Progress stops. Or worse still reverses.

Many blame this on injury, stress or fatigue - things which they feel that they can do nothing about. After all they’re dedicated to their sport and doing everything they can, right?

Perhaps you’ve recently hit that wall; but if you haven’t, chances are it’s closer than you think…

I know you want to get the most out of the time you spend training and competing and achieve consistent peak performance – nothing beats that deep sense of satisfaction you only get when you’ve put in your personal best.

But do you really know when you’re body is being pushed too far?

Chances are that you are already overreaching – which to put it simply is a short-term physiological imbalance caused by a heavy training load and limited recovery. Recognised early, symptoms such as muscle fatigue, lack of energy and decreased performance can be reversed within a few weeks.

However ignore this and you could be facing much worse: Overtraining Syndrome (OTS)

Overtraining is a serious problem, affecting between 10 and 20 percent of athletes, it can lead to chronic disease and thus a complete inability to train. Worse still, recovery from overtraining doesn’t just take a few weeks; it can take months, and in some cases YEARS!

Which is why I had to publish this report. It’s more than just a moral obligation.

The good news is that in recent years, scientists have developed a far better understanding of the condition of overtraining and more importantly, a number of practical tools to monitor training load to avoid the overtraining trap altogether. In this special report, we explain what overtraining is, and how you can optimise your lifestyle to minimise overtraining risks. We also introduce you to some valuable and practical tools, which will help you to properly monitor your training loads and physiological responses and then adapt your training routine accordingly to ensure that you stay in tip-top condition!

What’s more, because you’re a registered member of the Peak Performance website, you’re getting a special, limited-availability discount

(More details on your special discount below…)

Throughout this brand new special report edited by Andrew Hamilton, our expert team of contributors dissect the major current debates over the best ways for athletes to avoid the perils of overtraining, and recover from the stresses and strains of training and competition – both in terms of exercise, nutrition and more importantly rest.

We present the very latest scientific findings, spelling out in plain English their significance for the serious sports participant – and, of course, their coaches!

Every section of this 108-page report draws on the latest evidence-based sports science thinking – new findings that probably won’t percolate through to the general sporting press for many, many months, if they make it at all…

That makes it a rare opportunity to assess the latest sports-science research for yourself, and decide how best to integrate this cutting-edge thinking into your training and recovery strategies.

When you receive your copy of this brand new report, here are some of the startling new facts you’ll uncover:

• Ward off overtraining by improving recovery and reducing stress!
• How to overreach and improve performance without overtraining
• Nutrition – are you getting the basics right to ensure recovery and ward off overtraining?
• Rest – why it’s your best insurance for avoiding injury and overtraining syndrome
• Sleep on it! How improving your sleep quality and quantity can aid recovery and reduce overtraining risks
• Heart rate variability I – An introduction explaining what it is, how it can be used to determine daily stress analysis and recovery, and to ensure optimum recovery and minimum overtraining risk
• Heart rate variability II – the concept of durational-intensity-recovery for maximum performance and minimum overtraining risk
• Heart rate variability III – more evidence for its efficacy in optimising recovery and preventing overtraining
• Successful periodisation to prevent overtraining
• TRIMP and WER – another practical approach for assessing workloads and avoiding overtraining

Remember: by visiting today you save a whopping 33%!

What’s more, postage & packing is free. And you’ve got a full 30 days to decide whether or not you want to keep the workbook or, if you prefer, return it for a full refund.

So make sure you’re one of the very first to benefit from the crucial advice found in this brand new book, by buying your copy TODAY. Simply click the Add to Cart button at the bottom of this page.

Successful athletes are constantly walking a tightrope. On the one hand, you need to train with sufficient intensity, duration and frequency to stimulate the maximum possible gains in performance. But there’s a huge potential downside; train too hard without sufficient recovery and the nightmare of overtraining can strike, scuppering even the best-laid plans.

Overtraining can produce a wide array of undesirable and destructive symptoms including physical and mental fatigue, apathy, depression, weight loss, increased incidence of injury and illness and long-term burn out. Even more worryingly, research shows it’s all too easy to stray across the line from peak condition into overtraining, which is why understanding its causes and ensuring you don’t fall into the overtraining trap is vital for anyone who is serious about their training.

Revealed! The missing link between recovery and overtraining

The simple physiological equation employed by most coaches is this: training + recovery = adaptation.

But while there are literally hundreds of ways of measuring training (e.g. sets, reps, load, volume, time and intensity) and a similar number for measuring adaptation (game performance, lactate threshold, heart rate, speed, power etc), how many coaches measure or prescribe a recovery programme?

For many sports professionals, recovery is important, but more often than not, it is secondary to training. However, recent evidence points to recovery being vital in order for athletes to avoid overtraining. Of 298 US athletes who participated in a survey after competing in the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, 35 (12%) said that the number one coaching decision that affected their performance was ‘overtraining/ not getting enough rest’.

In fact, it has been reported that athletes are often fitter on the plane home than en route to a competition, simply because of the rest days they have enjoyed after the event!

Recovery is not just the absence of activity; it can also mean an enhancement of activity, such as stretching, or a change of activity, such as swimming instead of running. A coach may assume that if an athlete is not training he or she is recovering. But this may not be the case, and athletes may need a specific programme to help accelerate the recovery process.

The problem is that athletes prefer to focus on what they do best – training – and getting them to focus on recovery can be difficult.

Indeed, if recovery sessions are not supervised, athletes may try to slip in extra sessions in order to ‘gain an edge’. Thus, coaches need to monitor as well as prescribe their athletes’ recovery programmes. After all, if an athlete becomes overtrained, they can’t train, full stop.

In How to Avoid Overtraining we outline the requirements for optimum physiological recovery, paying particular importance to issues of adequate emotional and cognitive recovery. Then we delve into the nitty-gritty of designing strategies to optimise all these aspects of recovery and thus avoid overtraining.

Click here to purchase your copy of How to Avoid Overtraining at a special 33% discount, or read on to find out more

Overreaching Vs Overtraining – Could you be suffering from Overtraining Syndrome?

Pushing the boundaries in training is essential for any athlete seeking maximum performance. But as James Marshall explains, if you want to avoid overtraining there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it. However if functional overreaching is a necessary part of training, how can you distinguish between an athlete who is overreached and one who is overtrained?

It is relatively easy to monitor training loads in the gym, the pool, the track and so on. However, it’s much harder to monitor the training stress accumulated through matches, races and team training sessions. It’s even harder (if not impossible) to monitor stresses incurred outside the training environment or poor lifestyle behaviour, such as exams, financial worries, moving house, relationship difficulties, nutritional and sleep behaviours and so on.

As a coach it is critically important to recognise when an athlete is likely to suffer from overtraining syndrome (OTS) and more importantly how to prevent it. However, this is made difficult by the fact that markers for OTS are very similar to those for ‘overreaching’.

How to Avoid Overtraining provides a full assessment of the symptoms of the overtrained state in order to aid a speedy diagnosis. These include:

• Fatigue – sleep disorders, persistent fatigue, unexplained underperformance, increased sense of effort in training.
• Other diseases, including – anaemia, Espstein Barr virus, Lyme disease, eating disorders, muscle damage (increased creatine kinase present), adult-onset asthma, other allergies, and endocrinological diseases such as diabetes or thyroid problems.
• Planning errors identified as leading to overtraining include:
• Training volume increased by more than 5% /week, measured by hours or km/week;
• Training intensity increased significantly;
• Training monotony present;
• High number of competitions;
• In endurance athletes – decreased performance at anaerobic threshold;
• Exposure to environmental stressors such as altitude, heat and cold;
• Other psychological signs and symptoms; social factors (family, friends, financial, work, team, coach); recent or multiple time zone travel;
• Exercise tests compared to baseline measures; maximal test results; sub-maximal or sports specific test results; multiple performance tests.

If you are finding yourself experiencing any of these symptoms, there is a chance that you could be suffering from Overtraining Syndrome (OTS). This puts you at a high risk of developing chronic illness, and could end your career if left undiagnosed.

How to Avoid Overtraining slices through the myths associated with this frequently overlooked subject and digs out the vital facts every athlete and coach needs to know. Find out:

• Why most doctors fail to diagnose OTS, often confusing it with other illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome
• Why coaches and trainers could be responsible for many cases of overtraining among athletes
• Why the correct planning and monitoring could prevent most athletes from falling into the overtraining trap altogether

Click here to purchase your copy of How to Avoid Overtraining at a special 33% discount, or read on to find out more

Sleep on it! Why an extra hour in bed could give you an extra month on the field

In a recent British national sleep survey, 18% of people reported that their sleep was insufficient on the majority of nights, and nearly 60% of people reported insufficient sleep on one or more nights of the previous week. It is not just the amount of time in bed that’s important; difficulty getting off to sleep or disturbed, restless sleep can also create a significant sleep debt.
In sportsmen and women, the issue of the sleep deprivation problem is not confined to amateur athletes trying to fit training and competition around busy work schedules. Professional sportsmen and women are also vulnerable.

If sleep was needed purely for the mind, athletes could almost have been forgiven for thinking that it was more important just to ‘get the workouts done’ no matter how tired they felt. If they felt they had not had sufficient sleep then exercising a little mind over matter, helped perhaps by a few strong coffees, would merely make them stronger.

However, this approach is changing, as there is now a considerable body of evidence showing that sleep has a huge role in regulating many physiological functions.

Effects of sleep debt on sports performance:

Physiological

• Impaired glucose metabolism and the ability to replenish carbohydrate
• Reduced cardiovascular performance
• Impaired motor function and reaction times
• Increased appetite and associated weight gain
• Delayed visual reaction time
• Delayed auditory reaction time

Psychological

• Increased perceived exertion for a given training load
• Impaired mood – may affect motivation to train
• Reduced short-term memory capability

Other researchers have also applied sleep research to athletic performance. The New England Journal of Medicine recently described sleep as ‘a new cardiovascular frontier’, highlighting the cardiovascular implications of normal and disturbed sleep, and recent research has shown that sleep deprivation can reduce cardiovascular performance by 11%, slow glucose metabolism by 30-40% and result in other changes that indicate possible accelerated ageing.

What’s more sleep deprivation is associated with a series of hormonal changes involving ghrelin and leptin. In particular, restricted sleep has been associated with reduced leptin levels, increased ghrelin levels and elevated body mass index. These hormonal changes can lead to increased hunger and appetite, making it more difficult to achieve the low body fat levels required for success in many sports. In one recent study, two days of restricted sleep resulted in an increased appetite of calorie-dense high carbohydrate foods, including sweets, salty snacks and starchy food, by 33-45%. So chances are, even the most sophisticated training and nutrition plan could fail if the athlete doesn’t put the hours in…in bed that is.

Click here to purchase your copy of How to Avoid Overtraining at a special 33% discount, or read on to find out more

Using Heart Rate Variability to prevent overtraining

In practice, it’s difficult to assess accurately the effect of training on the body. How do you fix your training load? How well is your body adapting to the training? Is there any accumulated fatigue and how much rest do you need for recovery?

Other questions that you need to ask are – how do I know I am getting the right training effect? Have I improved? Am I over or under-training?

Traditionally, training zones – established from fixed formulae based on maximum heart rate, oxygen uptake, lactate threshold or estimated VO2Max reserve – have been used to guide athletes in this area.

However while heart rate during training gives information on the momentary intensity of exercise; it does not take into account the cumulative effect of exercise duration.

But recent research has focused on the use of heart rate variability (HRV) to assess training load, training adaptation and cumulated fatigue. This research is featured and discussed in How to Avoid Overtraining with a view to spelling out the concrete benefits for athletes and coaches alike.

Experiments demonstrate the efficacy of HRV in detecting over-training, while excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (an indicator of accumulated fatigue) can be predicted from HRV data recorded during exercise.

The benefits of measuring the body’s response to training are numerous:

• Detecting early signs of over-training or illness
• Optimising training load by finding the balance between training load and recovery
• Providing evidence-based support for critical coaching decisions
• Recording individual baseline values e.g. during off-season when the body is fully recovered
• Checking the recovery status during hard training periods
• Making sure that the body is recovered sufficiently before a new hard training period

Physical training with incomplete recovery can produce significant cardiovascular fatigue, which HRV can detect. There is also evidence to suggest that, when recorded, overnight HRV seems to be a better tool than resting heart rate to assess accumulated fatigue and that HRV may be a valuable tool for optimising individual training plans.

Details of your special, discount offer

As a registered member of our Peak Performance web site, you qualify for a copy of How to Avoid Overtraining at a special discount. Place your order today and you pay just $39.99 (£24) instead of the full price of $59.99 (£36).

You save 33%.

Overtraining is one of a series of special reports from Peak Performance, the sports science newsletter. This book is not available elsewhere.

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