What if You Overtrain Before an Important Wrestling Tournament?
Youth and high school wrestling has become all about the ABCs of national tournaments. From the dozens of dual tournaments being held every other week, to the monthly “national” tournaments that run year around. There is always a “big” tournament for youth wrestlers to prepare for once parents think their young wrestler has outgrown their local wrestling community.
I won’t go into whether this is good or bad, as I’m pretty neutral. I love and loathe traveling to “national” tournaments with my two sons as much as the next wrestling family. What I do want to go into is the training cycle required for a youth wrestler to compete at the “national” level.
With Super 32 approaching this weekend, this idea of a training cycle has been on my mind over the last 6 weeks. For those that don’t know, Super 32 is the most prestigious per-season tournament in the nation. For high school wrestlers, it’s a major milestone in judging their ability to one day compete at the college level.
Over the last 6 to 8 weeks, wrestlers of all ages have been training hard core to prepare for this competition. I would dare to say many have overtrained. Speaking from first hand knowledge of the typical training cycle of a wrestler preparing for these competitions, I’m certain overtraining is more common than not.
Understanding Overtraining and How to Identify It
Overtraining is a form of burnout that is generally temporary, and a result of perpetual fatigue. Many athletes overtrain their bodies without realizing it. However, when an athlete does overtrain, they will notice a significant drop in performance. Unfortunately, athletes (and often their parents and coaches) respond to this drop in performance with more training instead of rest.
In addition, according to a recent study, overtraining also leads to bad decision making and a reduction in mental capacity. This means that when an athlete overtrains, they will also be prone to strategic errors when competing.
Therefore, the two signs to look for when watching out for overtraining are:
- An unexplained drop in the athlete’s performance when training routines have not changed otherwise.
- A noticeable change in the athlete’s memory, decision making ability, motivation, self-control, or discipline.
The best thing to do once you suspect overtraining is to give the athlete a week or two of rest. Various studies show that athletes won’t lose conditioning, muscle memory, or strength after as much as two weeks of rest. In fact, these studies show that several days of rest after intense training will actually improve performance.
In short, a good rule of thumb to use when attempting to peak for a important wrestling tournament is to start tapering training two weeks before the competition.