Eat, sleep, train, repeat.

Sound familiar? It’s the mantra of the modern sportsman and it’s one that any serious athlete will instantly recognise. The tales of men with modest talents who have raised their game through sheer force of will are legion. Whichever sport you follow, there’ll be a dogged grinder’s tale to tell of solitary hours working at the game, long after everyone else has quit the gym or the practice ground and headed for the comforts of home.

There is something noble about those tales: John Riggins, Ray Lewis, Tom Brady, Jimmy Connors… Everyone will have their own favorites, and it’s no more than fitting that the names that come to mind arrive with a misty sense of sentiment about them. These are the guys who were not born to greatness or who had greatness thrust upon them; these guys dug success out of the sporting bedrock with their own blood and sweat.

For of us with limited talent – the second teamers and the 19 handicappers – these are the examples that inspire. If we just put in the hours, go the extra yard and sweat through the details, we might just make the first team, and then who knows..?

But there is a danger in this, and it’s a danger that we should be aware of as we book another trip to the gym. Overtraining can do more harm than good.

We’d all recognise the implications of a surgeon lousing up a routine operation – a body gets damaged and the results can be career ending. But whilst we could point definitively to such clinical negligence, who would you blame if, after a decade of ill-advised weights, you find your back is out of whack? Or if after a series of full-on reps – whether it’s on the track, on the driving range or in the gym – your body breaks down in some other way through over-training, or inappropriate exercising?

If a surgeon screws up, there’s a direct cause and effect, and the issue is black and white. But if you have systematically put yourself through a series of killer drills to make the grade, to be in top shape, to be able to say you’ve gone the extra mile, how much responsibility are you going to take if (or when) your body breaks down?

Putting in a great block of training, only to suffer an injury, is no compensation for actually getting out there and competing, no matter how good the numbers might have looked. No-one’s going to know about those but you and your coach. Those are ‘Marlon Brando numbers -“I could have been a contender…” Those are truly the saddest sporting numbers.

At the elite end of the scale psychological damage can occur in addition to any physical toll. The famous case of swimmer Whitney Myers is a warning to anyone dealing with younger athletes in particular. Myers was an All-American Olympic prospect at the University Of Arizona who simply burnt out. She never got over it.
So with the same clinical intelligence that you’d expect from a medic, you need to take a dispassionate view of your own body. Odds are you’re not the next Ray Lewis, Tom Brady or Jimmy Connors. Pretending you are can do more harm than good.

Extend that ‘eat, sleep, train, repeat’ cycle once in a while. Throw ‘rest and recover’ into the cycle – and if that feels wrong, tell yourself you don’t have a choice; it’s doctor’s orders!