The human body is made to MOVE! So when you’ve been injured or are recovering from surgery or a chronic condition, we know how debilitating it can be. You could stay in pain, take addicting pain medications that don’t work, or maybe put a brace on…but is that really solving your problem?
Progressive Mobility offers full-service physical therapy that focuses on each patient’s personal health concern. We will spend time listening to you and your goals, evaluating your condition, and create a customized treatment plan so you can lead a happy, healthy, and pain-free life.
Nutrition and Recovery
A paper by Stellingwerff and colleagues highlight that the symptoms of overtraining can be brought on by low carbohydrate and energy availability and not simply just excessive volume in the gym (1). Relative energy deficiency in sport (RED-S) has been defined as the result of LOW caloric intake and/or HIGH energy expenditure. Consequences of this low-energy condition can alter many physiological systems, including metabolism, menstrual function, bone health, immunity, protein synthesis, and cardiovascular and psychological health” (2). Have you ever known a woman who didn’t have a period for months or years? This could have been the reason!
We all require a certain amount of training volume to stimulate a positive adaptive response (increased strength). If however, the individual in question is chronically underfed they may not even be capable of recovering from a training volume needed to induce positive adaptations in the muscles. And although they may experience overtraining symptoms, it’s clear that the volume level is not the reason behind these symptoms.
In Stellingwerff’s paper the researchers found “We have presented evidence to suggest that decreased EA [energy availability] and CHO availability may actually be a confounding factor in a significant number of training-overload studies, resulting in misdiagnoses of training-overload, instead of LEA [low energy availability] leading to RED-S” (1).
Takeaways
- Progressive overload is needed for athletic development. Insufficient recovery can lead to fatigue faster than the body can adapt. Thereby stunting performance and progress. If left unchecked this can lead to overreaching and potentially overtraining. It is therefore critical to ensure sufficient energy and macronutrient intake to promote recovery.
- Overtraining syndrome is distinct from RED-S. Each one must be clearly defined in order to determine the specific cause of the reduction in performance, or to prevent blunted performance from occurring.
- Overtraining syndrome exists, however there is no real marker for what training volume load is appropriate and must therefore be individually prescribed and monitored. Optimizing training performance is influenced by several variables, including proper nutritional requirements and correct allocation of training volume. Failing to dose training and nutrition appropriately may lead to symptoms of overtraining, regardless of whether or not the athlete actually has full blown overtraining syndrome.
