Psychological load from work, family and relationships can contribute to overtraining - here's how to avoid it

Traditionally overtraining has been defined as a prolonged impairment in an athlete’s performance lasting for several months despite reducing the workload. As the name suggests, the chronic reduction in performance is due to excessive training without enough recovery. However, more accurately, it is the state of chronic fatigue, and most of the time it’s chronic mental fatigue.  

Of course, you have to exclude any underlying disease or pathological condition, by a process of exclusion – and if you find nothing, the diagnosis is overtraining.

What causes this long-term fatigue?

The psychological load of training and competing is a big component. With muscular or physical fatigue, even if you have muscle damage, after a few days of rest you’re OK again – it doesn’t take months to recover. 

Mental fatigue may take longer to resolve. It can be caused by the psychological load associated with training and competing. Among amateur athletes, the psychological load may be coming from work, family and relationships. These non-physical stressors produce an effect actually very similar to too much training. This is because, like training, they involve cognitive functions and, at brain level, the structures involved are the same.

What are the tell-tale signs of overtraining?

Currently there’s no blood or medical test for overtraining. It is signalled by feelings of fatigue, tiredness and a lack of energy, with a notable reduction in vitality.

Tiredness increases, and mood can be negatively affected too. Athletes also tend to become less disciplined in their training, due to a downturn in motivation.

What’s the best on-bike barometer of overtraining?

Perception of effort. If your effort level feels higher than usual for a given power output, that’s usually a sign of fatigue. After a period of rest, if the perceived exertion remains high, this is probably a sign of overtraining.

Does a lower than normal heart rate signal overtraining?

Not necessarily. 

If the fatigue is physical, perceived exertion and heart rate would be higher. If it’s mental fatigue, the heart rate stays the same or decreases. If you can use heart rate, power and perceived exertion together, it’s easier to distinguish between mental or physical fatigue. Those who find they are fine after a week or two of rest were probably not experiencing overtraining.

How long a period of rest without improvement signals overtraining?

If you recover after a month of reduced training, the problem was most likely non-functional overreaching. If, however, you are not recovered after a month despite having reduced your overall stressors, not just your physical training, you were probably overtraining – and it may take several months to rebalance. 

The point I want to get across here is that ‘overtraining’ is not the best term, as it insinuates that the malaise comes solely from too much training, whereas in reality it is the result of all of life’s stresses.

THE TYPES OF FATIGUE: Overtrained or just very tired?

Stresses come in many forms, not just physical, and the tiredness you’re experiencing might not be fully fledged overtraining. These are the four classified types of fatigue associated with athletic endeavours:

Acute Fatigue

The normal tiredness experienced by most people after having done a bout of vigorous exercise.

Functional Overreaching

Higher levels of fatigue over one to three weeks of overload. Performance decreases temporarily, but after deloading, you get stronger. It’s an intense, but planned, block of hard training.

Non-Functional Overreaching

This occurs with sustained overloading. Not enough rest or deloading results in burnout, which can take a month to come back from.

Overtraining, or Chronic Fatigue

A state of burnout from which the body and brain can take months to recover. The cause is sustained psychological and physical stress over a prolonged period.