Damages From Overtraining

Overtraining is a serious risk for athletes and people who exercise consistently. It occurs in athletes involved in every sport and physical activity, including endurance sports, like running, swimming and cycling, as well as team and individual sports, such as tennis, soccer and baseball.

Overtraining Defined

Overtraining occurs when you exercise too much. How much is too much depends on the individual, type of exercise and degree of overtraining, but in general overtraining is associated with working out without allowing the body sufficient time to recover.

Types of Overtraining

There are at least three specific kinds of overtraining. Mechanical overtraining occurs when you increase the intensity of your exercise so quickly that it exceeds your body’s ability to safely handle the stresses exercise causes. Metabolic overtraining is slightly different. It occurs when you do not allow your body the necessary time to recoup the substances it burns when exercising. For example, burning through your body’s supply of stored glycogen without following that exercise with time for the body to recover that glycogen is metabolic overtraining. Lastly, there is a condition called overtraining syndrome, in which you exercise so much and so often without allowing the body time to recover that you not only burn through the body’s physical supplies, but also strain your body’s mental elements.

Damages of Overtraining

Over training damage symptoms occur in varying degrees of intensity. Some are quite serious and should be taken seriously. All of them negatively impact your training routine and can cause lengthy injuries. Damages of mechanical overtraining include strained or torn muscles, tendons and ligaments, joint pain, stress fractures, heel spurs and more. Damages of metabolic overtraining consist mostly of fatigue and lethargy earlier in the workout than it usually occurs and the frustration or exasperation that the premature exhaustion can cause. Lastly, damages of overtraining syndrome include the symptoms of the other two types of overtraining plus depression and immunodeficiency

Avoidance of Overtraining

To avoid overtraining, pay special attention to the intensity of your workouts and how much time you allow your body to recover between them. One helpful way to avoid mechanical overtraining is to only increase the intensity of your workouts by no more than 10 percent each week. For example, if you do 100 squats in each exercise session of one week, do not do more than 110 squats in each session the following week. You can avoid the other types of overtraining by similarly limiting yourself. To avoid metabolic overtraining, do not exercise every day, and rotate your exercises to avoid over working any particular muscle set. To avoid overtraining syndrome, change your exercise routine, your exercise routes, and take off days to keep your mental approach fresh and positive.