7 Signs You’re Overtraining

I would like to think that we are all under the same impression, if we want to become better hockey players we must work hard. That means working harder in the gym during the off-season (in-season too) and at practice. We have to have the mentality to do more and bust our ass 100% of the time to get to the level of hockey we want to play at. To have such a work ethic creates a fine line between getting better and becoming overtrained. To have such a mindset can act as a double edge sword. While doing more is usually better, we must be smart enough to know when less is actually more.

Playing professional hockey over in Germany and implementing their training styles has opened my eyes and helped me understand this fine line between working hard and becoming overtrained. Some people might find it weird but I actually enjoy working hard. It is fascinating to see how far the human body can be pushed and what it can accomplish. But when our work ethic stays the same and we are no longer getting improvements then we need to take a step back and re-evaluate things. This is when less becomes more.

There are two different ways an athlete can become overtrained. The first one is called Monotonous program overtraining. This type of overtraining is caused by the consistent and unvarying use of the same variety of an exercise or workout program. The second one is called Chronic overwork. This will happen when the duration of a program phase is too longer and the athlete repeats the same workout too frequent within that phase.

Hockey players need to be more aware of the signs and symptoms of overtraining due to the nature of our sport. Since hockey is more of an anaerobic sport and we are strength/power athletes we are more inclined to becoming overtrained.

Even though there are more than 7 signs and symptoms of overtraining, below I list what I believe to be the easiest to spot. Knowing these signs and symptoms will help us understand when decreasing the training volume will be more beneficial and continue to help develop our athletic performance.

• Decrease in performance
• Irritability, lack motivation
• Lack of self-confidence
• Changes in sleep patterns
• Decreased appetite
• A decrease in total body weight plus lean body mass (increased body fat)
• Increase in resting heart rate

It is good to know what to watch out for when we are overtrained but there is a way to continue to work hard and prevent something like this to happening. We need to have a proper diet that consists of an adequate amount of carbohydrates (about 55% of our diet) and a minimum of 15% of protein. Getting the proper amount of sleep each night (8 hours). Making sure we have a variety with our training volume, intensity, exercises, and load. Keeping a training log and recording our body weight, resting heart rate, and a subjective rating of how we feel (general heath and how difficult our training sessions felt). All these things combined will help keep us working hard in the gym and allow for continual performance growth.