Erogenic aids and optimising sport

Question 1

Overreaching

Answer 1

• systemic attempt to overstress the body for a short period of training
• Allowing body to adapt to stronger stimulus
• Not same as excessive training
• Caution: easy to cross into overtraining
• Short performance decrement fatigued by improved performance and function

Question 2

Overtraining syndrome

Answer 2

• Highly individualised, subjective
• Necessary to rule out other causes
  Symptoms
• Decrease of strength, co-ordination, capacity
• Fatigue
• change in appetite: weight loss
• sleep and mood disturbances
• lack of motivation, vigour concentration
• Depression

Question 3

Neural and endocrine factors

Answer 3

• overtraining stressors may act primarily hypothalamic signals
  
  • can lead to sympathetic neural activation
  • can lead to a pituitary endocrine cascade
• hormonal axes are involved
  
  • sympathetic: adrenal medullary axis
  • Hypothalamic- pituitary- adrenocortical axis

Question 4

Immune responses

Answer 4

• circulatory cytokines
  
  • mediate inflammatory responses to infection, injury
  • increase in responses to muscle, bone, and joint trauma
    - Increase physical stress + decrease of rest: systemic inflammation
• inflammation: increase cytokines via monocytes
• may act on brain and body functions, contribute to overtraining symptoms
• compromised immune factor in onset of overtraining syndrome
• overtraining suppresses immune function
  
  • abnormally decreases lymphocytes, antibodies
• increase incidence of illness after exhaustive exercise
• exercise during illness: immune complications

Question 5

how to predict

Answer 5

• threshold different for each athlete
• intuition (unreliable) used by most coaches and trainers
• preliminary warning symptoms
  
  • subjective self-report measures
• increased RHR
• sleep quality
• decreased body mass
• HR during exercise
• HR variability
• likely related to intensity or volume

Question 6

Psychological factors

Answer 6

• emotional pressure of competition: stress
• parallels with clinical depression

Question 7

Physiological factors

Answer 7

• autonomic, endocrine and immune
• Not a clear cause and effect relation but significant parallels

Question 8

Sympathetic nervous system

Answer 8

• increased BP
• Loss of appetite
• weight loss
• Sleep and emotional disturbances
• Increased basal metabolic rate

Question 9

Parasympathetic Nervous system

Answer 9

• Early fatigue
• Decreased resting HR
• Decreased resting BP
• Rapid HR recovery
• More common with endurance athletes

Question 10

Endocrine responses

Answer 10

• resting thyroxine, decrease testosterone
• Resting cortisol increase
• Testosterone- to cortisol ratio
• Indicator of anabolic recovery processes
• Altered ratio possibly indicative of protein catabolism
• Possible cause of the overtraining syndrome
• Volume- related overtraining is apparently more likely to affect hormones
• Increase in blood urea concentration
• Resting catecholamines
• Possible outside factors
  
  • overreaching may produce same trends
  • time between last training bout and resting blood sample is critical
• blood markers are helpful but not definitive diagnostic tools

Question 11

Treatment and prevention

Answer 11

Treatment
- reduced intensity
- rest (weeks, months)
- counselling to deal with stress
Prevention
- Periodisation training
- adequate caloric intake

Question 12

Detraining

Answer 12

Loss of training-induced adaptations
- partial or complete
- due to training reduction or cessation
- Much more substantial change than tapering
Brief period: tapering
Longer period: de-training
Immobilization
- Immediate loss of muscle mass, strength, power
Training cessation
- variation in rate of strength and power loss
- Causes
- atrophy
- reduced ability to recruit muscle fibres
- Altered rates of protein synthesis vs degradation
- Loss mitigated by low level of exercise

Question 13

Detraining part 2

Answer 13

Muscle endurance decrease quickly
- change was seen after 2 weeks of inactivity
- Not clear whether results from muscle changes or CV changes
- Oxidative enzyme activity decreases by 40-60%
- muscle glycogen stores decrease by 40%
- Significant acid-base imbalance
- Weekly exercise tests during de-training
- blood lactate accumulation
- Bicarbonate decreases
- pH decreases
- Training: only moderate increase in speed and agility
- de-training: only moderate, decrease speed and agility
- form, skill, and flexibility are also lost
- sprint’s performance still suffers
- significant cardiorespiratory losses
- Based on bed rest studies
- significant increase in sub-max HR
- 25% decrease in Sub-max SV
- 27% decrease VO2 max
- Trained athletes, VO2 max lost faster with detraining, regained slowly
- losses occur when frequently and duration decrease by 2/3 of regular training load
- 70% VO2 max training is sufficient to maintain max aerobic capacity.