-is-overtraining_32897
- http://www.rice.edu/~jenky/sports/overtraining.html
- Top 7 Overtraining Symptoms by Stephen Bergeron, CSCS, CPT | June 5, 2012 | Updated: February 9, 2013
- http://www.muscleforlife.com/8-signs-of-overtraining/
- http://www.active.com/health/articles/what-is-overtraining
- http://www.mensfitness.com/training/build-muscle/12-signs-youre-overtraining
- http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/rswan6.htm
- http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/topicoftheweek87.htm
- http://www.mensfitness.com/training/build-muscle/7-ways-to-avoid-overtraining-forever?page=2
- http://running.competitor.com/2014/07/training/four-tactics-for-avoiding-overtraining_20055
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