Mental Toughness and Training Too Hard

Working out too hard may lead to anxiety, loss of desire to train, and loss of interest in sport. The anxiety may be associated with just one type of workout - the one with excessive loads - or it may spread to all intensive workouts. Athletes may try to deal with the anxiety by training harder, which is counterproductive – it makes them more anxiety-prone, and likely to overtrain. The most effective way of dealing with performance anxiety is described in Spring issue of Stadion News.

How do you tell if the training load in a workout is too great? Pay attention to the following signs.

During-workout signs of exercising too hard: worsening coordination, dizziness or vertigo, dark sports in vision, paleness, and irregular heartbeat.

After-workout signs of exercising too hard or of being overstressed: difficulty falling asleep, waking up in the middle of the night, irritability, and reluctance to work out.

An athlete who experiences any of theses signs should take a break from working out for a few days or reduce the amount and intensity of exercises of r2-3 weeks, or both. The athlete who disregards those signs and does not reduce training will enter deeper into the forms of overtraining described in Science of Sports Training (see pp. 321-327), which may end any dreams of sports success. The after-workout signs may be caused by stress outside of training, but still you may have to reduce training the better to cope with the other stressors. By the way, poor sleep alone can make you both mentally and physically unwell. It makes one anxiety-prone and it interferes with post-workout recovery.

There are many more signs of overtraining, and the ways of dealing with overtraining at its three stages are given in Science of Sports Training.

Another good source for the signs of overtraining and of mental stress is The ABCs of Hormonal Stress by Dr. Phillip Maffetone (available at www.mafbionutritionals.com). The connection of overly intense training with depression, anxiety and phobias is explained in Dr. Maffeton’s book In Fitness and In Health.

 

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