over trained

erk

Drop the training for a couple of weeks? is rest the only cure to save my cns?

yes.
& it's to save your immune system really.

I did some literature research on this a while back - if you're the type who likes scientific papers i could post the references..? :p:

Reply 2

KdySk8rGirl

I think you should take things easy for a while. See your G.P.

Reply 3

john !!

eat like mad and have some rest

Reply 4

Elles

yes.
& it's to save your immune system really.

I did some literature research on this a while back - if you're the type who likes scientific papers i could post the references..? :p:

you could perhaps sum it up. ^_^

the weirdest thing i've noticed is the lack of appetite, by this time ive usually eaten 5 meals and over 2000 calories, today i've eaten two meals. (the last one i had to force myself to eat)

e-attentionseeker.

:rolleyes:

Reply 5

erk

you could perhaps sum it up. ^_^

hmm, given i'm not actually doing that as my project, i feel a comprehensive literature review would be somewhat time consuming for me.. :wink:

but here are some edited highlights as a starting point.. :p:

J Sports Sci. 2004 Jan;22(1):115-25.
Exercise, nutrition and immune function.
Gleeson M, Nieman DC, Pedersen BK.

Strenuous bouts of prolonged exercise and heavy training are associated with depressed immune cell function. Furthermore, inadequate or inappropriate nutrition can compound the negative influence of heavy exertion on immunocompetence. Dietary deficiencies of protein and specific micronutrients have long been associated with immune dysfunction. An adequate intake of iron, zinc and vitamins A, E, B6 and B12 is particularly important for the maintenance of immune function, but excess intakes of some micronutrients can also impair immune function and have other adverse effects on health. Immune system depression has also been associated with an excess intake of fat. To maintain immune function, athletes should eat a well-balanced diet sufficient to meet their energy requirements. An athlete exercising in a carbohydrate-depleted state experiences larger increases in circulating stress hormones and a greater perturbation of several immune function indices. Conversely, consuming 30-60 g carbohydrate x h(-1) during sustained intensive exercise attenuates rises in stress hormones such as cortisol and appears to limit the degree of exercise-induced immune depression. Convincing evidence that so-called 'immune-boosting' supplements, including high doses of antioxidant vitamins, glutamine, zinc, probiotics and Echinacea, prevent exercise-induced immune impairment is currently lacking.

Exerc Immunol Rev. 2000;6:102-20.
Upper respiratory tract infection in athletes: influence of lifestyle, type of sport, training effort, and immunostimulant intake.
Konig D, Grathwohl D, Weinstock C, Northoff H, Berg A.

Epidemiological evidence suggests that heavy acute or chronic exercise is related to an increased incidence of upper respiratory tract infections in athletes, while moderate exercise is believed to be protective. During the past years, many groups have investigated the association between changes within the immune system and exercise at different intensity levels. Although following strenuous exercise, some immunologic alterations were quite consistent and reproducible, e.g. neutrophilia, lymphopenia, and depression of natural killer cell activity, some findings were divergent or strongly dependent on the study design and athletes investigated. Lately, interesting results in the field of psychoneuroimmunolgy as well as new insights in the relationship between macro- and micronutrient and the immune system have brought up new fields of research interest. There is growing evidence that e.g. lifestyle factors, the coping with daily stress, and dietary behavior are important cofactors in the immune response to exercise. The present work gives a short review on the literature dealing with URTI in athletes with special reference to the above mentioned cofactors. In addition, the results of a recent investigation concerning training and associated lifestyle patterns in German athletes are presented.

Sports Med. 1991 Jul;12(1):32-65.
Overtraining in athletes. An update.
Fry RW, Morton AR, Keast D.

Overtraining appears to be caused by too much high intensity training and/or too little regeneration (recovery) time often combined with other training and nontraining stressors. There are a multitude of symptoms of overtraining, the expression of which vary depending upon the athlete's physical and physiological makeup, type of exercise undertaken and other factors. The aetiology of overtraining may therefore be different in different people suggesting the need to be aware of a wide variety of parameters as markers of overtraining. At present there is no one single diagnostic test that can define overtraining. The recognition of overtraining requires the identification of stress indicators which do not return to baseline following a period of regeneration. Possible indicators include an imbalance of the neuroendocrine system, suppression of the immune system, indicators of muscle damage, depressed muscle glycogen reserves, deteriorating aerobic, ventilatory and cardiac efficiency, a depressed psychological profile, and poor performance in sport specific tests, e.g. time trials. Screening for changes in parameters indicative of overtraining needs to be a routine component of the training programme and must be incorporated into the programme in such a way that the short term fatigue associated with overload training is not confused with the chronic fatigue characteristic of overtraining. An in-depth knowledge of periodisation of training theory may be necessary to promote optimal performance improvements, prevent overtraining, and develop a system for incorporating a screening system into the training programme. Screening for overtraining and performance improvements must occur at the culmination of regeneration periods.

*abstracts found on PubMed

on a more anecdotal/personal level - i don't know much about boxing, weight lifting, HIIT.. but from the rowers i know - the rest day is crucial in any training programme & make sure you do no exercise in this!

Reply 6

lessthanthree

*redundant!* :biggrin:

heh.. not really :knuddel:

i just get over-excited when a juicey/more obscure topic i know something about comes up & rush to display my awesome prowess at searching the medline database.. :cool:

we all have to have a skill.. :rolleyes:

Reply 7

thanks elles.

looks like (boring) rest for me.

Reply 8

Sounds like you're just having a bad day, see how you feel tomorrow, if youre better do some recovery cardio, low intensity.

I doubt you're overtrained, overtraining tends to come from doing too much too soon, its rare that it happens after months and months of training.

Reply 9

rock_tenth

dude, do you currently employ some kind of periodisation in your training? Backing off with the training load before it kicks your ass like this, then starting again with a lower load, bulding it back up to another peak. Once youve rested and want to start training again, make sure you start everything easy and light, and work back up over time

Reply 10

imasillynarb

exactly what i was thinking fella, it could be just a virus or a **** day.

Reply 11

stratomaster

the end is nigh the end is NIGH

Reply 12

imasillynarb

I doubt you're overtrained, overtraining tends to come from doing too much too soon, its rare that it happens after months and months of training.

this seems bizaare to me - from an immunological perspective, albeit. (can't imagine i'd personally ever be guilty of doing too much too soon with regards to exercise, or doing months & months.. :redface:

)

but i thought it was more likely to arise from continual training at a high level with lack of proper recovery periods to allow your immune system to bounce back, so to speak. so this wouldn't necessarily happen early on, but further into a regime?

i suppose it depends how we define overtrain - as strains & pains etc. or more as i'm thinking - with chronic fatigue like symptoms (as opposed to merely transient exhaustion!) /susceptiblity to glandular fever etc.

that said, i definitely agree with your comments erk might just be having a bad day/have something viral etc. but i'd say give yourself a rest anyway! :p:

& unfortunately diagnosing 'overtrain' per se seems to be done mostly by informal reporting of symptoms and incidence of illness, because quantifying "immune function" is fairly controversial!

Reply 13

It is indeed from continual training at a high level without proper recovery, which is why its more likely to occur at the beginning of a programme than at the end, of you make it a few months obviously you haven't been training too hard/too much, it usually happens when people who've never done exercise before for example suddenly decide theyre gonna run 1hour everyday at marathon pace..

Overtraining is actually a bloody hard thing to do, your body is capable of absolutely amazing feats of adaptation, its something thats happened to very few people but people rang the alarm bells and now it seems to be a common diagnosis.

Similar to DVT on long haul flights, the amount of people who are at risk of getting it is very small but because of the high awareness you see everyone stretching/walking around on long haul flights now!

Reply 14

imasillynarb

Overtraining is actually a bloody hard thing to do, your body is capable of absolutely amazing feats of adaptation, its something thats happened to very few people but people rang the alarm bells and now it seems to be a common diagnosis.

i imagine there are varying degrees of it though - the majority of people won't reach chronic fatigue / severly immunocompromised levels, no & if anything it seems a fairly nifty self regulating phenomenon - very tired & ill = inclined to do less exercise etc.!

but in terms of immuno-vulnerability.. anecdotally, we may have a particularly insane breed of sportsmen here (mostly the rowers!) who do seem especially susceptible to viruses at certain points in the season. & most of the papers i've seen do link extreme levels of exercise to a fall in imune function (by the limited markers we use!)

so although most people are perhaps unlikely to become crippled by it, i think the general principle of a rest day in certain regimes is a pretty good one - although this may well be more important for more aerobic/stamina sports (marathon runners are the notorious examples!).

oh & i'm an annoying person who both takes aspirin AND does in-flight-anti-DVT exercises.. :wink:

Reply 15

I'm a rower and the only time I've fallen ill is when everyone else in my uni is breeding some sort of cold, which obviously I too am going to get.

Extreme exercise levels do indeed decrease your immune function, but how many people actually partake in extreme levels of exercise? Extreme in my opinin is 5 or 6 hours a day - ie. Olympic athletes, I see people being diagnosed with overtraining when they train for about 30 minutes a day.

Aspirin isn't really beneficial at our age, doing exercise and eating less saturated fats/losing some fat will do you far more good than taking aspirin.

Reply 16

imasillynarb

I'm a rower and the only time I've fallen ill is when everyone else in my uni is breeding some sort of cold, which obviously I too am going to get.

where do you row? as i said, ours are an insane breed, approaching your "extreme"/"olympic athlete" benchmark of 4/5/6 hours a day. :p:

(& yes, the key argument against immuno-depression as measured by susceptibility to illness rather than immune cell populations is that doing the sport itself increases contact with other people, adverse weather etc. thus likelihood of illness :smile:

)

Aspirin isn't really beneficial at our age, doing exercise and eating less saturated fats/losing some fat will do you far more good than taking aspirin.

Aspirin only works on the COX of old people? that's medical news to me.. :confused:

anyhow, i think for most people asprin is a more realistic immediate prophylatic to DVT than loosing weight before the flight! :p:

Reply 17

Sorry, I thought you meant you took aspirin so as to combat heart-disease, I was saying that doing exercise and sorting out your diet is far more beneficial :tongue:

Reply 18

imasillynarb

Sorry, I thought you meant you took aspirin so as to combat heart-disease, I was saying that doing exercise and sorting out your diet is far more beneficial :tongue:

i see.. ah, fully aware i should do more exercise for my heart - the 'calorie' setting on ergs is fairly motivational i find! :p:

Reply 19