Too much, or not enough?
Have we been complicit in one of the biggest overcorrections of modern sports medicine?
Nothing irks me more than a buzzword, and there's few buzzwords in sports medicine that get thrown around more than “loads”. Typically, it refers to “training loads” and or “match loads”, the accumulation of physiological stressors from training and matches.
I guess what really gets my goat is that the term gets thrown around like a panacea term, without acknowledging all its components. Without getting too nerdy here, these could include internal (heart rate or perceived exertion) or external (kilometers run, various gps data, or ball speed / balls bowled if we’re using cricket as an example) components . There seems to be a very one sided argument thats been established - only too much is detrimental, and our job as sports clinicians is to protect athletes from the dreaded load.
Herein lies my central question when it comes to training loads: Which is the enemy of the athlete, too much or not enough load?
The answer takes us back to 2015 - I was an avid follower of Professor Tim Gabbett, Australian sport science researcher who was at the forefront of the training load movement. He was presenting a conference in Durban, in conjunction with the sharks - arranged by a remarkable sports clinician, at the time he was the Sharks S&C, and he is currently my colleague at the Pretoria Capitals, Johan Pretorius, or as I met him in 2015 - JP.
Perhaps Prof. Gabbett was preaching to the choir in me when describing how “too little” load is just as bad as “too much” load, but fast forward to 2024 I feel that sports medicine is still struggling to grasp this concept. If I turn this into a catchy story, it would go something like this…
With regards to Training loads, sports medicine has a default knee jerk reaction to remove load to help assess the situation. How much load to remove, what types of loading exposure or stimulus, is another nuanced discussion - but to cut a long story short - I believe we over-correct. My question to my colleagues is, what if in our attempt to remove or limit “excessive stimulus” - we’ve been reducing our athletes capacity and their tolerance by always looking to reduce training loads?
I might even propose that insufficient loading is more detrimental, and that higher loads, if structured correctly, and given enough time for physiological adaptation are a scientifically proven way for any human to increase their physical work capacity. I may even propose that what might seem like “overtraining” is often an insufficient capacity for load tolerance.
Perhaps you think I’m pointing out something that is relatively common sense, but why do we get it wrong? Here’s my top three reasons as I conclude this commentary:
We never have enough time to build “ideal load tolerances”. Either due to the sports constraints, or in season / out of season periods or other variables, adaptation takes time, which is a commodity - and humans, are inherently impatient.
Structuring loads and understanding all its nuances and components is complicated. This is proven by the cultish nature of the word load, and highlighted by the lack of meaningful debate around all its facets.
Building loads is often not the sexy training we love to see online. Think about the polarized training method for building endurance? Or maximal aerobic speed training - often quite underwhelming as a stimulus, but over time, and with consistency is known to have significant effects.
First hand experiences - this is the biggest factor for me. As sports clinicians, I think the best way we can learn this is by experiencing training load for ourselves. I ran my first ultramarathon last year - it was a 6 month training cycle to get there. My previous physiological “limit” was the half marathon distance, but I underwent a training program which increased my load tolerance and built me up to endure 50kms of KZN trails. I’m not saying everyone needs to undergo ultra running training, but I am saying that we should all engage in some structured training which grows our physiological capacity - also known as increasing our loads!
I would love to engage more on this topic, and your opinions are more than welcome. If you’ve made it this far - I appreciate you, and look forward to your input.
- NP