Can overtraining present as a (seemingly) inexplicably bad performance?

[HunterST]

No one would every question if an obvious physical ailment like a spasming back or tendonitis ridden elbow affected their play in a tennis match. The effect is obvious.

But are there more insidious factors that can affect our performance? I'm wondering if overtraining syndrome could be a major cause of people having uncharacteristically poor performances. Moreover, I wonder if the effects are general and subtle enough that they don't notice them.

A friend of mine, whom I usually have close matches with, recently played a tournament. He practiced 4 days in a row for the weekend tournament, played the 3 matches, then hit with me on Monday after having results he wasn't happy with. I beat him 1 and 1. I mentioned he was probably not recovered from the tournament, but he said he felt fine. He was just playing really bad.

That made me think maybe we are not as in-tune with the factors affecting our performance as we think. I find it hard to believe he wasn't affected physically, yet he insisted he is just in a slump.

 

[golden chicken]

Might have been mental fatigue leading to poor physical performance. Who but your friend really knows?

 

[S&V-not_dead_yet]

Life is a lot more random than we typically perceive or want to acknowledge. We like thinking we are masters of our own destiny, captain of our own ship, etc.

But if I'm honest, much of how my life turned out is the result of randomness or, at the very least, choices whose consequences were not envisioned [for better or worse].

If I believe that, it's not a large leap to apply the same to tennis results.

So inexplicably bad performances will get balanced out by inexplicably good ones.

 

[Curious]

It’s not just the injuries and pain, overtraining also causes fatigue hence leads to poor performance. You need to feel fresh and have stamina to play well. Also I miss playing tennis if I don’t play too frequently and enjoy it much more that probably helps me play better, too.

 

[liam the shark]

Yeah if you play too much your legs can silently be sore. Its not very noticable when you play a lot, but once you take a few days off or ideally a week off you will realize how much more refreshed your legs feel and how much better you play due to being fresh (better footwork, more agile, etc). This happens because most rec players dont properly recover, if you want to play multiple singles sets at peak performance everyday you need to basically recover like a pro - mobility work, yoga, stretching, sauna or hot bath, foam roll, percussion gun, etc.

 

[liam the shark]

It’s not just the injuries and pain, overtraining also causes fatigue hence leads to poor performance. You need to feel fresh and have stamina to play well. Also I miss playing tennis if I don’t play too frequently and enjoy it much more that probably helps me play better, too.

Yeah I agree very hard with this statement. When I used to play everyday I got so fatigued and tennis honestly started to feel like a job and kind of burnt me out.

 

[FiddlerDog]

Life is a lot more random than we typically perceive or want to acknowledge. We like thinking we are masters of our own destiny, captain of our own ship, etc.

Did you enjoy Taleb's work on Randomness ?

 

[S&V-not_dead_yet]

Did you enjoy Taleb's work on Randomness ?

Very much so! He's one of my favorite authors in that genre. it also validated [in my mind] how I approach certain things and not just in finance.

I made it about 1/3 of the way through *Antifragile*. His explanation of convexity was the most lucid I've ever seen.