how to avoid it
Rachel Gamble-Flint had high hopes, high expectations and talent. She was well on her way to
an extremely promising rowing career. Rachel, however, could not understand why she was
constantly tired. She had trouble training and sleeping at night, was losing weight and her
enthusiasm was waning.
move away from home. “I think I had finally run
out of adrenaline and crashing was inevitable.”
Rachel’s story is not unfamiliar. She represents
a classic case of overtraining or, as international
coach and FISA development director Thor Nilsen
prefers to word it, “wrong training”. “It is very
complex,” he says. “It’s not easy to define.”
was very conscious of not wanting to lose fitness
and when she returned to full training Rachel
continued with the extra cardio workouts.
A series of factors led to Rachel’s demise in health.
She can look back to when she competed at the
World Rowing Junior Championships for Great
Britain. While racing Rachel’s forearms seized
up. She had compartment syndrome and would
need surgery. Following surgery Rachel used,
as recommended, non-arm cardio exercises for
rehabilitation and to maintain her fitness. Rachel
“At first this seemed to work well as I became fitter
and leaner. Then,” Rachel says, “I suddenly seemed
to lose a lot of strength and I found my energy
levels were getting lower as I struggled to maintain
the speeds I was used to.” Rachel describes her
training at this point as being an obsession.
Rachel then got the opportunity to train alongside
the British senior women’s squad. Her volume of
training increased. “Making it through three hard
sessions a day was just accelerating my decline in
health,” Rachel says in hindsight. She was visibly
losing weight, which her coaches, family and
friends all noticed. Rachel was encouraged to put
on weight, but by this stage she had completely
lost her appetite. “I had very little enthusiasm
for anything and was starting to become very
negative,” she says.
Rachel made the under- 23 team, competed at
the under- 23 championships and at that time was
also studying for school exams and was about to
Rachel had so little energy that she found it
difficult to stay awake even while rowing. Then
at night she had trouble sleeping. Finally Rachel’s
coach sent her to the British team doctor. Blood
tests showed that she was running on empty.
“I had completely depleted my body of iron,
calcium, red blood cells, white blood cells and
several hormones.”
Issue 17 – August 2011
© 2010 Getty Images/Mark Dadswell
Juergen Steinacker of FISA’s sports medicine
commission has collaborated in research on
overtraining, or unexplained underperformance
syndrome (UPS). He explains that the whole
point of training to get better and stronger is
designed to lead to exhaustion and fatigue. >
