Carl jennings Strength & Conditioning Consultancy
Articles
Rugby League World Magazine UK (Published June/09)
Over Reaching and Over Training
In this month’s article I want to discuss the problems of overreaching and overtraining principals and their effect on performance, especially during this crucial mid season period.
I can remember Brian Noble telling me early on in my rugby league coaching career that the rugby league season is more like a marathon event, rather than a sprint race, and over the years he has been proven right, in so many ways. The analogy reflects the duration and monotony of a long tough season. Like a marathon runner the team as a whole needs mental and physical endurance, both need a good start to the race, they need to maintain pressure during the middle part of the race, and need to be in the leading pack coming into the sprint finish home.
The other major similarity to a marathon event and a rugby league season is the toughest part of the campaign, the middle to three quarter point of the season or the race. For the marathon runner, it is a simple case of glycogen (stored carbohydrate) depletion. The athlete experiences dramatic acute fatigue and often talks about ‘hitting the wall’ at the 18 to 20mile mark of the 26mile event. The great runners have the elite preparation in the bank, and the toughness to match, enabling them to get through this point and into a position to win the race in the closing stages. You may ask how this relates to a rugby league season. Our ‘wall’ emerges at a similar point of a season about round 12 and continues through to about round 20, when the physical demands of a Super league, or NRL season really start to take there toll on a squad. Acute and chronic Injuries, emotional, and physical fatigue, as well as monotony, all play an important factor with a teams success. It is often the teams that pick up points during this part of the season that eventually end up in the pack for the sprint finish, at the business end of the season. It is also during round 12 – 20 when a coaching staff needs to be at their very best to develop strategies and training program content, that ensures the players who are available for the weekends game, are physically and emotionally ready for the “grinder”, and can make the plays to win games.
Over the years working with elite teams, there are things you can control to ensure you get the best out of your squad. Getting the correct balance between doing enough in preparation, without doing too much is a real skill, and one which is crucial for a team to become successful. Managing recovery strategies hand in hand with prescribing the required preparation content, takes years of experience to get right, but there are things a coach must take into consideration during this difficult phase, which may help them achieve better results.
A common factor during this time of the year is a drop in form within the competitive arena, as well as in practice, if this is the case, there has to be a reason, flogging a dead horse isn’t the answer. The situation must be investigated and remedied to allow the team to get back to their best, as soon as possible, before the season is lost.
Training performance often depends on a well organised approach to preparation, often referred to as Periodization. This gradual cycling of training periods, specificity, intensity and training volume, gives the athlete the opportunity to continue to improve, during the off season and competitive season periods.
A well planned Periodization plan should create an environment for the optimum balance between training duration, intensity as well as sufficient recovery time. Exercise creates disturbances in cellular homeostasis, which in turn stimulate physiological responses that create training adaptations restoring cellular homeostasis. During a sufficient recovery process homeostasis continues slightly past its original levels creating overcompensation, which leads to improvement. Without a well planned training Periodization, it is difficult to control the essential recovery process, and often players return to training too early, leading to insufficient time for regeneration, creating overreaching and overtraining problems, which significantly reduce athletic potential, and lead to poor performance.
If a sports team is showing signs of under performance in training, and in performance, as well as feeling unusually fatigued, these are two indicators which may point towards the symptoms of over-reaching or overtraining. Intervention by the coaching staff at this point would be prudent, carrying out a comprehensive investigation into the training structure, including volume, intensity, monotony, as well as other external stresses such as lifestyle, which can impact on training efficiency. Other signs and symptoms of overtraining can be disturbances in normal sleep patterns, such as difficulty getting to sleep, increased occurrence of nightmares, and waking unrefreshed, these symptoms are experienced by over 90% of athletes with over training syndrome. Loss of appetite, weight loss, loss of competitive drive, mental exhaustion, poor training attitude, increased levels of muscle soreness, joint pain, and injury, a raised resting pulse rate , excessive sweating , and re-occurring upper respiratory tract infections, and other minor infections are other common signs. Any combination of the above could be subtle indicators of over-reaching or over training. Therefore it is essential that an in-depth assessment is made and any potential symptoms are not ignored, so that a team rehabilitation plan can be implemented as soon as possible.
It is poor working practice, but also common practice, that athletes and coaches react to poor performance by increasing training volume, rather than increasing rest and recovery. This exasperates the recovery deficit and the overtraining syndrome, making it more pronounced. If symptoms are found it is important to react positively by developing recovery strategies and immediately de loading the athlete, with a medium and long term strategy to gradually re introduce increased volume and intensities.
When making an assessment on an athlete or a group of athletes training state, it is important to recognise that they may be in a state of over-reaching, which occurs regularly during periods of intense training and competition , often associated with muscle soreness and fatigue, it is a normal aspect of athletic performance and must not be confused with overtraining. During this mis season phase, other symptoms and signs can be indicators of over-reaching, which importantly include changes in the profile of mood state (POMS) such as depression, confusion, and anger. Other physiological signs can be, depleted muscle glycogen stores, increased resting heart rate, varied testosterone/cortisol ratios, and increased Creatine kinase levels, which indicate microscopic muscle damage. All these physiological responses are classed as normal if recovery occurs within two weeks, once a rehabilitative recovery strategy has been put in place.
Over-reaching is directly associated with insufficient metabolic recovery, which results in a decline in adenosine triphosphate (ATP) levels. If high intensity exercise is continued while the athletes system is in a glycogen –depleted state, imbalances between ATP splitting and ATP regeneration occur . Over-reaching is the early stage of overtraining and is quickly reversible, with sufficient recovery strategies employed, allowing for the replenishment of the phosphate pool.
Two naturally occurring hormones often impacted by overtraining are testosterone and cortisol. Overtraining due to high training volumes often results in changes in the ratio between resting concentrations of these hormones (testosterone/cortisol). It is possible to test for imbalances with a salivary swab test. While this ratio may not be directly responsible for the performance decrements observed, it has been repeatedly shown that ratio changes are directly related to variations in training volume and intensity. Testing for these ratios are common practice at the elite level of many sports.
After a comprehensive investigation of a run of poor performances, the coaching and medical staff conclude that the players are in an over reached, or potentially in an over-trained state, immediate intervention would be appropriate, initially to implement psychological recovery, an important aspect of overtraining recovery. It would be important to de load the athlete physically and emotionally, by reducing the training volume and intensity, over time training volume is increased to required levels, at which point intensity can be increased. While the athlete or team continues down this rehabilitation process, it is essential to continue to monitor the athletes to ensure the recovery strategy is producing the required results.
If a training Periodization plan wasn’t in process at the point of diagnosing overtraining syndrome, it would be prudent to design one, to avoid future possible overtraining problems reoccurring. Other strategies which should be employed, are implementing training diaries, not only recording training performances, but psychological moods, nutritional intake, and recovery strategies, and training RPEs. Weekly and monthly meetings between coaches and players discussing any issues arising from these diaries would be essential in re establishing elite performance, in the athletes and the group.
Being proactive in planning, and reactive in implementation, and supported with knowledge, is the key to continued athletic development through coaching.
If you are an athlete, sporting club, or coach who needs help with any aspect of preparation or performance, contact me at carljenningsscc.com, we can give you the edge you have been looking for. Why be like everyone else you deserve the best.
