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It’s no secret among
successful athletes that in order to improve, you’ve really
got to work hard. Many
of these columns focus on not only how to work hard but also how
to work smart. Part
of working out smart is to know when to rest.
When you train, your muscles
are more or less broken down.
It is the rest in between the training sessions when the
growth and improvement occurs.
This adaptation is in response to maximal loading of the
muscular or cardiovascular systems and is accomplished by
improving efficiency, increasing blood flow to muscles,
increasing sugar stores increasing enzymes within muscles.
It is during the rest period that these systems build to
greater levels to compensate for the stress that you’ve
applied.
Serious athletes must
struggle to find the right balance between intense training and
rest. Too much or
too little of either is not good for performance.
If sufficient rest isn’t
included in the training regimen then regeneration can’t occur
and performance may plateau.
This is sometimes called overtraining.
Overtraining can be defined
as a state where training has progressed beyond the body’s
ability to recover. The “overtraining syndrome” is a collection of emotional,
behavioral, and physical symptoms that result from chronic
training stress without adequate rest.
Symptoms of overtraining
vary from person to person but there are some common
denominators. Virtually
everyone feels fatigued which may be felt at rest and may even
limit workouts. Some
people also become moody, irritable, depressed and may
experience altered sleep patterns.
There are also measurable
changes that occur in the overtrained athlete.
Cortisol is a hormone that is closely related to the
body’s stress response. Levels
of this hormone can vary markedly in overtraining.
Also, testosterone levels may decrease substantially.
The treatment for
overtraining is rest. Though
this may seem intuitive, there are some caveats.
The rest needn’t
necessarily be absolute. Just
cutting back a bit or allowing more recovery time might help
tremendously.
Also, overtraining does seem
to be at least somewhat sport specific.
In other words, if you are a distance runner and develop
the symptoms of being overtrained, you might be able to back off
of your endurance training and substitute anaerobic exercise
either temporarily or permanently.
Obviously the best way to
deal with overtraining is to prevent it.
As previously mentioned, there is a delicate balance
between training enough and training too much.
People sometimes ask “is it better to be overtrained or
undertrained”? The
answer is neither. Ideally,
there should be a balance between the two for maximum
performance.
Sleep is an important way to
prevent overtraining. It
is also something that many people, athletes and non-athletes
alike struggle with.
There is compelling evidence
that regular exercise will help to regulate the sleep cycle.
One recent study revealed that people who went from a
sedentary lifestyle to moderately intense training over a 16
week period fell asleep an average of 15 faster and stayed
asleep 45 minutes longer then their control counterparts.
Most of the studies
evaluating whether exercise positively effects sleep have looked
at aerobic exercise. However,
most fitness experts believe that the benefit extends to weight
trainers and anaerobic athletes as well.
It should be pointed out
that exercising too close to bed time can adversely affect
sleep. It is
recommended that exercise stop at least 3-4 hours before sleep.
This number will vary from person to person but can be
used as a guideline.
Rest and sleep are important
parts of non only any exercise training schedule but are also
important for health in general.
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