{"id":27595,"date":"2020-07-21T10:40:40","date_gmt":"2020-07-21T10:40:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/workcarewellness.co.za\/healthwise\/overtraining-is-a-real-thing\/"},"modified":"2020-10-26T16:08:36","modified_gmt":"2020-10-26T14:08:36","slug":"overtraining-is-a-real-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/workcarewellness.co.za\/healthwise\/overtraining-is-a-real-thing\/","title":{"rendered":"Overtraining is a real thing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The main wellness message around activity and exercise is invariably “do some” or “do more”. And that’s fair enough, given that more than half of us are inactive \/ sedentary. Exercise and activity is one of the cornerstones of healthy balanced living and we are not shy to encourage it. But what about overtraining?<\/p>\n

What is overtraining?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is what it says it is. Doing too much exercise for your own good. Training too hard, for too long, or too often. Overtraining can cause:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Reduced performance – slower times, feeling of struggling, halt in progress.<\/li>\n
  • Fatigue – during training and in general.<\/li>\n
  • Injuries – there are several classical overtraining injuries (e.g. shin splints, ITB,) but almost any injury is more likely if you overtrain.<\/li>\n
  • Muscle soreness – generalised or localised muscle ache (without a specific injury as such).<\/li>\n
  • Infections – overtrained athletes become more prone to infections like colds, flu, gastroenteritis, etc.<\/li>\n
  • Irritability – this can lead to burnout and even depression.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    It has been estimated that at least 10% of competitive athletes are overtraining at any one time. Overtraining as a term is usually reserved for active folks, but it could be argued that the new-exerciser is also at risk of overtraining (even more so because they are inactive to begin with) if they take on too much too soon.<\/p>\n

    What to do?<\/strong><\/p>\n

    There are really two approaches to this:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Prevention<\/strong> – build up your exercise regime gradually (e.g. no more than 5% increase per week) and monitor how you feel so that you “nip it in the bud” if you sense some fatigue, dulled performance, loss of enthusiasm, pain, etc. As a rough guide most healthy adults can aim to gradually build up to 4-5 hours of exercise per week – overtraining is uncommon at this level, but becomes more common beyond this.<\/li>\n
    2. Treatment<\/strong> – rest! If you think you may be overtraining we recommend a few days (sometimes more) of complete rest and then a resumption of exercise at perhaps 50% – 75% of previous levels. This varies greatly (especially if there are injuries or muscle soreness) and so seeking the advice of a personal trainer or biokineticist would be ideal here.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Most regular exercisers will have a fairly good sense of the optimum level they can train at, so the trick is really just avoiding the temptation to “do (too much) more”.<\/p>\n

      \n

      Overtraining is a very real thing that all exercisers should be aware of. The prevention and treatment approaches are mostly simple common-sense so the trick is just knowing how real this is.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>

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