overtraining

sparknote_s said:

I've been riding for 4 weeks now. Each week I've done 5 days training, with the other 2 days completely off the bike. I tried to keep my avg heart rate at 150 on each ride, but I think I made a mistake in not taking some of the days easy spinning. My resting heart rate is 42, I'm not exactly sure what it was when I started training 4 weeks ago. So I can't judge by that, but I do know that my legs feel dead all the time for the last week.

So in case I've overtrained, or am very close to it, I'm taking today off completely. I have a race on saturday. So I am planning to do this. Monday and tuesday recovery rides (easy HR for about 1.5 hours). Wednesday off completely. Thursday and friday will be the same kind of recover rides. Then on saturday I will race and see how I feel.

If in fact I have not totally overdone it (I don't think I have) and am just close to it, does this sound like enough time of recovery to get back to normal leg energy, and let my resting HR go back down (if it is even elevated)?

Probably a good thing you caught it now. I usually train hard for three weeks, then a recovery week and lower intensities, just to give my body time to adapt (recover). Everyone is different though, so it's hard to say.

Strangely enough, I don't feel right during my "recovery" weeks, I feel like I'm losing fitness. The numbers say otherwise however, so for now that's what I'm going to follow.

Good luck.

Hmmm.....what is your LTHR??? If 175+, 150 is just a walk in the park. Anything "average" says nothing. Did you do any interval training at 95% to 110% LTHR in any given week? Once a week at zone5+ is already a lot of work load. If you do them twice a week for 4 weeks straight, you are due with some rest. To see if you are overtrained, you have to go out and to do one of these intervals again (assuming if you have been doing them). If you couldn't sustain 90+% of your LTHR comparing to the beginning of the training month, you are some what overtrained or your body is just trying to adopt the work load (couple of days off should have you fully recovered).

sparknote_s said:

I've been riding for 4 weeks now. Each week I've done 5 days training, with the other 2 days completely off the bike. I tried to keep my avg heart rate at 150 on each ride, but I think I made a mistake in not taking some of the days easy spinning. My resting heart rate is 42, I'm not exactly sure what it was when I started training 4 weeks ago. So I can't judge by that, but I do know that my legs feel dead all the time for the last week.

So in case I've overtrained, or am very close to it, I'm taking today off completely. I have a race on saturday. So I am planning to do this. Monday and tuesday recovery rides (easy HR for about 1.5 hours). Wednesday off completely. Thursday and friday will be the same kind of recover rides. Then on saturday I will race and see how I feel.

If in fact I have not totally overdone it (I don't think I have) and am just close to it, does this sound like enough time of recovery to get back to normal leg energy, and let my resting HR go back down (if it is even elevated)?

BlueJersey said:

Hmmm.....what is your LTHR??? If 175+, 150 is just a walk in the park. Anything "average" says nothing. Did you do any interval training at 95% to 110% LTHR in any given week? Once a week at zone5+ is already a lot of work load. If you do them twice a week for 4 weeks straight, you are due with some rest. To see if you are overtrained, you have to go out and to do one of these intervals again (assuming if you have been doing them). If you couldn't sustain 90+% of your LTHR comparing to the beginning of the training month, you are some what overtrained or your body is just trying to adopt the work load (couple of days off should have you fully recovered).

just because your HR won't go to the same level as it previously did at the same power, doesn't mean you're overtrained. if you're overtrained (which is unlikely on four weeks of training for the original poster) the only clear marker is that your performance decreases (i.e., actual power output).

ric

Quoted post said:

just because your HR won't go to the same level as it previously did at the same power, doesn't mean you're overtrained. if you're overtrained (which is unlikely on four weeks of training for the original poster) the only clear marker is that your performance decreases (i.e., actual power output).

Ric, how long do you think it would take to reach an overtrained condition? I started training seriously a few months ago and went pretty hard from day 1. After about 4 weeks I began exhibiting symptoms I understood to be typical of overtraining; poor sleep, cranky as all hell, very heavy legs constantly, etc. I seemed to still be making performance improvements but then again I guess it was off such a low base I could have done anything and still improved. The past few weeks I've backed right off and make a real effort to get good rest. My rate of improvement seems to be much faster now.

From reading the original post I'm not sure that person's and my situation are that different.

886014 said:

Ric, how long do you think it would take to reach an overtrained condition? I started training seriously a few months ago and went pretty hard from day 1. After about 4 weeks I began exhibiting symptoms I understood to be typical of overtraining; poor sleep, cranky as all hell, very heavy legs constantly, etc. I seemed to still be making performance improvements but then again I guess it was off such a low base I could have done anything and still improved. The past few weeks I've backed right off and make a real effort to get good rest. My rate of improvement seems to be much faster now.

From reading the original post I'm not sure that person's and my situation are that different.

from your appraisal above which includes you increasing your performance it's highly unlikely you're overtrained. It takes an awfully long time to become overtrained, and a long time to recover from it -- this could be many months or longer.

On the other hand it is likely that you are training too vigorously for your condition and may need to build in some recovery time and/or structure your training much better. A coach, including ourselves can help with this.

ric

i train hard for 2 weeks, then take 5 days of recovery (2 days off, 3 one hour very easy rides) after this, I am flying and always break personal records. this works for me, but may not for others.
it's always a good idea to take an easy week, once a month or so.

velomanct said:

i train hard for 2 weeks, then take 5 days of recovery (2 days off, 3 one hour very easy rides) after this, I am flying and always break personal records. this works for me, but may not for others.
it's always a good idea to take an easy week, once a month or so.

there isn't always a need to have an easy week every month or so, depending on the training you're doing and how you feel.

do you do that 2 weeks on, 5 days easy all the time? that seems *really* excessive?

ric

ric_stern/RST said:

there isn't always a need to have an easy week every month or so, depending on the training you're doing and how you feel.

do you do that 2 weeks on, 5 days easy all the time? that seems *really* excessive?

ric

i like doing it that way. maybe i don't really need that much rest but i don't think you can argue with my improvements in the last 7 weeks - 100watt increase in threshold power. yeh, i know, isn't that improvement *excessive*? ;-)

I get irritable when I'm overtrained so I know there's a problem if I start getting grumpy or small things bother me. I also get stomach upset if I overdo it.
The best guide for me is to listen attentively to the body and how I feel.

886014 said:

Ric, how long do you think it would take to reach an overtrained condition? I started training seriously a few months ago and went pretty hard from day 1. After about 4 weeks I began exhibiting symptoms I understood to be typical of overtraining; poor sleep, cranky as all hell, very heavy legs constantly, etc. I seemed to still be making performance improvements but then again I guess it was off such a low base I could have done anything and still improved. The past few weeks I've backed right off and make a real effort to get good rest. My rate of improvement seems to be much faster now.

From reading the original post I'm not sure that person's and my situation are that different.

Carrera said:

I get irritable when I'm overtrained so I know there's a problem if I start getting grumpy or small things bother me. I also get stomach upset if I overdo it.
The best guide for me is to listen attentively to the body and how I feel.

it's highly unlikey you are overtrained, which is condition that requires to vastly exceed your normal training and have spiralling performances (sometimes it's called Underperformance Syndrome).

you may have trained too much and be tired and irritable or whatever, but this is completely different to overtraining.

ric

You have a remarkably low resting HR. That's in Lance Armstrong territory.

What I do is train two weeks hard followed by one week recovery. I'm 49 and this works well for me.

Getting a coach really helped me and I would highly recommend it.

Now Ric,
what I hate the most about you trainers is that you only give enough info to sound convincing... but not really say anything at all. A convincing lure to pay for additional services. Not that I have anything against you doing it on this board... and I know that this reply will be followed by a quick anectdotal reply. But I hate when it happens because it seems someone has to pay for information... which is general knowledge. Just doesn't make any sense. That's my 2 cents.

ric_stern/RST said:

it's highly unlikey you are overtrained, which is condition that requires to vastly exceed your normal training and have spiralling performances (sometimes it's called Underperformance Syndrome).

you may have trained too much and be tired and irritable or whatever, but this is completely different to overtraining.

ric

AmpedCycle said:

Now Ric,
what I hate the most about you trainers is that you only give enough info to sound convincing... but not really say anything at all. A convincing lure to pay for additional services. Not that I have anything against you doing it on this board... and I know that this reply will be followed by a quick anectdotal reply. But I hate when it happens because it seems someone has to pay for information... which is general knowledge. Just doesn't make any sense. That's my 2 cents.

What are you talking about? I haven't asked for Carrera to join me (i.e., pay) i simply stated that he is highly unlikely to be suffering from overtraining. Carrera often posts some or all of the training he does, and this would not be sufficient to be overtraining, especially as he reports that his performance (i.e., fitness) goes up and down with the training he does.

If you want some information then i maybe happy to supply it. The quantity of information may vary from small to large depending on the topic, my time available and various other factors. On the other hand, what is so wrong with payment for my information? Do you work for free?

ric

velomanct said:

i like doing it that way. maybe i don't really need that much rest but i don't think you can argue with my improvements in the last 7 weeks - 100watt increase in threshold power. yeh, i know, isn't that improvement *excessive*? ;-)

wow! that's a hefty increase. but then you must have been undertrained 7 weeks ago or just had time off?

ric

ric_stern/RST said:

wow! that's a hefty increase. but then you must have been undertrained 7 weeks ago or just had time off?

ric

prior to 7 weeks ago, I had been doing about 4 months of no intensity on the bike, just about 6 easy hrs a week. when i started training for real again, I was at a poor fitness level.

i'm still in 'base' period right now, have not done any training above tempo(3hr pace), other than a couple races. I hope I can keep up this rate of improvement!

ric_stern/RST said:

What are you talking about? I haven't asked for Carrera to join me (i.e., pay) i simply stated that he is highly unlikely to be suffering from overtraining. Carrera often posts some or all of the training he does, and this would not be sufficient to be overtraining, especially as he reports that his performance (i.e., fitness) goes up and down with the training he does.

If you want some information then i maybe happy to supply it. The quantity of information may vary from small to large depending on the topic, my time available and various other factors. On the other hand, what is so wrong with payment for my information? Do you work for free?

ric

Ignore him, he isn't playing with a full deck.

Performance has been fine lately but I often get irritability in the mornings after my very intense sessions (yesterday I was at good old Mow Cop again).
Saturday I managed to hit up to 14 mph on a not too steep hill and then hold it on the big crank for quite a few minutes. The following day I felt it as well.
I'm know for training very intensely but relatively brief. Many times I've heaved after a session as well, especially in the early morning.

ric_stern/RST said:

What are you talking about? I haven't asked for Carrera to join me (i.e., pay) i simply stated that he is highly unlikely to be suffering from overtraining. Carrera often posts some or all of the training he does, and this would not be sufficient to be overtraining, especially as he reports that his performance (i.e., fitness) goes up and down with the training he does.

If you want some information then i maybe happy to supply it. The quantity of information may vary from small to large depending on the topic, my time available and various other factors. On the other hand, what is so wrong with payment for my information? Do you work for free?

ric

Still on that theme, I noticed another roadie down Mow Cop yesterday and, horror of horror, he was able to greet me at some stage after he apparently climbed the Mow Cop hill.
After I descended and did the climb myself, I realised I was in no condition to have greeted anyone. It was hard enough to stay on the seat of my bike and keep the pedals moving.

Carrera said:

Performance has been fine lately but I often get irritability in the mornings after my very intense sessions (yesterday I was at good old Mow Cop again).
Saturday I managed to hit up to 14 mph on a not too steep hill and then hold it on the big crank for quite a few minutes. The following day I felt it as well.
I'm know for training very intensely but relatively brief. Many times I've heaved after a session as well, especially in the early morning.

and none of this is overtraining. you may or may not be training incorrectly, you may feel tired and you could be grumpy. overtraining has a component to it that is a continuous decline in performance, and isn't reversed with an easy week here or there.

ric