Overtraining: Staleness Syndrome
- UMass PT
- Apr 8, 2019
- 1 min read
The original concept of training once per day and then recovering among athletes has become as outdated style of training. Athletes as young as 14 years old are commonly being worked out by high school sports programs twice a day or more. These training sessions include early morning lifts, before classes, followed by 2-3 hours of practice following the end of the academic school day.
This volume of training can be sustainable if recovery is done properly yet, most schools programs are running their students into the ground and then not enforcing the importance of diet and sleep afterwards, to ensure their athletes do not "burn out".
This sudden burn out in athletes of all ages, can be referred to as overtraining or staleness syndrome. When a young athlete is overtrained their Physiological, psychological, biochemical and immunological symptoms are all negatively effected. Overtraining can holt an athletes recovery process for up to 72 hours, which is bad for the athlete and teams performance.
What can we do to help this?
Coaches and athletes can be properly educated on the concept of, "rating of perceived exertion" or RPE. RPE is a unit of measure to ensure an athletes recovery and energy output is calculated and tracked in order to deter athletes from overtraining, keeping them practicing and in the game for longer periods of time. By understanding RPE, coaches and players can better understand how to keep themselves healthier, so they will be more effective when game time rolls around.
source:
University of Massachusetts Amherst
161 Commonwealth Avenue, University of Massachusetts Amherst, MA 01003
UMass Campus Recreation
By,
Rory McMahon
UMass Personal Trainer/ Programming Assistant
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