Overtraining is extremely common. As a coach for cross country and track and field, I see a lot of instances where my athletes are constantly fighting the effects of overtraining. I do my best to control the workouts so they do not over-train, but they often put themselves in situations where they do over-train because they do way more than what I assign them because they are kids with lives outside of practice. However, even collegiate or professional athletes over-train because there is this need to overachieve.
In a recent article on another blog, I wrote about how I am pushing my limits for my own training because I have a martial arts test and I can't afford to take things slow, if I can manage to speed up my training. We are often pushed by our own goals because we have visions of our own success, so we train harder. However, can we train smarter? We have to if we want to minimize the consequences of training at intense levels.
Younger athletes can over-train more and recover in time to train. Older athletes, like myself, need time to recover if we over-train. It is an age-old dilemma that needs to be handled. The key is recovery, but how and why do we do it to ourselves? Over-training is obvious, right? In the quest to push our limits for limitless reasons, over-training is unavoidable. We have to use our minds to tell our bodies to take time off, so the recovery can happen, but even that does not always prevent the injuries that come with this problem.
How do we prevent overtraining?
There are many things that you can do to prevent overtraining. I like to prioritize ideas and create routines, so my information and habits are organized. I will give you my top five things I do to prevent overtraining. Hopefully some of these things will be useful to you.
1. Be in tune with your body. When I say that, I mean listen to what it is telling you. Understand what is normal, use experience to understand what different feelings and conditions are that come up, and recognize when old injuries start to resurface. Experience is the best guide. as a coach, I have learned that I try to teach my athletes what I have learned from experience, so they do not have to suffer as much from over-training as I did when I was younger. I used to over-train a lot. I did not recover as well as I would have liked and just pushed through when I should have been resting.
2. Know when to rest. rest is key to recovery. More athletes need to recognize this. It helps to have a good coach and medical team that can advise on proper rest and recovery. I say medical team because sometimes small and nagging injuries become big ones because we ignore the need to see a doctor. If you seek the right advice, they will give you the information you need. Resting is part of physical training. However, your mind can still be active. You can study parts of what you train so you can improve. In the case of martial arts, you can analyze strategy, techniques, movements, etc. so you can improve your mental acuity within what you are doing, so when your body is ready you can be even better. The same is true for any sport.
3. Proper nutrition is key. Eat right. It is that simple. Bad food equals bad recovery. Good food equals good recovery. I could go into a lot of science about it, but that is a topic for another article. Just do your research and learn how to cook decently so you can eat good food. Chips, twinkies, and cookies, will not aid in you becoming a better athlete. I am not saying you cannot indulge yourself once in awhile. That is not my point at all. Just don't make all your meals a fast food special, if you know what I mean.
4. Sleep. Sleep is different from rest. Sleep is what you do at night, and you should get 7 or more hours at least as an adult. Sleep for kids is even more. Do not fudge on this. This is key to recovery. I know if you are a working adult that tries to balance life, work, etc. then it is tough. Do your best and seek advice if you are not getting the sleep you need, or make an effort to change your schedule so you can get sleep. When you are lacking sleep it is a prime condition for a potential injury or just skipping training.
5. Recognize you do not need to move mountains or break records every time you train. Your routine of training is one step at a time, and so is progress. You don't break records every time you step out onto the field or the floor. It is an accumulation of experience and knowledge over time. This will go a long way to preventing you from overtraining so you do not miss the next training session because of pointless injuries.
There is no magic equation that makes training better or more effective. Steady and even progress over time is the most effective way to do it. When that is done, you minimize possibilities of over-training. Remember, when you are hurt, you are forced to take more time off than you would otherwise, so have a plan and be methodical. It is the best way to to train in the long run.
No comments:
Post a Comment