10 Ways to Prevent or Combat Overtraining in a Client

A client who develops overtraining syndrome needs to return to a healthy state as fast as possible. While there is no magic cure for overtraining, these 10 preventive strategies for nonfunctional overreaching and overtraining syndrome, from Kreher and Schwartz (2012), should prove helpful:

1. Educate the client. Emphasize that enhanced recovery will allow the client to train more and improve his or her overall fitness.
2. Incorporate periodization training, which provides for planned recovery and variation in intensity and volume.
3. Sensibly adjust workout volume and intensity based on the client’s performance or mood level.
4. Ensure that the client is consuming adequate calories for training load. Meeusen et al. (2013) suggest that
   factors such as dietary caloric restriction, insufficient carbohydrate and/or protein intake, iron deficiency and magnesium deficiency can trigger OTS.
5. Ensure that the client is hydrating sufficiently for workout conditions and training load.
6. Ensure that the client is getting adequate sleep.
7. Ensure that rest periods of >6 hours occur between exercise bouts.
8. Encourage rest days following infection, exercise heat stress, and/or periods of high emotional stress.
9. Avoid extreme environmental exercise conditions.
10. Consistently monitor the client’s moods (is she or he tense, angry, unhappy, confused, grouchy, panicky, uneasy, miserable, bitter, exhausted, annoyed, weary, peeved, depressed, on edge, etc.?), and alter workouts as needed.

For more information about ways to prevent overtraining, plus a much wider discussion of the topic and a full reference list, please see “Heart Rate Variability & Overtraining” in the online IDEA Library or in the January 2015 print issue of IDEA Fitness Journal. If you cannot access the full article and would like to, please contact the IDEA Inspired Service Team at (800) 999-4332, ext. 7.