There is probably not a single person actively involved in sports who has not experienced overtraining syndrome. This is especially true for beginners. Some athletes do not attach importance to this condition, continuing training in a given mode, exposing the body to even more stress. This increases the risk of getting a bunch of health problems, which can lead to contraindications to further sports for a long time or forever.

Overtraining is a physiological reaction of the body to large physical loads that exceed the adaptive level of the body. Of course, progress in sports is unthinkable without a planned increase in the volume and intensity of training. This does not allow the body to adapt to stress and allows progress. But progress should be based on competent training programs that provide for a smooth increase in athletic performance.

The nature of the syndrome is that as a result of increased training, the body does not have time to adapt, which leads to microtrauma in the muscles, to an increased load on the heart and central nervous system.

Overtraining syndrome can occur for a number of reasons:

• intense training after a long break, especially after an illness;
• a sharp increase in the load in training, significantly exceeding the usual volume;
• too frequent workouts and insufficient recovery between workouts;
• insufficiently balanced diet with low protein content;
• exercise during illness
• sources of stress in everyday life.

The consequences of the syndrome can affect the state of the human nervous system, cause cardiovascular diseases and other unpleasant consequences.

How to recognize the state of overtraining

Very often, overtraining can be confused with ordinary fatigue or even with the onset of an infectious disease. However, it is not difficult to distinguish overtraining. Consider the main symptoms that indicate that the load received during training was above the allowable:

• deterioration of sleep or even the occurrence of insomnia, especially at night after an intense workout;
• loss of appetite;
• cardiac arrhythmia and increased heart rate at rest;
• lack of desire to go to the gym and loss of motivation to train;
• aching pain in the muscles and a feeling of body aches, sometimes even a fever may occur;
• the occurrence of a state of depression or nervous breakdowns;
• decreased immunity;
• decline in athletic performance.

The manifestation of three of the above symptoms with a 90% probability may indicate that you have exceeded the level acceptable for the body and are in a state of overtraining.

Rehabilitation for overtraining

The very first thing to do is to stop training for a while. The duration of rehabilitation depends on the degree of overtraining. If you have detected the symptoms in a timely manner and made the appropriate conclusions, it may be enough from a few days to a week. In more severe cases, it may be necessary to refrain from training for 2-3 weeks.

After you have identified the signs of the syndrome in yourself and have decided to suspend training, carefully analyze your diet. It is necessary to adjust it in favor of protein foods, but you should not forget about other elements either. It is also necessary to add to your diet if you do not consume multivitamin complexes, vitamins C and group B. You also need to drink more plain water.

On the first day after a hard workout that has caused overtraining, it will not be superfluous to take a hot bath.

Massage gives a good effect, which will stretch your muscles and improve blood flow, and during the rehabilitation period, muscle stretching exercises are highly recommended.

A number of herbal preparations, such as ginseng tincture or eleutherococcus extract, help to recover well. It is better to take them in the morning.

In severe cases, especially with the presence of pain in the heart and fever, it is better not to delay, but to seek the advice of a doctor.

After recovering from overtraining, it is necessary to reduce the load on training for 1-2 weeks, this will help your body smoothly start working.

How to prevent overload of the body during training

In order to avoid overtraining, you need to learn to listen to your body and correctly plan your training and rest regimen. For novice athletes, this is quite difficult, because they still cannot understand from the first signs how great the load is in each particular workout. It comes with experience and regular practice. Ideally, you need to start playing sports under the guidance of an experienced trainer who will help you create an optimal program for your level of physical condition.

So, in order to avoid overtraining you need:

1. If you are still a beginner, then you should not torture yourself with everyday workouts. 2-3 workouts a week are enough. Later, when you adapt to the loads, you will be able to determine whether it is necessary to increase the number of training days or whether it is better to increase the intensity of each training session.
2. Sleep at least 8-9 hours, and at high loads and all 10. This will allow your body to fully recover.
3. Eat well, control the content of proteins and carbohydrates, as well as the level of calories received. It is not easy for an athlete to get the required level of vitamins, micro and macro elements with food, so it is worth looking after multivitamin complexes. Also, in case of increased loads, it makes sense to use sports nutritional supplements such as amino acids and protein.
4. Drink more water.
5. Do not neglect the warm-up and hitch. During the cool-down, be sure to do stretching exercises for the muscles that were involved during the workout.
6. You do not need to train for more than 1.5 hours if you are not a professional athlete.
7. Adjust your training program periodically to avoid stagnation. As a rule, athletes, faced with a stop in progress in results, begin to force events and, as a result, overtraining syndrome.