Overtraining
Earlier this week one of my former athletes emailed me a link to an article about overtraining, and I found myself thinking, hm, this is pretty interesting. Although the article focused more on people in the general population who hire personal trainers to guide their exercise plan, the article seemed quite relevant to track and field athletes. I found myself easily able to apply the points made in the article to the training of sprinters and hurdlers in track.
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The title of the article my former athlete sent me is “Overtraining: Undermining Success,” written in 2007 by Len Kravitz, Ph.D, an exercise scientist at the University of New Mexico. The basic premise of Kravitz’ article is that there is such a thing as overtraining, and that it can affect athletes physiologically and psychologically, and can also compromise an athlete’s immune system.
The most common cause of what Kravitz refers to as overtraining syndrome (OTS) is going too hard for too many consecutive days without a break and without any “light” days. Because of mantras such as “no pain no gain,” “go hard or go home,” and the belief among many athletes that they will fall behind their competitors if they take days off, the tendency to overtrain – even if the coach is not pushing the athlete to do so – is growing increasingly common. Many athletes, if they feel they are not being trained hard enough by their coach, will supplement their training by fitting in extra workouts on their own – sometimes alone or with teammates, sometimes under the supervision of another coach. Some athletes will similarly squeeze in extra weight training sessions. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to get better, and all coaches love those athletes who are willing to go the extra mile in order to do so. But there comes a point where hard work doesn’t pay off, when it can actually backfire.
In my coaching of athletes, I always plan for one day a week to be a day off from training. Usually that day will be Sunday. But sometimes it’ll be Friday if we have a big meet on Saturday. Or that Friday will just be a “shake-out” day consisting of a warm-up and light drills. Days off are important because they give the athlete a chance to get away from the mental stress of training every day, and they also give the body a chance to rest before the next big race of the upcoming week of workouts. The reason I usually make Monday the day for the hardest workout of the week is because I know the athletes will have relatively fresh legs from having taken Sunday off. In that sense, a day off is not a break from the training program, but part of the training program. If you don’t take the day off, you don’t have the chance to mentally and physically recharge, so the whole following week is a grind, and just making it through becomes the goal.
Professional 110 hurdler Hector Cotto – whom I have coached and who I consult with often – argues that four-week cycles are the best way to go about training so as to avoid burnout, with the fourth week of every cycle being a test week. The test week consists of two days (Tuesday and Thursday, let’s say) of testing – usually consisting of one full-speed rep of a chosen distance, and of maxing out on a particular lift in the weight room – and the rest of the days are either off days or light days. The testing week serves not only as a chance to evaluate how training has been going up to this point, but it also gives the body a chance to recover from the previous three weeks of intense training. According to Cotto, there are mental health benefits as well.
“I could honestly test every 5th or 6th week,” Cotto says, “but then I’d risk overtraining, because I’m not sure what’s the exact number of days that I can maintain that high level of intensity. I like the 4th week because I find it nearly impossible in three weeks, and the 4th week provides a de-load also provides some excitement and reminds me that track is enjoyable.”
As a professional athlete, Cotto feels that the test week is absolutely indispensable because it allows you to push your body to the limits, knowing that a reprieve is forthcoming. “Overtraining is a very real thing,” he says. I’ve experienced it a few times. One year we literally trained every single day. We hurdled and then lifted weights. After six or seven weeks my body usually taps out if the intensity is not brought down, and it wasn’t, so I literally felt burnt out. My muscles weren’t sore – it’s not like I couldn’t do the work – but inside I felt I was just off, and had no intensity. I came to learn it was my nervous system that was tired, and we had to take a week very easy to get my body back to where it was.”
And what is burnout exactly? Kravitz defines it as “the term used to describe a lack of motivation or dissatisfaction in an activity that was previously enjoyed.” Kravitz adds that professional trainers (or coaches, for our purposes) can help athletes avoid burnout (and OTS) by including variety in the workouts. Cotto concurs, saying that many college athletes experience burnout not because of the intensity of the workouts, but because they do the same workouts over and over again for weeks.
Coaches also need to avoid asking their athletes to meet unreasonable expectations. For example, an athlete who is expected to run a set of 400’s in 52 seconds might be able to hit the times, but will have to run at 95% of full speed to do so. That may be okay for one workout a week, but to be expected to run at 95% of full speed every day will lead to physical breakdowns (injuries) and mental breakdowns (anxiety, low self-esteem).
But of course, it’s not always coaches who are the problem. Sometimes athletes push themselves too hard, or give themselves unreasonable expectations. Athletes need to make sure they’re getting a proper amount of sleep every night, that they are meeting all their nutritional needs. Kravitz points out that athletes will often under-eat out of fear of gaining weight, but that they need to fuel up sufficiently if they’re going to meet the demands of each day’s workout. Athletes who push themselves beyond their limits, who think of sleep as a luxury, who feel guilty about eating full meals, are prone to a variety of effects, including unwanted weight loss, susceptibility to illness, headaches, abdominal/gastrointestinal pain, general apathy, fear of competition, and in females, a disruption of the menstrual cycle (Kravitz).
For hurdlers, overtraining can come in the form of hurdling too often. While this is a problem that most hurdlers don’t face, it can be very real for those who do. The strain that hurdling puts on the hamstrings, the calves, the shins, the hip flexors, the groin, the lower back, and just about every muscle in the body, is rather severe. The body cannot withstand that type of impact on a daily basis, and it will break down. Mentally, hurdling can feel like a chore if you hurdle day, so you don’t really get better even though you’re hurdling all the time. I think it’s best to have two full-blown hurdling workouts per week, to maybe work in some drills as part of a warm-up or cool-down on other days, and, for 300/400m hurdlers, to perhaps put some hurdles in their lane for running workouts.
So what’s the moral of the story? To put it simply, maintain a balance. Overtraining, and burnout, are results of “too much” and “not enough.” Too much training, training too hard, too much hurdling. Not enough rest, not enough recovery days, not enough sleep, not enough food. The key for all coaches, and all athletes, is to strike that balance between pushing yourself and challenging yourself, but to also listen to the body when it’s telling you that it needs some time to restore and recharge.
Citations:
Interview with Hector Cotto, February 12, 2014
Kravitz, Len, Ph.D. & Paige Kinucan. “Overtraining: Undermining Success?” ACSM’s Health & Fitness Journal. 11(4). 8-12. 2007. Web.
http://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article%20folder/overtraining4.html
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