The Study
Overtraining in Resistance Exercise: An Exploratory Systematic Review and Methodological Appraisal of the Literature
This study is like a report card on other studies about overtraining in weightlifting. It doesn’t do a new experiment, but it looks at what 22 other studies found and says how good they were. We can learn what patterns scientists have seen, but we can’t be sure what actually causes overtraining from this.
Analysis score
Maximum 100 for a systematic review.
Where the score came from
This review looks at what happens when people train too hard without enough rest, especially in weightlifting. It checks how we can tell if someone is overtrained and whether science has good ways to measure it.
Where does this study sit?
Reviews of RCTs (Meta-analyses)
Max 100Randomized Trials
Max 90Reviews of Cohort Studies
Max 85Cohort Studies
Max 72Reviews of Case-Control Studies
Max 63Case-Control Studies
Max 58Cross-Sectional & Case Series
Max 50Expert Opinion
Max 541 / 100
Quality score
Systematic reviews and meta-analyses of cohort studies. They sit above a single cohort study but below a single randomized trial, because the underlying evidence is still observational.
Key takeaways
Summary
Based on the study abstract and findings.
- 1It's hard to know if someone is truly overtrained because most studies don’t test recovery, and no blood test or body signal reliably shows overtraining—only actual performance drop does.
- 2Out of 22 studies, 10 found no drop in performance even with heavy training.
- 3Only 8 studies checked if performance came back after rest, which is needed to tell types of overreaching apart.
Score breakdown, methodology, conflicts of interest, evidence analysis & raw study data
Publication
Journal
Sports Medicine
Year
2019
Authors
C. Grandou, L. Wallace, F. Impellizzeri, N. Allen, A. Coutts
Related Content
Claims (9)
Overtraining that really messes you up is super rare — most people don’t train hard or long enough to actually hit that point.
If someone's strength keeps dropping during weight training, that might be the best sign they're overtraining—because no blood test or body measurement has proven to reliably catch it early.
Doing the same intense weight workouts all the time might lead to worse performance and overtraining in people who already lift regularly.
Most studies on intense weight training don’t check how well people recover afterward, so we can’t tell if the training helped, hurt, or caused serious burnout.
When people do really intense weight training, not everyone gets overly tired or performs worse — in fact, more than half of the studies didn’t see a drop in performance.
When athletes push too hard, their performance might dip at first — but if it's 'functional' overreaching, they bounce back stronger. If it's 'non-functional,' they stay weak even after resting.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making health decisions.