SIGNS
OF OVER-TRAINING
Steve
Daisey MPT, CSCS
While the heart
may be in the right place many times with resistance or aerobic
training, the body may not be up for the challenge. The result is
over-training - a concept that is often over-looked because of the
inherent misconception by most people that they just aren't exercising
enough!
There are two
areas you can fall into with regard to over-training: over-training
a muscle group and over-training the entire body. In either case,
a number of physiological changes take place that you may not be
aware of.
For instance,
with over-training, the hormone testosterone begins to decrease
while the stress hormone known as cortisol increases. Cortisol is
a hormone which actually inhibits protein synthesis. In other words,
chronic high levels of cortisol will begin to break down muscle
tissue (1,2).
Since it's unlikely
you are drawing your blood daily and measuring your levels of cortisol
or testosterone, you need to know the signs and symptoms of over-training.
Signs
and symptoms of overtraining:
| Unusual
fatigue or a feeling of staleness |
| Muscles
may be unusually sore |
| A
falloff in performance despite increased training |
| Decrease
in lean body mass when not dieting |
| Increased
resting HR |
| Increased
resting diastolic BP |
| Sleep
disturbances |
| Decreased
appetite |
| The
desire to train may disappear |
| More
frequent cold or virus infections may occur |
| Emotional
changes may also be noticed |
| Increased
anxiety, tension, depression or anger |
| Joy
in other activities may also dissipate |
| Difficulty
focusing and in making decisions may also occur |
| Bowel
changes may be noted - diarhhea or constipation may occur |
The situation
of over-training individual muscles is extremely common. Many weight-lifters
have difficulty getting beyond plateaus because of this, and may
actually experience nagging injuries such as tendonitis in the forearms
and shoulders.
For instance,
because the bench press heavily involves the deltoid and triceps
muscles, you would be much more likely to over-train if you split
your routine in such a way that you are training the chest on one
day, and the arms the next. The best way to handle this is to put
at least one day between your upper body days. The same would go
for the lower body as well.
The symptoms
of over-training the body resemble a disorder called chronic fatigue
syndrome. In this case, actual physiological changes take place
that can disturb the body's resting state. This can affect not only
the body, but the mind as well.
Listen to your
body. If you are experiencing any of the above signs and symptoms
regularly, you need to rest. This is a difficult concept to come
to terms with for many exercise fanatics, but rest above all else
is the key to healing an over-trained body and mind. Once rested
sufficiently so that symptoms no longer exist, your program needs
to be analyzed and re-worked in such a way as to avoid over-training
in the future.
REFERENCES
1. Florini,
JR: Hormonal control of muscle growth. Muscle Nerve 1987, 10:577-98.
2. MacDougall J: Morphological changes in human skeletal muscle
following strength training and immobilization. In Human Muscle
Power; Jones NL, McCartney N, McComas AJ, eds. Champaign, IL: Human
Kinetics. 1986: 269-284.
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