To perform at their best, elite athletes push their limits to the very edge. But just like every single system in the natural world, the human body has limits that can only be pushed so far before it starts to break down.
Pushing limits on competition day is one thing, but those moments are meant to be few and far between. They require specialized training to build strength and conditioning so that performance can peak at just the right time. Pushing those limits on a regular basis by training too long and too hard, however, can have devastating consequences.
No matter your athletic ability or level of fitness — from the best in the world to the weekend warriors — I’m willing to bet nearly everyone who trains and competes in some way has experienced signs of overtraining.
In this article I’ll cover two important aspects of pushing beyond your limits and how to avoid overtraining in the first place.
The first is the rare but potentially deadly syndrome known as rhabdomyolysis that occurs through the kind of overexertion that leads to excessive muscle breakdown.
The second (and far more common) sign of overtraining results from inadequate rest and recovery. This leads to decreased performance, excessive fatigue and potentially devastating overuse injuries.
What is rhabdomyolysis?
If you’ve done even a limited amount of training, you’ve probably experienced stiff and sore muscles in the days after a tough workout. This is a common condition called delayed onset muscle soreness and you’ll usually find relief after resting for a few days.
But there can come a moment during activity in which your muscles can consume so much glucose — consume so much energy and so much oxygen — that your muscles start to break down.
It can lead to a condition known as rhabdomyolysis. Rhabdomyolysis (or rhabdo for short) is a condition where muscles quickly break down and spill decomposing muscle fibres into the bloodstream. Those fibres travel through your kidneys and can clog their filtering system and can lead to severe, even irreversible kidney damage or failure if left untreated.
Symptoms of rhabdomyolysis
How do you know if you have delayed onset muscle soreness or are actually experiencing rhabdomyolysis?
- Extreme pain: you’ll feel pain that’s out of proportion with a normal workout. The pain has been described as excruciating by those who’ve experienced it, and you’re highly unlikely to mistake it for the discomfort of a typical workout.
- Swelling, stiffness and weakness: muscles can become stiff and rigid and limbs may feel weak and difficult to move. Swelling may occur — symptoms of kidney failure can include swelling of the hands and feet — along with muscle weakness, tenderness and cramping.
- Discoloured urine: urine that is reddish-brown in colour is caused by high levels of myoglobin dumped into the blood.
- Other common signs: abdominal pain, nausea/vomiting, fever, rapid heart rate, confusion, disorientation and even lack of consciousness.
Rhabdo can happen to anyone, no matter how often you train or how well you’re conditioned. If you push yourself to failure but keep on going, you’re putting yourself at an extreme risk. And while rhabdo is rare, you need to seek immediate medical attention if you suspect you have symptoms.
What is overtraining?
Endurance athletes like marathoners and triathletes are prone to overtraining by running too long and too frequently. If you’re running too much, you’re simply not giving your body enough time to recover and your joints, tendons and muscles are going to start to suffer.
Our joints are filled with synovial fluid that provides lubrication and keeps things moving smoothly. There is cartilage that coats the surfaces of the bones in our joints and cushions the bones against impact. There are also menisci, a rubbery cartilage that acts as a shock absorber between the bones.
Every time you go for a run, your joints receive repeated impact from every step. The longer and more frequent your runs, the more trauma that your knees take. That repeated trauma can cause the menisci and synovial fluid to slightly bulge out the sides of the knee joint, but with adequate rest and recovery, the bulging and trauma subsides and you’re good to go.
But, if you don’t allow those elements to regenerate from that impact, they can start to tear and can suddenly break. In some instances that damage will heal on its own, but in many others it requires reconstructive surgery and many months of rehab.
If you’re not careful, you might end up like me. I trained and competed until I was among the top 5 percent of triathletes in the world, until overtraining caught up to me and suddenly my competitive triathlon days were over.
Except it really wasn’t so sudden. All the signs of overtraining were there but I chose to ignore them and push through.
You see, I competed in my first triathlon when I was around 19–20 years old, and was immediately hooked. Over the next few years I kept training, competing and progressing to the point where I was gearing up towards going pro. But just as I was about to take that leap, it became very clear that there was something wrong.
Signs of overtraining
I wasn’t feeling well. I was getting more and more achy and I noticed that my legs were frequently cramping up. I remember going for a short 4k run one morning when my knees started really bothering me. By the time I got home they had both swollen to about the size of cantaloupes. I had a shower and was preparing to put some ice on them when I happened to bump my knee — just a little knick — and I ended up on the floor in excruciating pain. It was so bad that I had to immediately go to the ER.
I had severe knee damage with multiple meniscus tears, leaking synovial fluid, and stretched, elongated anterior cruciate ligaments in both knees that required arthroscopic repair. The damage was so extensive that it meant my competitive triathlon days were over. As devastating as this news was at the time, what made it even more disappointing was that it could all have been avoided.
All my knee damage was a result of the accumulation of preventative trauma from over-running and not allowing my body enough time to rest and regenerate.
While it’s common to feel muscle soreness after training, how do you know if you’re pushing yourself too far?
I remember back to the time before my knee injuries. I remember feeling so fatigued and unsettled, and there were times when I was actually trembling and thinking to myself “what’s going on — why am I feeling like this?” I clearly wasn’t myself. I went for a run one day and felt so terrible that I decided to finally take three days off from my training to rest, recharge and see if I could feel more like my normal self.
Tips to avoid overtraining
There’s a large mental and emotional aspect to the overtraining issue. It’s so difficult for competitive athletes to give themselves permission to take time away from training if they don’t have an actual diagnosed injury. We all feel fatigue and aches and pains, and when you’re a driven, competitive person, it’s in your nature to continue to push yourself to be the best you can be.
Whenever I took time off, it wasn’t long before I started thinking “you’re slacking — you’re falling behind — you’re not going to make it,” and I decided to go back to training. In one instance, I thought maybe I could push through the pain and fatigue if I took a break from running and concentrated on swimming. That way, I’d get all the benefits of training without the impact on my knees.
But swimming turned out to be even worse as it consumes many more calories than running. You’re stroking with your arms, you’re engaging your core, back and chest, and you’re still using your legs with all that kicking.
When I got out of the pool that morning I was so exhausted that I was really struggling to concentrate on the drive home. And when I got home I didn’t have the energy to eat — and I was starving. It felt like I was in a fog, so I just went straight to my room, collapsed on the bed and blacked out almost before I hit the covers.
I woke up around 2 PM, the next day — 18 straight hours of sleep.
Despite my body telling me I needed even more time off, the anxiety got the better of me and I ignored all the signs of overtraining. For athletes at all levels there’s still the overwhelming attitude that “more is better,” and if you’re not training, you’re slacking.
You need to listen to your body. If you’re fatigued, you need rest and nutrition. If you have pain and/or swelling, there’s likely an injury or condition that needs attention. Some things just don’t resolve themselves and no amount of willpower or positive attitude will fix it.
While attitudes are shifting, many myths about training, pushing boundaries and adequate rest and recovery still persist today. There’s lots of information out there on the latest training methods and workouts, but I think there’s still not enough focus on rest and recovery. The science is still evolving and the right data can be more accurately measured and tracked so that coaches and athletes can rely more on objective early signs and evidence of overtraining, rather than subjective feedback.
Because we’re finally starting to understand that when it comes to training, less can be more.
Read more about putting rest and recovery into your training program >
