Overtraining Injuries Affecting Athletes

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Today, many adolescents are involved in a variety of sports and activities and, of this large variety; there is one common aspect they can share. This is the urge to become stronger, faster, or do whatever it takes to outperform their competition. Because of this innate desire, adolescents are often prone to injuries related to overtraining. Overtraining is an emotional, behavioral, and physical condition that occurs when the amount of training done by an individual exceeds their recovery capacity. This is a very common type of injury that affects athletes of all ages, and it has been reported that up to fifty percent of these injuries have been seen in pediatric sports medicine (Brenner, 2007). Overtraining injuries are something that happens …show more content…

Often times, overtraining injuries are synonymous with overuse injuries, which are damage to the bones, muscles, or tendons, from repetitive stress, without sufficient time to heal and undergo the natural reparative process. Another type of ailment that falls under the overtraining category is burnout or overtraining syndrome. This can be broken down into many types of injuries such as psychological, physiologic, and hormonal changes that result in decreased sports performance, fatigue, and lack of enthusiasm about going to practice or competing. This can even translate to difficulties completing regular mundane routines. Other psychological effects of overtraining are a change in overall well-being and feeling more social stress from friends, family, and coaches. There is also a decline in sleep quality like sleeping too much or not enough. The physical injuries that can occur are to the tendons, bursa, cartilage and bones, resulting in deterioration of these tissues, and ultimately a failure to function. Despite the name, these various overtraining-related conditions produce a number of negative, often very serious outcomes for …show more content…

The American College of Sports Medicine claims that fifty percent of overtraining injuries can be prevented if proper training methods are implemented and if coaches implement a proper training plan, where they can still achieve the desired performance levels of their young athletes. Because of the dynamic nature of adolescent bodies, there is no exact prescription to prevent overtraining; however pediatric clinical physicians have developed strategies to help avoid it. Coaches should always have a warm up lasting at least ten minutes and they should have some system to monitor the progression of each athlete while gradually increasing the workload (Johnson, 2008). Weekly training time, reps, and sets, should not increase by any more than 10% each week, and ample recovery time is necessary. It is suggested that athletes take off one to two days a week from sports-specific training and a rest for two to three months between sports. Parents and coaches should also be aware of potential indicators of burnout such as complaints about any muscle or joint problems, poor academic performance, and low motivation for the sport. Furthermore, adolescents should be educated on proper nutrition, hydration,

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