Physiological Perspective of Endurance Overtraining – A Comprehensive Update

Overtraining is a condition in which adaptive mechanisms of athletes are stressed that diminishes the capacity to maintain a balance between exercise and recovery. Due to this chronic fatigue state the physical performance is hampered, leading to appearance of various pathophysiological and psychological symptoms. Excessive stress with insufficient recovery period is the main cause of overtraining. It usually happens due to sudden increase in training volume with shorter recovery times in between the successive training bouts. However, other stressors, apart from training, exist in an athlete’s life, and these may also ameliorate the chances of getting overtrained. Academic and parental pressures exist particularly in case of young athletes. Exterminating or minimising these causes by proper counselling on training loads, recovery times, nutrition and use of suitable markers can aid to prevent overtraining syndrome in athletes. Present review was undertaken to thoroughly scrutinize the physiological perspectives of overtraining with special emphasis on the different angles of recent research observations related to causes, markers, signs and symptoms, types, mechanisms involved, recognition and possible remedial measures of overtraining. Checking the prevalence of overtraining in young athletes with gender variation (if any) was another major concern of the review work