Deciding the quantity is a major step for coaches and trainers. Volume, load, intensity, frequency - all these terminologies have always been a cumbersome process as it is largely dependent on each individual's adaptation and response pattern. The scale moves too less - "Detraining" and too much - Overtraining ! Let's now focus on deducing the appropriate "much"!!
It's quite a pressure that's put on the coaches' head. Especially in a team sport scenario, the coaches should monitor each athlete individually under numerous circumstances. With popular sports such as cricket or football, it becomes very hectic to do such monitoring due to frequent matches. Also the training periods are pretty tightly scheduled. Thus, the coaches are forced to compel their athletes into more intense and rigorous training regimes. This scenario on extreme levels leads to over training syndrome.
Overtraining:
Overtraining is a phenomenon that appears in as a result of imbalance between training and recovery levels. With persistent hardcore training protocols, the athlete might strain so much that his exercise levels would exceed the body's ability to recover within the given recovery time frame. This would result in a significant decline or a plateau in the athlete's performance. Monotonous programmes, high volumes and unmonitored intensities can predispose the athlete to overtraining syndrome. It causes a reduced or lack of stimulus in the central nervous system reducing the strength and fitness.
“When the overtraining syndrome is unidentified and not considered, it leads to extremes levels such as exertional Rhabdomyolysis. Though uncommon, it is not to be a probability of ignorance."
Overtraining syndrome can appear in numerous mechanisms. Each athlete may develop the chain in an astonishingly different scales and levels. There are no orderly revelation of the mechanism or even signs and symptoms. I have mentioned below the common modes of set in. As said these do not refrain to any hierarchy or orders.
Possible mechanisms:
Muscle microtrauma as a result of repeated use without adequate recovery,
Protein deficiency, where amino acids are used up in a quicker rate than the supply,
Incomplete protein in diet,
Activated release of cytokines, resulting in underperformance,
Diet preferences of the athlete,
Improper training protocols,
Sympathetic nervous system goes into override which results in elevating the heart rate and increased adrenaline levels relatively quicker. This would adversely decline the performance as the flight or fight protocol gets activated.
Signs and Symptoms:
The signs of Overtraining syndrome are quite classic and easily observable. The most vivid sign would be in the performance. There will be an unexplained sudden decline or plateau in the performance. Another classical observance would be an altered resting heart rate. Most of the athletes use fitness trackers and have an habit of regularly monitoring their heart rate. Also, a point to the coach! If your athlete is portraying delayed or longer periods of muscle soreness, beware, there is a possibility that he might be in the initial stages of the syndrome! Other classical signs would include the following:
Increased rate of injury,
early onset of fatigue,
reduced VO2 max,
delayed recovery,
Incessant muscle soreness and fatigue,
elevated resting heart rate,
reduced immunity,
psychological changes,
loss of focus
loss of sleep
insatiable thirst
"Quite surprisingly, the prevalence of this syndrome is quite less in the international teams than the state, county or college teams."
What's it with the coaches?
It is quite surprising that the coaches and the trainers who train the state, county or college team prepare the athletes in a more strenuous way than the international team players are trained. Various studies have pointed out the large incidences of overtraining syndrome in the state and college cricket players. And also very less cases, have been reported in the international cricket players. It is also possible that the coaches are responsible for the injuries and poor performance scales at the sub-international levels. This would result in spoiling the athlete's career at such an early stage.
It is immensely critical to realise that the coaches must analyse their workout pattern with respect to each individual. The head coaches and the strength and conditioning coaches must understand the fact that just because you train them more and hard it doesn't mean it would impact the performance in relatively similar way. In reality the anti-climax is more likely to happen in a scenario where  you don't monitor your training loads and volumes frequently.
"I have done a research that statistically shows that the county players in England had a statistical drop in performance after one year of training. This can largely be attributed to the fact that at sub international levels the training levels are pretty much crazy than sensible! No Offence!!"
How Much Do I Train My Athlete?
Note to the coaches- How much you train your athlete is entirely a decision that you need to make based on your observations. One of your athlete may have higher thresholds than the other! One simple way I would propose is to load them individually based on the Vo2 Max (for aerobic) and using RPE (for other exercises). It is rare instances that coaches don't use 1RM for resistance exercises. Almost everyone in the industry is boasting about their utility of 1RM in their protocols. By the way 1RM is also a very handy and common method to train your athlete and I am not stating otherwise! It is just nice to clear out the point that just following one scientific term doesn't not mean you train you athlete with the science sense! Please do not do this! Don not just use science as a small part of your training or screening protocols and claim that you have been training with the base of sports science !! You can take the support of the sports Science experts at many regards with this concern.
Focus on training frequency and try working your way around to derive on the expected load and intensity. This should reduce the training volume and thus would directly promote recovery which in turn reduces the possibility of overtraining syndrome. Introduce variations in the programme. This would prevent a monotony in the system. As discussed earlier, monotonous patterns increases the rate of adaptation to the workout. This would then result in reduced stimulus. Introduction of new stimulus is done because if not introduced, the body gets adapted to the exercises and further improvements in performance would be ceased. Also once the body is adapted to the progression of the training, then it would seem easy for the athlete and the coach would then have to increase the volume and/or load. This would then bring us back to square zero!! which we don't want to happen !!
The problem is we have begun coaching as a mode of education and have been following literatures which dates back few decades or even centuries back from now. The researchers have updated many useful changes and due to controversies, we are unsure of what to follow and what not. Eventually we stick back to the older and widely accepted concepts. Coaches can try combining different forms of training to prevent monotony and muscular/systemic resistance. Eg. You can include Fartlek training and interval training for the first cycle and combine continuous training with training at lactate threshold for another cycle. I have explained more about the types of common training classifications in the blog " Training with types!". Please click on the link to get redirected to that concept.
Many are aware and a few are not of the "Seven Principles of Training". Coaches must begin to exploit them in greater extents. These have been highly evidential for a few years. They are:
Specificity,
Progressive overload,
Individuality,
Variations or Periodization,
Maintenance,
FITT (Frequency, Interval, Type, Time)
Reversibility
I would say all are equally informative and important but the "Specificity"Â is something that we should reassign our focus onto with this topic in concern. The specificity principle states that;
"Adaptations to the metabolic and physiologic functions depend upon the type and mode of overload. Specific exercise elicits specific adaptations to promote specific training effects. And there is only a limited exchange/ interchange of benefits."
The principle also advices that the training should be in such a way that it is specific to each sport , each individual and ultimately increases the demand of improvement of specific system. According to this principle, training adaptations are highly specific to the type of activity and to the volume and intensity of exercise period.
As a remedy to these signs and symptoms, the common reflex by the sports science team and few coaches is to give rest and put them off the ground. This is literally the most inappropriate response to be given to the body that has been doing enormous amounts of workout over a period of time. The outcome of immediate complete rest would push the body into drastic responses. And some coaches do not monitor the players at rest/recovery phase. They can relapse into the other extreme of the training abscess called the detraining. It occurs as a result of not training over a long period of time. It is more appropriate to suggest recreational activities and active rest periods. Coaches should reduce the regimen in a very logical way and definitely not in an exponential manner. Encourage them to engage in other activities so that they don't fall into detraining phase.
This must not be confused or interfered with the brief recovery periods that are given to athletes despite them not displaying any signs of overtraining syndrome. This is a technique called tapering. This is used to pump up the muscle glycogen store and promote full and quick recovery just prior to competition. This is often combined with supplementations. This introduces me to my next topic which is based on supplementation.
"Coaches must understand the fact that just because you train them more and hard it doesn't mean it would impact the performance in relatively similar way. In reality the anti-climax is more likely to happen when you don't monitor your training loads and volumes frequently."