How Overtraining Affects the Body and How to Overcome It

Author: Sara Wilson

Overtraining is something that a lot of athletes face and often don’t even know it. Overtraining occurs when you exceed your body’s ability to recover from exercise. Everyone wants to be the best at what they do and today people have mentalities like “no days off” or “no pain no gain”. They think that if they keep working and never stop it will help them with their athletic goals, but they almost always end up pushing themselves too far. That is something I experienced last year running cross country at the junior college level. I tried gradually increasing my mileage and started running every other day and eventually worked up to running 6 days a week. I was in the best shape of my life and was faster than I have ever been. Once the season started, my coaches were excited about my progress over the summer and ready to get the season started. Once we started having meets, we would go weeks without a day off. Having practice all week with a meet on Saturday and then long run-on Sunday and start the process all over again on Monday. My times started to plateau and eventually gradually decreased. I also felt tired even doing things that were easy before. My coaches told me to keep running and work my way backup. Doing this led to a tibial stress fracture which put me out for the rest of the season. I learned that in order to reach your goals rest is just as important as training and when you are feeling tired and regressing it may be time to take a step down.

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The Benefits of Dry Needling for Athletes with Muscle Pain

Author: Mandi Roemmich

Introduction

            Dry needling has recently become a popular therapeutic technique used for pain management, particularly in athletes. The use of dry needling, primarily by physical therapists, began in the early 21st century, and has since become a popular treatment method for myofascial pain, with over twenty states approving the technique of dry needling by 2011 (Dommerholt, 2011). Dry needling is a therapeutic procedure using the insertion of thin needles through the skin into myofascial trigger points, muscular or connective tissue with the aim to reduce pain intensity (Kaljić, et al., 2018). Myofascial trigger points can be described as hyperirritable spots in skeletal muscle. Various techniques of dry needling, including number of needles used, depth of insertion, and length of treatment are used varying by individual preferences and circumstances. This treatment type is specifically recommended for treatment of musculoskeletal pain conditions caused by myofascial trigger points (Kaljić, et al., 2018).

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