Overtraining and recovery

Learning objectives

• To understand the various recovery strategies available for overtrained individuals and the evidence behind the strategies. Will also be taking a look at the importance of nutrition on recovery and prevention.

• Look at ways athletes/players can self monitor their training along with their coaches in an attempt to improve recovery and training balance.

Recovery Strategies

Once an athlete or player has been correctly diagnosed as overtrained, the first priority as a coach is to make them take a 2 week rest break.

They should not compete in any sports or exercise during this 2 week period.

Following the 2 week break if there is no improvement In symptoms or performance, more long term recovery strategies need to be looked at as followed.

Rest and sleep

One of the most obvious and efficient ways of aiding in recovery is through passive rest and sleep.Athletes are recommended of having at least one full day of passive rest a week, studies have found that those who don’t rest enough, especially during bouts of intensive training are closely linked to becoming overtrained (Bruin, Kuipers and A. Keizer, 1994).A rest day will also allow the player/athlete to have a “time out” period away from the sport and training, it may encourage them to take up another hobby or interest which will help reduce stress and mental issues.

Sleep is obviously very important to recovery so make sure athletes/players are getting enough. Once again this can be recorded as part of your observations and also will help you identify any changes in sleep pattern which may indicate an overtrained state (TAYLOR, ROGERS and DRIVER, 1997).

(Meeusen et al., 2013)

Active rest

As you may well have experienced, athletes and players are always reluctant to rest and therefore telling an individual to take 2 weeks complete rest may not sit well with them.

This is where the idea of active rest comes in, it also believed active rest can actually help improve recovery (Marion, 1995).

(Budgett, 1994) recommends an individual exercises aerobically at a pulse rate of 120-140 beats per minute for five to ten minutes daily. And slowly build this up over a 6-12 week period.

The time it takes for athlete to recover and improve will be dependant on the person. But the main idea is to build up slowly and therefore avoid the cycle of returning to hard training to soon whilst still being partly rested and therefore initiating an overtrained state once again.

Athletes/players are encouraged to cross train as by playing a new sport they will be less inclined to increase volume to quickly like they would in their usual sport of choice.

Need to positively encourage individuals and help them build up volume slowly to around an hour a day. Once at this level more intensive training can be used which will be above the onset of blood lactate accumulation (Snyder et al., 1993).

Short 10s or less sprints are allowed, as long as they are followed with 5 minutes of rest and allow some forms of hard training to take place during the active rest period. (Budgett, 1994)

Relaxation and Emotional support

A few studies have shown that mental training might help prevent and improve the effect of OTS, due to its ability to increase recovery capacity and stress tolerance (Veale, 1991).

The use of relaxation techniques such as massages, saunas and flotation tanks are all recommended as proactive recovery strategies, and they have good results (Marion, 1995)

Regeneration techniques have also been used , these are very popular in Eastern European countries. They involve the removal of all nontraining stressors e.g. occupational, educational and financial. Additionally the recovery techniques already talked about are also incorporated into the athletes routine with good success.

Best to sit down and talk to your athlete or player and decide which option is best.(Budgett, 1994)

Nutrition

Nutrition

OTS is brought on by high-intensity training with limited recovery. It is believed that the fatigue and underperformance associated with overtraining is partly down to a decrease in glycogen levels.

Glycogen depletion results in higher circulating levels of catecholamine's, cortisol and glucagon in response to exercise while insulin levels are low. (Budgett, 1994)

Repeated hard training and carbohydrate depletion are directly linked to OTS, so it is tempting to think that carbohydrate supplementation may help prevent the onset of OTS (SNYDER, 1998).

A study to test this was conducted: A group of runners who ran 16-21km on a daily basis for seven days and treated all these runs as races found performance dropped greatly when consuming 5.5g/kg bodyweight of carbohydrates per day.

They also began showing many of the symptoms associated with overtraining, however when carb intake was increased to 8.5g/kg bodyweight, drop in performance was much smaller and symptoms reduced considerably. (Achten, 2004)

Another study by (Halson, Lancaster, Achten, Gleeson, & Jeukendrup, 2004) was conducted on trained cyclists. They were instructed to perform 8 days of intense exercise training (normal training volume doubled).

The training was performed twice with a 2 week break of recovery between each. One time the athletes consumed a low carb diet totalling 6.4g/kg bodyweight and the second time a much higher carb intake diet of 9.4g/kg.

The intense training induced overreaching as expected and this was seen by a decrease in performance (time to fatigue ~74% of aerobic capacity)

However the decrease in performance was a lot smaller following the high carb diet intake. Suggesting a high carb intake may help reduce the effects of overtraining and overreaching.

Recovery was also much improved when the high carb diet was consumed, with performance still below the baseline following the 2 week rest on the low carb diet but increased performance was seen in the high carb diet following 2 weeks rest.

Improved mood state was also witnessed In the form of a POMS questionnaire following the high carb diet.

Therefore you need to make sure athletes and players are hitting their nutritional requirements. Carb intake and total caloric intake must be high enough to compensate for heavy training periods to prevent an individual from slipping into a negative energy balance and thus increasing risk of overtraining.

Protein should also remain high as there has been evidence to suggest that not enough protein can also increase the risk of OTS manifesting (Kingsbury, Kay and Hjelm, 1998).

Example diet

Monitoring training and adequate recovery

Coaches like yourselves and your athlete/players need to devise a way of monitoring training and recovery to prevent OTS manifesting.

It must be something which is quick and can be done daily and also any variables in the data should be easily recognised.

By recording training and recovery , an individual is able to better balance the two.

RPE Model

The RPE model or rate perceived exertion model is one of the best in terms of recording how hard an athlete feels they have worked during training.

Studies have shown that the RPE model is one of the most accurate in accessing the intensity of an exercise and also athletes were able to reproduce similar results in time. This tells us that it is a reliable and valid method of self monitoring and therefore recommended to use (MORGAN, 1994), .

As you can see the model is very simple and easy to use. The athlete just needs to give themselves a rating on how they perceived the workout.

The TQR Model

Please have a read through the TQR model handout.

The TQR model is important as it makes coaches and athletes/players recognise the importance of recovery. And by having to rate their recovery each day it makes them more self aware of it and therefore recovery improves.

The TQR ratings should be matched to RPE ratings, for example a high RPE score indicated a hard training session, therefore a high TQR score should be recorded to show adequate recovery was provided.

Summary

Hopefully have an understand of the various recovery methods available and how best to implement each.

Should also understand the importance of nutrition on recovery and how to monitor training and recovery in a simple yet effective way.

Any questions please ask me or feel free to send them in as a tweet #CFUUPS15