This article written by Gina Kolata, is about a 15- year old boy named Erik Kraus, who had been heavily training for track & field. Over a period of 18-months, Erik's training was intense and he'd become a lot faster but what he didn't know was that training too much can have a negative long term effect on the athletes body. His father, Dr. William Kraus, an ex- track athlete and now a cardiologist became concerned with the health of his son and started looking into the condition "overtraining". He had his son tested for "ferritin", an iron stage protein to help with low iron levels and anemia.
"Overtraining is the downside of training, the trap that can derail an athletes success." Every athlete wants to be as fit as possible for their sport, so they begin to train as hard as they possibly can to get immediate results. However, it doesn't happen overnight. It takes time. Every athlete is at least aware of the condition overtraining, most have become adept to heading it off. As for Dr. Kraus and his son, he told his son to take a two-week break from all training and competition and see how you feel afterwards. Yet, that break didn't help at all. He actually became even more sluggish and exhausted, even after taking the supplements given to him. After everything went through and taking supplements he ended up taking about two months off from all training and competition and when he finally got back to his routine he told his father that he feels better than he ever has. Ultimately, training hard is a good thing, but when you train TOO hard you're putting your musculoskeletal health at risk. It might feel good at the moment but a couple months or even a couple of years down the road it could possibly ruin a sports career.
As a former athlete, I know about and even had to go through that struggle period of overtraining. My sophomore year of high school were the best moments and performances of my basketball career.