Over Training Part I

A Discussion w/ Kristen Dieffenbach, Ph.D., CC AASP

I have done some research in this area.  Overtraining is very interesting and your information is very much on target.  Keep in mind that terminology here is a very big deal.  Athletes, coaches and researchers use the term overtraining very differently.  Athletes and coaches talk about overtraining when an athlete is physically and/or (usually both) fatigued and performance suffers.  Research often only considers the physiological changes and signs when using the term overtraining.  Overtraining is what athletes and coaches do on purpose to elicit changes and in the short term (2-3 days) it isn't a big deal.  Many of us now try to refer to this as over reaching.  True overtraining and when it begins or when overreaching becomes overtraining is hard to define.  Because medically it cannot be diagnosed until it is a diagnosis of time and exclusion, it has to be often months into it.  But can we see it sooner? And if we catch it after only a week or two is it truly overtraining or is it just someone who was tending towards becoming over trained.  These things are very much up in the air.  

As I mentioned, the review you have is missing the psychological side of the equation in that we often see staleness and mood changes in individuals who are becoming over trained. This is commonly overlooked by the whole medical community actually and in much of the physiological research.  Those of us who look at this have also begun to talk about the problem from a perspective of under recovery as well, a state where the training and the amount of recovery (any combination of physical, nutritional, emotional and/or social) is not adequate to match the stressors and to allow for proper adaptation and growth.  This can often be the root of the problem.   

There is no definite edge where training becomes too much because every individual is a unique being.  When considering the training load an athlete experiences, it cannot be viewed in the vacuum of training alone.  Athletes experience stress from a wide range of sources in their life. All sources of stress, both positive and negative can impact the body (hormone levels changes, the ability to repair tissue, etc.) and all can have a cumulative effect in addition to the actual physical training load.  So for any given athlete in any given moment the exact perfect overreaching equation (just enough training stress to elicit changes without going into the problem of overtraining) is something different. This is where experience, communication, and documentation of training all become very important. Another very critical aspect that we have seen so far is that perceived stress and an athlete's own perception of his or her ability to handle it can play an important role.  You may want to look at the work of German researcher Michael Kellmann (including his book Enhancing Recovery), USOC researcher William Sands, and Swedish researcher Goran Kentta.  All have done a good bit of work in this area.  From an exercise physiology perspective- R.B. Kreider, W.P. Morgan, Larry Armstrong are just a few.  

I do disagree that is over-diagnosed.  I think that people worry about it without truly understanding the issue or what the concerns are and what they really need to be concerned about.  I think that too many people try to look at it as a simple equation of too much or too little training without properly considering the greater context of the situation and without considering the resources and coping skills available to athletes.  

There has been some really good research on burnout and entrapment in youth sport and some limited stuff with overtraining in kids.  What research there is, indicates that young swimmers seem to experience it in similar numbers as their collegiate counterparts but this is based on very limited work.  Burnout, the psychological end result of OT, has been studied more.  Keep in mind that burnout may not result in leaving the sport.  And entrapment is when an athlete stays because they feel they have to even though they are burned out.  Put either term (burnout or entrapment) into a search with youth or adolescent and you will get some great stuff by folks like Gould and Raedeke (I may have spelled his name wrong).  

With junior athletes, my experience has been that burnout and possible physiological overtraining are a common issue when they are over scheduled, pushed to train like adults too soon and when someone else's vision (coach or parent) is driving the train - not the young athletes.  Many parents and coaches make the mistake and take a kid who is physically gifted and try to train them like an adult, without considering the fact that socially/emotionally/psychologically - the kid is not ready for it yet. There is a huge rush to go from beginner to elite without due process.