Overtraining

“Everyone wants to be the best!” How true is this statement? Very true, and if it wasn’t then I probably would not have a job. In athletics there is such a constant battle within ones self to constantly be improving. So what is the result of this battle? Constant training and practice to become the best athlete possible.
Training is good, I love to train and also to train others, but what it comes down to is that it may be the time that we are not training that has the most effect on our athletic ability. Those hours in the day when you are at school, home, or just hanging out with your friends can be very valuable to your success as an athlete. All of this combined with your athletic training adds up and will have an effect on your ability, and this can be positive or negative.
In my opinion, and I am sure that some would argue, but I think that it is near impossible to overtrain. I think that the problem actually occurs from under recovering. Our bodies are amazing machines that are capable of withstanding harsh treatment. Look at the Navy Seals who go through “Hell Week.” Their bodies are put through an amazing amount of stress and are able to adapt and recover. The key to this is the amount of recovery that you allow yourself after a training session.
Ok so you get the point, your body needs rest, but how do you know when and how much? For most people, that are not elite level athletes, a week is sufficient for recovery. Some will get the needed recovery from what I call “active rest.” Active rest is great right after a season also. What is Active Rest? It is activity that is substantially less than your normal activity levels. For example if you are used to playing basketball everyday of the week and lifting 3 times a week and you want to take active recovery an option would be playing racquetball 3 times a week. This will allow your body to heal from the stress of your sport but you are still able to be active.
If you are in the off season and all you are doing is weight training, you need to think about deload weeks. A deload week allows the body and your central nervous system to recover from the stress of strength training. This should occur at least every 4-8 weeks depending on the athlete and their training age. Now this rest time doesn’t need to be a complete break in the action. Some options that I have used in the past are to have my athletes perform their core exercises the same as normal and drop all supplemental and accessory work. The opposite can also work, drop the core exercises and keep the supplemental and accessory. If you test your athletes strength gains this is a perfect week to do it. Again, like everything it depends on the athlete and their specific situation.
Let me stress that deload weeks and active rest are not to be used as excuses to get out of doing some real training, they are serious tools that can help you become a better athlete. In some cases where the athletes don’t have the proper guidance or even poor guidance this could make the difference between a injury and a successful season.