The exhaustion is typical for experienced endurance athletes, who usually react in this way. Overtraining-like states can also be induced by mental, social, economical and environmental stress. These factors together with physical training cause total stress which influences on the body. Stress can be caused by both positive and negative psychological factors. These may be e.g. holiday, vacation, personal achievement, change in residence, school or job, change in social and recreational habits, financial problems, divorce, trouble at school, trouble with the law, death or birth in the family.
Physiological factors cause stress as well.
Highly motivated athletes have to keep in mind that the balance between training, other stressors and recovery has to be right, i.e., they have to periodisize their training in the right way. If there is an uncompleted recovery time after exercises, fatigue starts to accumulate and after a few days or weeks symptoms of overtraining with a drop in performance will arise. As a result, recovery may take weeks or months. Symptoms and signs of overtraining vary from athlete to athlete. The symptoms and signs are due to changes in the function of the autonomic nervous system, hormonal status, immunological parameters and other physiological and musculoskeletal changes of the body.