Training on a knife's edge: how to balance triathlon training to prevent overuse injuries

The sport of triathlon offers athletes the chance to build and/or maintain cardiovascular fitness across 3 endurance disciplines. Swimming, biking, and running each have a host of overuse injuries that can occur as a result of overtraining. High running mileage, a history of previous injury, inadequate warm up or cool down, and an increase in the years of triathlon experience are a few of the factors that have been linked to triathlon overuse injuries. Early identification of overtraining symptoms and a corresponding reallocation of balance between each discipline, perhaps with an emphasis on increasing swimming, may help prevent many overuse injuries.