FITNESS AUTHOR
Sadie Flynn
ARE YOU OVERTRAINING? n Avoid injury (and heartache) by understanding the signs and symptoms of overtraining.
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n the fitness world, there’s a subjectively thin line between what is lauded as a healthy relationship with health and fitness and what would be considered a dangerous obsession. And I don’t use the phrase “dangerous obsession” lightly, as I’ve witnessed firsthand the kind of damage that compulsory dieting and exercising can do to a person. I’ve seen a competitive dancer and runner suffer from shins-down stress fractures all throughout her college career because she preferred to be fueled by diet pills, energy drinks and Lean Cuisines for fear that food, water and rest would derail her dancing dreams. I’ve watched the painful recovery of a twenty-something CrossFitter whose patella snapped clean in half because her body — under-nourished, over-trained and extremely fatigued — had
JUNE 2021
entered into a survival-based premenopausal state, causing her bones to become weak and brittle. I’ve listened as friends bemoan endlessly about how their bodies can never recover from a workout, yet they refuse to rest or eat the necessary amount of food their bodies need in order to sustain their hyper active lifestyles. These are the same people who hit a progress plateau and then hop to the next gym, race or challenge to avoid confronting their pain — chalking it up to the type of sport they were practicing instead of listening to their depleted bodies. The tough part about having a preoccupation with health and fitness is that it’s a sneaky snowball. What began as an honest hobby, slowly over time grew into a lifestyle, then devolved into an addiction. So, what are some signs that you or someone you know might be snowballing
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their way into stress fractures or snapped knee caps, and what can you do to help thwart physical and psychological damage? Grab an ergonomic chair and let’s discuss.
Overreaching vs. Overtraining
Before we get to the state of overtraining, there is something called overreaching. Overreaching is a temporary condition that occurs in response to heavy loads or high-intensity work performed more frequently (and longer) than appropriate and without adequate rest. Signs and symptoms of overreaching are things like poor sleep, generally feeling under the weather and moodiness. What makes overreaching tricky is that it often does not have any significant impact on athletic performance. So, if undetected or unaddressed, overreaching can quickly spiral into overtraining.
