This volume summarizes the proceedings of the Reisensburg workshop which took place at Reisensburg Castle in November 1997". The castle is built on the site of an - cient Roman compound and situated in the south of Germany at the Danube river. Sci- tists from Australia, Austria, Belgium, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, South Africa, Switzerland, and the United States participated in the workshop. Like the 1996 workshop, the proceedings of which will be published in Medicine and Science in Sports and Ex- cise in 1998, the 1997 workshop also focused on the topic of overtraining in its widest sense to deepen our knowledge in this particularly sensitive field of sports science and sports practice. The authors see the present volume in a context with the proceedings p- sented by Guten (ed. ) "Running Injuries"; Saunders, Philadelphia (1997) and Kxeider, Fry, and O'Toole (eds. ) "Overtraining in Sport"; Human Kinetics, Champaign IL (1997). Overtraining, that is, too much stress combined with too little time for regeneration, can be seen as a crucial and threatening problem within the modern athletic community, of which significance can already be recognized reading daily newspapers: ". . . During the 1996 European championships, a gymnast shook his head almost imperceptibly, closed his eyes briefly and left the arena without looking up. He was fatigue personified. 'Suddenly, I just couldn't do any more. I just wanted to rest'". A look at his schedule showed why.

Definition, Types, Symptoms, Findings, Underlying Mechanisms, and Frequency of Overtraining and Overtraining Syndrome.- Selected Parameters and Mechanisms of Peripheral and Central Fatigue and Regeneration in Overtrained Athletes.- Perspectives on Correct Approaches to Training.- Monitoring of Training, Warm Up, and Performance in Athletes.- Evaluation of Endocrine Activities and Hormonal Metabolic Control in Training and Overtraining.- Clinical Findings and Parameters of Stress and Regeneration in Rowers Before World Championships.- Neuromuscular and Motor System Alterations After Knee Trauma and Knee Surgery.- Mood, Recovery-Stress State, and Regeneration.- The Exercise Myopathy.- Monitoring Overload and Regeneration in Cyclists.- Monitoring Regeneration in Elite Swimmers.- Overload and Regeneration During Resistance Exercise.- Regeneration After Ultra-Endurance Exercise.- Neuroendocrine System.- Overtraining and the Central Nervous System.- The Adrenergic Influence on Sleep Stage Shifting in High-Endurance Athletes After Exercise.