Buffalo, NY - When it comes to fitness, phrases like “no pain, no gain” are often worn as badges of honor. But for many athletes and fitness enthusiasts, especially men, those mantras can mask a dangerous truth: training too hard for too long can actually set you back.
Men's Health Awareness
November marks Men’s Health Awareness Month, a time to focus on issues that uniquely affect men’s physical and mental well-being. One of those concerns is overtraining syndrome, a condition that occurs when the body experiences excessive physical stress without enough time to recover. The result can impact not just performance but overall health.
What is Overtraining Syndrome?
“Overtraining is often associated with endurance athletes, especially runners, swimmers, triathletes and rowers,” explains Karl Kozlowski, PhD, professor and chair of kinesiology at Canisius University and a Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine. “Often this is due to a failure to balance a state of overreaching, which is a positive overload that leads to enhanced physical adaptations, and a state of over-training, which is repetitive exceeding of physiologic and even psychological limits.”
Overtraining is most often seen in aerobic endurance athletes because of the cardiovascular demand but resistance-trained athletes are also at risk, since their fatigue is muscular in origin. Kozlowski notes that "both types of exercise can lead to serious central nervous system (CNS) fatigue and a complex systemic failure physically and psychologically."
Warning Signs and Health Risks of Overtraining
Symptoms of overtraining can look different for everyone but often include:
- Persistent fatigue or loss of motivation
- Prolonged muscle soreness
- Decreased performance despite continued effort
- Elevated resting heart rate or disrupted sleep
- Mood changes such as irritability, anxiety or depression
Treatment for Overtraining
For men in particular, the tendency to push harder or tough it out can be difficult to resist. But Kozlowski stresses that recovery is a key part of the process.
"Typically the body can handle at maximum a 10% increase from one work cycle to the next," says Kozlowski, noting that one cycle equates to a 7-10 day period. "If there isn't proper recovery between these cycles, that leads to the more serious overtraining which can take weeks, months and on rare occasions years for the body to recover."
Bottom line, he concludes, "training should be structured around rest, recovery, sleep and nutrition."
Karl Kozlowski, PhD, is professor and chair of kinesiology at Canisius University and a Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine. He has extensive academic and practical experience working with populations at high risk for overtraining—from ultra-endurance athletes to tactical professionals, such as firefighters. His evidence-based training protocols emphasize sustainable fitness and the importance of recovery in optimizing performance.
Canisius was founded in 1870 in Buffalo, NY, and is one of 27 Jesuit colleges and universities in the U.S. Consistently ranked among the top institutions in the Northeast, Canisius offers undergraduate, graduate and pre-professional programs distinguished by close student-faculty collaboration, mentoring and an emphasis on ethical, purpose-driven leadership.
