How do we know if an athlete is overtrained?
Diagnosing Overtraining Syndrome: A Scoping Review
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Athletes can get so tired from training that their performance drops for weeks. This is called overtraining syndrome. Doctors don’t have one test to find it, so they look at many things like mood, hormones, and heart patterns.
No biological mechanisms were identified in this study. This may be an epidemiological, observational, or survey-based study that reports associations rather than proposing causal biological pathways.
Systematic Reviews & Meta-Analyses
Max 100Randomized Controlled Trials
Max 90Cohort Studies
Max 72Case-Control Studies
Max 58Cross-Sectional Studies
Max 44Case Reports & Case Series
Max 30Expert Opinion & Narrative Reviews
Max 541 / 100
Evidence Score
The highest quality evidence. These studies systematically search, appraise, and synthesize results from multiple individual studies, providing the most reliable summary of current knowledge.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Athletes can get so tired from training that their performance drops for weeks. This is called overtraining syndrome. Doctors don’t have one test to find it, so they look at many things like mood, hormones, and heart patterns.
No biological mechanisms were identified in this study. This may be an epidemiological, observational, or survey-based study that reports associations rather than proposing causal biological pathways.
Systematic Reviews & Meta-Analyses
Max 100Randomized Controlled Trials
Max 90Cohort Studies
Max 72Case-Control Studies
Max 58Cross-Sectional Studies
Max 44Case Reports & Case Series
Max 30Expert Opinion & Narrative Reviews
Max 541 / 100
Evidence Score
The highest quality evidence. These studies systematically search, appraise, and synthesize results from multiple individual studies, providing the most reliable summary of current knowledge.
Publication
Authors
Carrard J, Rigort AC, Appenzeller-Herzog C, Colledge F, Königstein K, Hinrichs T, Schmidt-Trucksäss A
Related Content
Claims (6)
Athletes who are overtrained might have messed-up hormone levels — like lower testosterone and higher stress hormones — which could explain why they feel so drained and don’t recover well.
Athletes who are overtrained might have a less responsive stress and hormone system, which shows up as weaker hormone reactions during a special medical test.
Athletes who are overtrained might have an imbalance in their nervous system, with their body being in 'rest mode' too much and not balancing properly with 'active mode'.
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.
Athletes who are overtrained tend to feel more tired, stressed, sad, or confused—and less energetic—than healthy athletes. Tracking these feelings might help spot overtraining.