Sports Doctor: Recognise your limits in training

Oct 20 2011 By Dr David Jenkins

Individuals who are extremely active physically can sometimes cross the line between sufficient training and too much.

Often you may push yourself too hard with overtraining likely to occur when the body doesn't have enough time to recover from the stress of intense activity.

Signs of overtraining can include the following: • You constantly feel tired or listless.

•You cannot make further fitness gains or you actually move backward in your level of fitness.

•You suddenly lose weight.

•Your resting heart rate increases five beats per minute.

• You lose your enthusiasm for exercising.

• You feel irritable, angry, and even depressed.

Treatment for this condition involves scaling back on training or stopping altogether for one to two weeks.

In extreme cases, a month or Burnout.. Prevention beats cure Bur more of rest may be required - especially if injury has occurred.

It can prove very difficult for a person for whom physical activity is a way of life to believe they have overtrained and need rest.

Prevention in the first place, however, is better than cure. To prevent overtraining: Try to recognize when your body has reached its own training limits and allow yourself recovery time. Overtraining isn't just "overdoing it". It is a pattern of overdoing it too many times.

• Follow guidelines for training schedules as they apply to your kind of activity.

• Share your training schedule with others who train at your level or with a specialized coach or trainer and ask them if it looks reasonable.

• If a coach expects you to follow a training schedule that is not realistic for you, talk to your coach about your concerns. Your coach should want your best performance possible and that is not realistic especially if you have been overtraining.