This is an example of "over training." Your body simply cannot adapt to the stress of training that your coach is putting you through. The volume of stress is greater than the capacity for recovery. Regardless if your coach is putting you through an unreasonable workout or that you have under trained in the preseason and come into the season out of shape, it doesn't matter, you are over training and are at a higher risk of injury, shin splints, muscle pulls, groin pulls, calf pulls, and cramping.

And then, suddenly, one of your teammates shouts out, "Come on guys, no pain, no gain."

Now, we have all heard the phrase, "no pain, no gain." Every athlete must determine for themselves whether this is a good philosophy or a harmful philosophy when considering the very important issues of "over training and under training."

This article will attempt to help you figure out for yourself what philosophy you should use in regard to your training and the "no pain, no gain" theory.

First of all, I think we all know to increase one's toughness, conditioning, etc. it takes hard training. Stressing one's body, mind and soul is how you get stronger physically, mentally and emotionally. By stressing I mean taxing your body with difficult physical tasks such as running a certain distance, making a certain time, or doing a strenuous weight lifting workout. Stressing your mind might include changing the way you think when you feel tired or bored so as to feel energetic and excited. Stressing your emotions might include practicing feeling hungry for the battle when you really feel nervous. These are just a few ways you might apply stress in your daily training regimens to help make your tougher, better conditioned and a more skilled warrior.

The big questions is, how much stress should be applied and for how long? What kind of balance do you use regarding these training issues?

Studies show that too much training (stress) for too long a period, with insufficient recovery can lead to "over training."

As already stated, when you get to a state of over training, you are much more prone to injury or sickness. Your muscles feel sore and tired, you may have chronic fatigue. Emotionally, you may be bored, depressed, moody, and unmotivated. Mentally, you may think more negatively, making more mental mistakes, with poor concentration. Instead of getting tougher and stronger, you actually start to get weaker when in this over trained state.

On the other hand, under training (or too little training stress) will create the same weakening effect as over training. Let me explain why.

To keep yourself close to or at your "ideal competitive state" your body requires a certain amount of stress. For example, let's assume that to maintain your current level of fitness, you require 100 units of physical, mental, and emotional stress per training session. The 100 units of stress is...stress that you can take comfortably. For you to achieve greater goals, thus moving you forward, it will require increasing your daily training stress to 120 units. But instead, you reduce your training stress to 80 units. After a period of time (say 3 weeks), your capacity to sustain stress will decline to 80. Now when it is time to perform or train back at 100 units, your body will react the same as it does when you over train. Essentially, that is now what you are doing (over training) because your current capacity to sustain stress is now at 80 units.

For me, I like to always train on the border of over training. Personally, I felt during my competitive days that I had a good handle on my body. I could read the signs pretty clear, and if I did make a mistake, I didn't mid erring on the side of over training because I figured I would achieve my goals quicker by doing this. I always knew that if I went too far into the over training mode, I could always take a break and recover.

Probably the most important thing you can learn for yourself is to know your body and how to read it. This allows you to stay at the most productive level of training to advance your conditioning and skills.

Over Training Mode - Bad Pain (leads to injuries, low motivation, etc.)

Toughness Training - Good Pain (discomfort) increasing your training capacity threshold

Ideal Competitive State - Feeling Great, High Energy, Challenged, Fun

Maintenance Training - No Real Signs of Stress

Under Training Bad Pain - Same as Over Training

As an athlete learning to distinquish what is good pain (enough stress) from bad pain (too much stress, too long a time period) is the key to keeping you on a fast pace to achieving your goals. The point is simple... no discomfort - no toughening... no pushing - no toughening... no personal confrontation - no toughening... To put it simply, without stress, you cannot achieve your goals. I believe balancing your training stress is an ongoing issue and constant battle. You never totally figure it out. It is an ongoing process that you must always pay attention to. So determining the no pain, no gain theory and what it means specifically for you might very well be one of the greatest challenges you will have to meet if you want to achieve your full potential.