Prevention of overtraining syndrome in young (elite) athletes: Development of a monitor and advanced techniques for clinical diagnosis.

Prevention of overtraining syndrome in young (elite) athletes: Development of a
monitor and advanced techniques for clinical diagnosis.

The high workload of top athletes is frequently linked to overtraining (life
time prevalence 20% to 60%). Especially between 15 an 20 years of age the top
athlete is not only confronted with an increased training load, but also with
an increased social an psychological load. To protect the athlete and to
improve efficiency of the training and development phase of an athlete,
prevention of overload and overtraining is demanded.
A multi causal model of overtraining hypothesizes that an online monitor of
load, and capacities to cope with these loads, serves as an apporiate tool to
signal the development of overtraining in young top athletes.
New knowlegde about endocrinological responses to acute and high physical
overload and brain activity in psychiatric diseases offer new oppertunities to
improve clinical diagnostic tools of overtraining.

The main objective of this research proposal is to 1). develop an on-line
monitor for young athletes to prevent them from a systematic overload and to
avoid overtraining 2) develop clinical tools to improve diagnostics of
overtraining.

1. A prospective study using an online monitor (logbook method).
2. Een patient-control design to test differences in endocrinological
adaptation after heavy physical exercise tests and brain activity after a
stress test.
Patients are included if performance decrements are measured in the monitor
Controls are included if performance decrements are lacking.

none.

There are no risks associated to the participation of the online monitor. Also,
many athletes are used to fill in log books and questionnaires. Stress and
recovery are registered only once a month posing only a minor workload on the
athlete. Two other questionnaires are only used twice or three time during the
entire season. Performance testing in the monitor, as a replacement of normal a
training session, will not lead to any physical burden higher than any training
does.
There are no known risks for athletes to participate in tasks of psychomotor
slowness and in EEG measurements. The risk of participating in the double
maximal exercise test is the same as the risk related to sport participation,
since a maximal exercise is part of their regular training program or
mach/game. An insurance covers the risks involved in the maximum exercise tests
with collection of blood samples (four times 20 ml), which involves less than
half the number of participants.
The specific sensitivity to overload and overtraining, their age dependant
causes and age dependant physiological changes defines this study as dependant
to the population under study.
The frequent occurrence of overload and overtraining and the impact that
performance decrements and failure can have on young athletes, justifies the
minor burdens of this study if increased knowledge about prevention and
diagnosis of overtraining is obtained.