Undertraining occurs when athletes simply do not push themselves hard enough in training. The results of undertraining can be seen in beginner and elite level athletes. Undertraining is a difficult problem to for many to correct. Society readily accepts and even promotes the state with such things as television and the internet; these evils suck people in to their web, which in turn lead to the athletes sitting around avoiding training. While many people fear overtraining, the real fear should be undertraining as it is a much more common problem. Athletes need to take proactive measures to avoid the state. The focus of this article will be to look at symptoms, causes and possible ways to resolve the problem undertraining.

Symptoms which are exhibited by an athlete in an undertrained state include:

• no strength
• poor race performances
• unwillingness to train hard
• feeling fresh and energized all the time
• the athlete wasting too much time partaking in other sports, thus avoiding the sport they should be focusing their time and energy on (known as ‘cross training’)

Reasons for athletes entering in to the undertrained state include:

• the evils of society such as television and the internet
• laziness
• lack of training time caused by having to work or go to school
• no desire to accept the pain which comes with hard training
• complicated training programs, that do not produce results
• physical excuses like having a medical condition or old-age
• always "saving" themselves for the next local race
• avoiding overtraining by setting a training volume level far below what their body is capable of sustaining

While the undertrained state is difficult for many to escape, here are a few key tips that can be use escape the dreaded state:

1. Increase your pain threshold by doing one psychotic training session. For example, if you are a cyclist and the maximum distance you have ever ridden is 100 km, do a 300 km ride as absolutely as hard as you can. After about 150 km, the level of pain you begin to experience will be quiet high. As you pass 250 km, you will be in so much pain, that you will be hoping someone hits you in their car as to put you out of your misery. From this experience you will have a whole new understanding of pain and what it feels like to be pushed to and beyond your breaking point.
2. Neglect family and friends. Family and friends can form a support system for an athlete, but when they start affecting the amount of time you spend training, you simply have to start neglecting them.
3. Reduce the number of local races you compete in. If doing well in local events is important to you, reduce the number of the events you compete in and use the time for quality training. If your training session would not be intense as the local race, see the tip 1 to help resolve this problem. However, if a hard training ride is done before a local race, and if you ride hard in the race with no concern for your result, a highly effective amount of training benefit can be realized.
4. Avoid worrying about overtraining. Most people simply are not even capable of reaching an overtrained state. If you have a job or go to school, extreme sleep deprivation will occur before reaching an overtrained state. If extreme sleep deprivation occurs, sleep more.
5. Most importantly, when you do a hard training session, complete it or parts of it, at a maximal or near maximal level. The more you push the top end of your strength in training, the more it will improve. If you truly are training at a maximal level, you should experience a great deal of physical pain.

Undertraining can be avoided if the athlete knows what factors are responsible for its cause. Most importantly, once an athlete increases training hours, increases exertion, increases pain and suffering felt, undertraining can be completely avoided.

DISCLAIMER

The author assumes no responsibility if any person follows the tips listed within this article and becomes injured or dies as a result of overexertion.