Overtraining your body can yield counterproductive results

By Richard Seven
The Seattle Times

You’re prepping for an event. Or trying to burn calories to unearth long-hidden abs or wedge into a smaller pant size. Or you’re striving for some personal record, so there is more meaning to your exercise regimen.

So you push it, of course. You work out often, long and hard. But how hard? What’s enough? What’s too much? At what point do you cross the line so all that training is more than your body can handle?

The concept of overtraining strikes some as counterintuitive, especially those of us with personalities that embrace the full-bore-is-best way. But throughout the fitness world, working smarter has replaced working harder. It is better to be undertrained for an event than overtrained.

Overtraining syndrome essentially is what we used to call burnout. It is when your body hits that invisible but real wall, where it is no longer capable of handling all you are putting it through.

The most common symptom is lingering fatigue, both during and after workouts. It can make you moody, irritable, sleepless and depressed. It can even cause you to lose enthusiasm for your sport. Some will lose appetite and weight. Some feel persistent muscular soreness or get more susceptible to illnesses and injuries.

What your body needs most in times like these, say experts, is what you’ve deprived it of: rest.

Rest is actually where the muscles and lungs that you’ve taxed begin to develop and strengthen, said Dr. Robert Schoene, who co-authored a report on overtraining when he worked at the University of Washington School of Medicine. His message: If you don’t adequately rest, you miss critical regeneration.

“Medically,” Schoene said, “the normal balance in the interaction between the autonomic nervous system and the hormonal system is disturbed, and athletic ‘jet lag’ results. The body now has a decreased ability to repair itself during rest. Heaping more workouts onto this unbalanced system only worsens the situation.”

Considerable evidence, according to his report, shows that reduced training (same intensity, lower volume) for up to three weeks will not decrease performance. A well-planned training program involves as much art as science, and should allow for flexibility.

Dogged athletes sometimes discount how their work and home lives factor into training. The authors of “Training Techniques for Cyclists” (Bicycling magazine, $9.95) say overtraining can sneak up on you. Your training itself may not be out of line, but it may be too much if you’re living a stressful, busy life. You have to determine whether that ride you’re squeezing in is a stress reducer or just another stressor.

Different athletes present different pictures of overtraining, and it’s not always easy for a coach to know how hard to push. Patty Swedberg, a Seattle coach and competitor, said triathletes are at especially high risk for overtraining by the very nature of trying to excel at three sports.

Swedberg, who operates a training service called Raise The Bar, said the body becomes stronger and more capable with the right training; the effects are just as predictable when too much stress is put on the body. It finds ways, through fatigue, lethargy, illness, pain, to force recovery. “In our passion to become stronger and faster, we instead become sick and weak,” she said. “Ironic.”

Triathletes and other multisport athletes can be tricky to diagnose and help recover. Some experts think that if a triathlete has overdone one aspect of the event, say running, he or she can continue — at a much lighter pace and intensity — the swimming and bicycling and still recover. Doing more of the two other activities while trying to recover is foolish.

Fatigue and soreness are part of training, and you don’t need to overreact, but if they persist, you might want to consult a trainer or even a doctor. It might or might not be overtraining. It might be nothing. It might be something worse. The bottom line is to listen to your body.

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