Some scores that combine health, hormone, and body measurements might help tell the difference between male athletes who are overtrained and those who aren’t — but right now, there’s only one small study showing this.

For male athletes who train hard, checking a mix of things like mood, diet, body fat, and hormone reactions might be a better way to spot overtraining than just looking at one blood test.

Nine simple check-ins about mood, eating, and how you're feeling during workouts can tell if a male athlete is overtrained — no blood tests or fancy machines needed.

To diagnose overtraining in athletes, doctors need to rule out other health issues like low nutrients, infections, or energy deficiency, because those can cause similar symptoms and often happen at the same time as overtraining.

There's no single blood test or clear sign that can definitively tell if someone has overtraining syndrome. Doctors instead use a mix of mood surveys and lab tests like cortisol or testosterone, but none of these are very accurate on their own.

Overtraining isn't just being tired — it's when an athlete's body stops working properly and performance drops for a long time, even after resting, and it's different from regular burnout that goes away in a few weeks.