Recovery and Overtraining

It's that time of year when the risk of overtraining increases for many athletes due to the warmer weather and the rapidly approaching race season. This is not something to be taken lightly. I've seen overtraining end a pro athlete's career. It's not a pretty sight when an otherwise powerful and dedicated athlete has a hard time getting out of bed in the morning, let alone doing any training.

The symptoms of the overtraining syndrome are difficult to define since there can be many and they are seldom exactly the same in any two overtrained athletes. Physiologically, the only ones that are common are poor performance and fatigue. But since these can occur even when an athlete is not overtrained, overtraining remains a bit of mystery in sports science.

Fatigue may be the better indicator. Every athlete experiences fatigue since physical stress is necessary to produce improved fitness. This is referred to as overreaching and is a necessary part of any training program. When an athlete ignores the fatigue of overreaching and continues to train with high stress and without rest or recovery then the possibility of overtraining greatly increases. For younger athletes this has been shown to require several weeks of such dedicated and exhaustive training. Older athletes and those who are relatively new to the sport may produce overtraining in fewer than three weeks.

While overreaching an athlete can shed the fatigue by resting or training very easily for a few days. After that he or she can return to high stress training. But once the overtraining syndrome has occurred the fatigue will not go away easily. The athlete can become listless, grumpy, and unmotivated. These psychological symptoms are usually best identified by a spouse and close friends. The overtrained athlete may continue in this state for weeks or months. The relentless fatigue is with them as a constant companion.

The symptoms are much like chronic fatigue syndrome, Lyme disease or mononucleosis. In fact, an athlete who experiences such deep and lingering fatigue should see a physician to be tested for these and other similar medical conditions. The best way to avoid overtraining is to monitor fatigue and rest frequently.

Excessive training, which is common among serious athletes, has the potential to produce overtraining. Frequent recovery for a few days is necessary to prevent it. How often and how long the recovery period should last is an individual matter which can only be determined through trial and error. If unsure of how often and much you should rest I would recommend erring on the side of too much rather than too little. I'd rather see an athlete undertrained but motivated than highly trained but unenthusiastic about life in general and competition in particular.

Comments

[Telmo]

hey. i'am starting my base training, the only way i can keep a steady pace is using a 10km low gradient hill, because terrain here is just up an down, is it ok to do repeats like 30 mins going up and 15 mins going down? like 3 ou 4, how much worse is it than doing 1.5 hour steady? it's really the only way i can to base training

thks

[Joe Friel]

Telmo--That's ok. Keep it up.

[AussieMIkeinSD]

Wouldn't following the pmc chart over the past 6-8 week base-build-peak stages where there is a recovery week built into the ATP be the way to track success of recovery? Look for % changes in tss-ctl-atl that would give one a historical success in recovery to the next phase-cycle assuming one is using TP. I guess this makes for the reason to use a ATP/TP doesn't.

[Herm]

I typically do a 1-2 mile cool down after hard workouts (tempo, 800m repeats, etc). If I can't run the cool down at my normal easy pace with my usual effort, I take note that at the very least, the workout was highly taxing, maybe too taxing.

If I start to see a succession of these sub-par cool downs, I take that as a sign that I need to back off a little. Maybe coincidence, but this method has kept me out of OT trouble over the years.

[Fred]

Do you know of any good links related to overtraining and inflammation? I've read that they are related, and am wondering about understanding your own inflammation levels as a way your body tells you that you're going too far.

[Joe Friel]

Fred--Interesting idea. Start by checking to see if there's any research on this by going to PubMed-- http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/

[Euan]

'Do you know of any good links related to overtraining and inflammation?' I am pretty sure I am currently in a deeply over-trained state, unless there is another health issue. I have been to the doctor for blood tests and apparently my liver is slightly inflamed. Could this be linked to overtraining?

[Joe Friel]

Evan--I have never seen anything on this. Sorry I can't be of help.

[Elizabeth]

Hi Joel - I am a women's cat 4 cyclist and think I might be experiencing overtraining. I was wondering what you thought and the appropriate action I should take. This is sort of a long story, but in a nutshell: I was at peak fitness, doing about 12-13 hours per week on the bike, racing each week. A month ago (with two races left in the season) I got hit by a car and fractured my collarbone. I was extremely frustrated with the whole thing and decided to try and keep exercising intensely with spin classes/lower body lifting. During about the 3rd week I wasn't feeling great and by the end of it, I decided to take a few days off (72 hours), then ran, where my HR was extremely elevated. I finally got my bike back this last week (so week 4 in this timeline) and felt really crappy on the couple of rides I did, like my legs were just filled with lactic acid but I wasn't going very hard at all. So I took another day off (even though those rides were really easy), then yesterday rode only 25 miles at an easy pace. Today they are feeling a little better, but I am really concerned about recovering from "overtraining" if this is the case since I am so anxious to start training regularly again. It wasn't like I was doing even close to the number of hours I was doing before the accident and so it doesn't seem like it would have been possible to severely overtrain myself even though I tried to go really hard in the spin classes (avg. HR ~ 160 for 1.5 hours). I was planning to not ride again today and take it super easy for a few days, in hopes of my legs starting to feel normal again - my collarbone is actually feeling fine, but my legs just feel really cruddy and my HR has been elevated in any ride/run I did in the last week. Any advice you have would be much appreciated!

[Joe Friel]

Hi Dlizabeth--I expect that's not overtraining you are experiencing. More Han likely a loss of bike-specific fitness. Just hang in there with steady training and a focus on aerobic endurance (z2) and you should be feeling strong in a couple of weeks.

[Elizabeth]

Ok, thanks Joe, well i have actually decided to take 5 days off of no riding/running/lower body lifting and see how I feel. I have been riding a bit but just hasn't felt great and my legs feel sluggish all the time (not on the bike as well). So although they have improved some since last week in this going easy week, I am going to take this week and see how they feel at the end, if I think I am ready I will ride sat, but if I am skeptical, I will probably wait a few more days - better safe than sorry in this game I suppose; b/c I am ready to go full force in to base season as soon as i can!

[Max b]

concerning R&R weeks, I see that every R&R week has the same number of hours in your book (triathlon training bible p.119) but I just found online another grid of yours :
http://www.trainingbible.com/pdf/THRT_Chapter9.pdf
That has more hours in the R&R weeks, is that a mistake ? For example every R&R week has 5.5hrs if you do 400hrs/year

I'm ajusting my program I was planning to do 450 hrs/years for my first year of training but it seems too much for me i'm moving to 400hrs from recent mental burnout of traning (difficulty sleep, etc.)

Thanks for your work !

[Joe Friel]

Max--Don't become overly focused on weekly numbers. They are suggestions to point you in the right direction. Good luck!