How Much Is Too Much?

Athletes work their bodies hard to gain a competitive edge – sometimes too hard.

Two University professors are conducting a series of studies aimed at pinpointing the effects of overtraining by athletes, including ways that coaches can maintain reasonable training regimens in all sports areas.

Department of Health and Kinesiology graduate director Jim McMillan, and fellow exercise science professor Stephen Rossi, are investigating a variety of issues including recovery time, along with perceived stress and recovery state to determine how an athlete’s performance is affected. “The objective of our research is to determine what coaches can do to adjust training and recovery schedules for athletes. We have to make sure athletes have enough recovery time in order for them to have an optimal performance,” said McMillan.

The Human Performance Laboratory in Hanner Fieldhouse is getting its own workout by student-athletes from a range of sports including tennis, basketball, swimming and soccer. The lab houses equipment used for fitness evaluations, body composition assessments and exercise biochemistry. Some machines measure simple body weight. Others include sophisticated and technical devices such as a Bod Pod body composition assessment system and a GE Lunar DEXA, used to measure bone density.

The equipment assesses a variety of the body’s physiological aspects and is extremely beneficial to the lab’s ongoing research efforts, but McMillan and Rossi have added another component to their studies: the perceived stress and recovery of training on athletes. Athletes are given surveys to complete, which are analyzed to help determine possible sources of stress and use of recovery strategies.

The art of conditioning the body is just that – an art, they said. Athletes often push their bodies to their limits in the belief that working harder will lead to improved performance. Just the opposite is true, however. Insufficient recovery time leads to injuries, and with continuous and accelerated training schedules, the results can be disastrous. Not only can athletes become physically exhausted, but certain psychological factors emerge: loss of concentration, lower self-esteem, distractibility and elevated stress levels, all of which can negatively affect performance.

Rossi explained the steps and methodology of research. “This is a very comprehensive look at stress and recovery. For example, we track an athlete’s training frequency per week to see if there are similar trends between the training load and the perceived stress and recovery, and how the athletes adapted,” he said.

One example of a sport specific performance test is the tethered maximal swim test, which assesses the amount of force a swimmer can produce from a stationary position. “The force device is attached to a non-elastic tether belt attached to the swimmer using a belt. The athlete performs a maximal effort freestyle stroke for 30 seconds,” said McMillan, with the results from the force transducer transmitted to a computer with appropriate software for analysis.

Another piece of equipment used by researchers is a set of electric timing gates that measure the sprint times of athletes. “This set contains four different parts, and measures the athlete as they complete each portion of the 40-yard distance. This is more accurate than using a stop watch,” said McMillan.

The Human Performance Lab is a revolving onsite teaching tool for undergraduate and graduate students, and McMillan foresees significant opportunities that will maximize the performances of student-athletes. “We have a great collaboration with the sports teams and coaches,” said McMillan, and he hopes that future advancements in the lab will include testing athletes in other sports, and the addition of new types of equipment.

–Mary Beth Spence