Climbing out of the Hole

Starting a rest week I thought it would be appropriate to figure out why I was taking one. Well I know the importance of a rest day or recovery week but more importantly I was trying to figure out the mechanisms that were involved that leave me feeling sluggish following a day off. The past block of training I dug myself into a hole. I didnt see China but i came close and its time to climb out. So I decided to dig out my old Exercise Physiology textbook, and visit some pretty neat websites in order to physiologically study and find out just what is happening to my body at every level during a rest day/week. After three hours of reading, the following is what I have put together to help all ahtletes understand overtraining.

10-20% of athletes experience the syndrome of overtraining or "staleness". This is a result of complex interactions among biologic and psychological influences, that cause that athlete to fail to endure and adapt to training to the point that normal exercise performance deteriorates and the athelete can't recover from a given workout.

There are two clinical forms of overtraining:
1. Sympathetic Form- This is characterized by increased sympathetic activity during rest; generally typified by hyperexcitability, restlessness and impaired exercies performance. This form of overtraining may reflect excessive psychologic/emotional stress that accompanies the interaction amoung training, competitions and responsibilities of normal living.

2. Parasympathetic Form- More common and characterized by predominance of vagal activity during rest and exercise. More none as Overeaching during the early stages, this stages is similar to the full-blown parasympathetic overtraining syndrome but of shorter duraction. Overreaching generally results from excessive and protracted overload with inadequate recovery and rest. Initially, maintenance of exercise performance requries greater effort, which eventually leads to performance deterioration in training and racing. Short-Term rest intervention of a few days or up to serveral weeks usually restores full function. Untreated overreaching eventually leads to the over training syndrome.

Overtraining Syndrome represents more than just short-term inability to train. It involves chronic fatigue experienced during exercise and recovery periods.

Some associated symptoms:
sustained poor exercise performance, altered sleep patterns, frequent infections, persistently high fatigue ratings, altered immune and reproductive function, acute and chronic alterations in systemic inflammatory responses, mood disturbances (we all know this one), and a general malaise and loss of interest in high-level training.

There are many possible factors that interact to initiate the parasympathetic-type overtraining syndrome in endurance training. High Volume training can result in interactions amoung chroinc neuromuscular, neuroendocrine, psychologic,immunogic, and metabolic overlad.

Also preexisting medical conditions, poor diet, environmental stress and psychosocial pressures( montonous training, frequent racing) often interact to exacerbate the demands of training and increase the risk of developing overtraining syndrome.

Some major significant effects of overtraining include: Functional impairments in the hypothalamo-pituitary-gonadal and adrenal axes and sympathetic neuroendocrine system as reflected by depressed urinary excretion of norephiephrine. The second major effect is exercise-induced increases in andrenocoticotropic hormone and growth hormone and decreases in cortisol and insulin levels.

In some ways this means the syndrome is the bodies attempt to enforce upon the athlete an appropriate recovery period from the sustained levels of arousal caused by prolonged heavy training.

Some of the most common selected mechanisims of the overtraining sydrome and the consequence of the overload are as follows:
Neuromuscular Overload- Decreased Neuromuscular Function
Symathetic Overload- Decreased B Adrenoreceptors
Metabolic Overload- Glycogen Depletion, Amino Acid imbalance
Psychological Overload- Altered hypothalamic- Pituitary Function
Adrenal Overload- Decreased Cortisol Response

Its hard for an athlete to determine whether they are just overloaded, overreaching, or overtraining, but having a coach that can monitor day to day performance can make a world of difference. Thats why this week i am going to enjoy my recovery week before starting a new block of training. When was the last time you had a day off?