What is it?
Overtraining Syndrome (OTS) is a highly complex assortment of physiological and psychological symptoms associated with excessive exercise and a stressful lifestyle. Symptoms of OTS can last anywhere from weeks to months or even years depending on how deep the individual has dug themselves into their recovery debt. “Further, overtraining occurs with each of three major forms of training—so it is likely that the cause or causes and symptoms will vary by the type of training” (Physiology of Sport and Exercise). Athletes are most often the individuals who suffer from OTS, but it can affect anyone. OTS is due to an imbalance between stress and recovery. If an individual stresses their body more than it can handle, whether it be through their work, studies, life experiences, or training, and doesn’t allow for times of relaxation and rest to recover from their stress than they are more likely to develop OTS. The reason athletes are more likely to be affected by OTS is because of the added stress of training. Athletes are also usually disciplined and highly devoted to their training and can lack a proper understanding of exercise physiology. This leads them to think that the more training they can fit in the better they will become at their sport, and so they do just that. They train hard every day, sometimes two or three times a day, and don’t give their body rest. The simple fact is, without recovery one will never improve because it is due to that rest period after a workout that our body is able to adapt to the stress we just put it through and come back stronger than before. Bill Bowerman, famous coach of Steve Prefontaine and cofounder of Nike, realized that athletes have this likelihood to become stale and not improve despite their regular, hard training. He is the creator of the “hard-easy” system that he put into practice at the University of Oregon and that which so many people use today. He would tell his athletes, “Stress, recover, improve, that’s all training is. You’d think any damn fool could do it.
The Overtraining Syndrome 
Hi
Great resources. I’ve just stumbled across your site looking for articles on OTS/UPS. I’m pretty sure I’m overtrained (sympathetic).
I see you included yourself in the case studies. Have you found ways of successfully introducing training back into your life without all the symptoms resuming again? I’m working on this at the moment but it is very difficult!
I’d love to know your experiences.
Rob
Hi Rob,
Thanks for the comment!
Yes I have found ways of reintroducing training and they are as follows. But first, you say that you have sympathetic OTS. What type of training were you doing (i.e. weight lifting, running, some other sport)? Then depending on the type of training there are a few keys: 1) the volume / intensity must be a lot lower (like 40 – 70% lower) 2) you need to improve your recovery practices (i.e. scheduling regular rest days more often than you usually would if you weren’t OTS and more intentional practices like regular stretching or self-massage with a foam roller, or yoga, or extra sleep) and 3) you need to check you other stressor levels (so what other things might be causing you stress – a busy work schedule, an illness, family troubles, bored with you training, etc.) because these can have a big effect. Then you need to cut out as much preventable / unnecessary stress as you can. Part of what caused my OTS was 1) I ramped up my volume too much AND I had one of my toughest work load semesters of college at the same time. Had only one of these things occurred I might not have become overtrained. Also, did your symptoms of OTS begin with a mild, nagging injury or an upper respiratory infection (i.e. a cold) because these are often early signs due to decreased recovery and immunity. One part that makes reintroducing training after developing OTS is it takes a big ego check when you start over and it takes patience. Hopefully that gave you some of what you were looking for? If you have more questions or want me to clarify let me know.
Austin
Hi Austin
Thanks a lot for he reply. It is great to hear from someone who has actually been through my situation. I’ve seen a lot of second hand opinion on the web but not much from people who have recovered from OTS or from people who help people to recover. I live in the UK and my unfortunately my doctor hasn’t even heard of OTS.
I work as a professional juggler, I think one of the contributing factors to my getting OTS was that I added too much weight training into my skill practice without enough recovery. I’d do 4 or 5 days of 2 hour skill practice a week and 3 days of weight training per week. My weekly periodisation was off. I missed some early warning signs – fatigue, shoulder tendon flare-ups – because I can be quite obsessive(!) Then I swapped my weight training from hypertrophy to pure strength and it pushed me over the edge. My CNS couldn’t handle it anymore. My sleep would last around 3-4 hours and then I would be unable to enter deep sleep. This in turn led to mood swings and a now very low tolerance for exercise before symptoms re-occur.
As I said before, I am trying to work my way out of the hole but I seem to keep going too fast and my sleep problems return. I have tried a variety of incremental programs, but I think I push through the stages too quickly and end up back where I started. This has now been going on for 8 frustrating months.
I recently read some of Dr Richard Budgett’s work on recovering from OTS/UPS and he suggests exercising aerobically at a heart rate of 120-140 bpm starting at 5-10 mins per day and increasing this over a 6-12 week period.
This seems good advice. I think I might try this on a bike as it is low impact. A lot of my attempts to re-introduce exercise have been with low intensity/volume weight-lifting but I wonder if my lack of success has been due to the fact that this kind of training stimulates the lactate or phosphate energy pathway which is too taxing on the CNS?
One question I have for you is how did you plan your recovery program structure? If something accidental pushed you back towards OTS, at what stage in your recovery program did you resume and when? How many forms of exercise did you use and how many rest days between each training day.
Being a live performer who travels regularly it is difficult for me to get rid of all stress factors in my life, but I do what I can. I completely agree with your points about this and the ones you make about active recovery and rest days. I just hope I find a recovery program that works for me even if it takes a very long time to achieve this.
Rob
I understand completely. My doctor also had no idea what OTS was and therefore I had to do a lot of research on my own. I also got to talk with my exercise physiology professor as well as one of the authors of one of my references – Dr. Larry Armstrong. He also dealt with OTS and worked with Alberto Salazar who dealt with OTS and he was a great resource.
I think I can speculate as to why your symptoms seem to recur despite starting out with low volume/intensity weight training. This is because weight training is largely sympathetic ANS dominated, which is what doing too much of caused your symptoms. I’ll address this more below. I also agree with Dr. Budgett on switching to aerobic training for a while. His recommendations seem to coincide with Dr. Phil Maffetone, which I followed during my recovery, with slight variation.
I think the reason your symptoms seem to be recurring is that you are doing the same kind of training that caused your symptoms (even though at a lower intensity/volume). There is an imbalance in your Autonomic Nervous System between the sympathetic and parasympathetic divisions that requires remediation. You may already know this, but the sympathetic ANS is involved in the “fight or flight” response (elevating cardiac output, BP, energy consumption, etc.) and the parasympathetic ANS is involved in “growth and recovery” (muscle growth, energy storage, lowering cardiac output). So I think that doing some mild aerobic training for several months with no structured weight training will do you good. Dr. Budgett’s recommendations look good to me. If you want another opinion you could look up Phil Maffetone. Then you can gradually reintroduce weight training.
When I was recovering I took a few weeks (3 or 4) to simply rest – slept a lot, didn’t do much constructive exercise. Then I started exercising again but stayed away from any sort of disciplined running. I would do other things to elevate my heart rate like basketball, cycling, weight lifting, frisbee, walking, but no programmed running. During that time there was very little structure – I felt no commitment to go to the gym or go for a run, which for me was a very good thing and from what you’ve told me it would be for you too. I just exercised for the joy of it and didn’t let myself work too hard or to the point of fatigue. Then after about 3 and a half months I started running again, but I had to check my ego at the door. I had to start out much slower and with much less volume than I knew I was able. I started out at 3 days a week. Then after a couple weeks of that feeling good moved to 4…. then 5, and finally 6. Each day added meant I had to spend more time at that level before I could move up another day. Then I began adding more volume to each day. I also tried some relaxation techniques using deep breathing exercises. I’m not an expert on that so I can’t really give you good instruction but I think they could help you.
I know how frustrating and difficult it can be to overcome OTS, but your attitude is right on track. Patience is key. Don’t rush it even if you think “Hey I’m feeling good.” Eventually you will know that you’re ready to start increasing your training load. You’ll be sleeping better, you won’t feel as stressed, and you’ll be enjoying your workouts more.
I wish you the best of luck. You’ll overcome it. Let me know if there is anything else I can help you with too.
Austin