As I am not a medical professional (not yet at least) I can just tell you what exactly worked for me. I have been overtrained for the three times since I started training track&field.
For the third and the last time I got overtrained In February 14 days before an important event. At that time I really needed fast recovery. I have been doing a lot of easy runs (20min or so) and then later I switched to tempo runs. I haven’t made a single sprint for a week. I have been very carefull about my diet and sleep patterns:
- I supplemented L-Glutamin a lot (up to 4 doses per 5 grams a day).
- I was eating on every three hours in order to keep my body supplied with nutrients all the time.
- I slept at least 8 hours per night
(which is quite a lot for me). As I was waking up covered with sweet I started practising autogenic training every night before sleep and it helped a lot. - I used a lot of cold showers (switched to the contrast showers later).
I was completely fresh about three weeks from detection of overtraining symptoms.