Accumaltive fatigue

tommy_tommy

I have been taking part in cycling races for the past 10 years, in this time most of training consisted of slow unstructured commutes and longer weekend rides. At the end of last season, I fitted a computer to the rear wheel of my bike on my turbo and followed a structured training plan based around my recorded FTP.

During this winter, I trained around 7 hours a week with a recovery week every 3rd week. I made significant gains using this approach and my FTP (average speed recorded over 1 hour TT on the turbo) increased month on month. I appeared to be improving and recovering well between sessions.

I was looking forward to a good season, but in the last 2 weeks, my body as just suddenly given up. I had a very easy recovery week last week and did 1 tempo ride this weekend, in the last 2 days, I could hardly climbs the stairs, have no apetite and just want to sleep all the time.

The plan I am following is the still the same as the start of the winter, I don;t understand why I am suddenly in this tired state.

is it possible, that even though I recover week in week out , in the longer term the fatigue might build gradually over time. A questions to those who use power meter and track there stress scores, is this a situation that can happen.

Any pointers on recovering would also be welcomed.

liversedge

I track TSB in wko and its generally on the money. I have had a cold and flu immediately after my TSB was at -50 or more. I now take a rest when it approaches -30. how low did you go?

joeyhalloran

That does sound like some of the symptoms of overtraining. I don't know much about it, although to be it seems odd if you are building recovery weeks in. I guess the best thing is a total back off away from intensive rides, if you are itching to get ou, keep it easy. Looking up overtraining on google would prob be a good bet too.

tommy_tommy

Liversedge,

I do not have a power meter or wko so I just have to rely on how i feel. My winter training went really well with no colds or illness despite uping the intensity compared to previous years. It is only in the last 2 weeks that things have started to fall apart.

I assume TSB is a measure of longer term fatigue build up. I would assume consistent 7 to 9 hours of training over 5 months would result in a low TSB and put me in the danger zone.

I planning to take 7 days off the bike and then start again, my key event was at the start of May of I may need to focus on an event later in the year.

liversedge

if you take regular rest days you should be ok. if you look at my Performance Manager Chart you will see TSB (the yellow line) recovering on rest days. Each of the little blue bars is a workout in TSS (an hour at FTP scores 100 points).

You do sound like you're suffering from overtraining, but I'm not an expert ... I suspect Alex will give some advice in a mo!

Alex_Simmons/RST

On 7 to 9 hours/week it is unlikely you are overtraining but without a detailed understanding of what training you actually do and what else is going on in your life, it is not possible to do any more than speculate.

You may have an illness, low iron levels, need a diet check, experiencing stress from other sources, training is stale etc etc.

7 hours / week would likely plateau at a Chronic training Load of ~ 60-70 TSS/day and 9 hrs/wk ~ 70-90 TSS/day. Certainly not earth shattering levels for someone with a regular training history.

end of day, if you are not well / feeling overly fatigued, then rest and recovery is in order and even perhaps consulting with a medical professional to rule out any other possible issues.

http://www.cyclecoach.com/index.php?opt ... Itemid=108


I have had clients where we had unexplained performance drop or highly variable performance. In both cases it turned out to be an early sign of quite serious medical conditions (cancer in one case), which required medical intervention. Not that I'm trying to be alarmist Others have just had a bad week and bounced back really strongly after a good recovery.

Certainly with a power meter you can manage workloads much more carefully and take recovery only when it's actually needed (or when rest of life dictates) rather than on some arbitrary time scale such as every 3rd or 4th week. Indeed for some clients they won't see a specific recovery week for 2 or 3 months.

mrushton

It's not the training, it's the going to work and the day-day stuff PLUS the cycling. Whenever I've been on cycling holidays where all I have to do is eat,sleep ride, I cycle like a God and come back with my average speed way up. A weel later it's back to normal. No work, more cycling for us I say (preferably somewhere sunny with good espresso)

doyler78

Had shingles and it leaves you feeling very similiar to how you feel when you have overtrained (been there too).

Best to get things checked out if a couple of days rest don't show any imporovement

Blonde

As Alex Simmons says - other sourses of stress massively effect your recovery; Stresses such as problems in personal life, a death or a birth in the family, moving house, changing jobs, stress at work, financial worries, lack of sleep, illness etc. Often the effects of stress don't become apparent straight away and may even appear after the initial stress has subsided-there can be a bit of time lag berween being under stress and the stress hormones effecting the rest of your body to the extent that you actually start to notice it. Relaxation and stress management techniques may help. Rest - have some time off. Spend this Easter weekend away from the bike and not cycling at all and see if next week you feel any better. Pay close attention to diet because if you are stressed your body will need all the nutrition it can get.

In my experience GPs are not particuklarly helpful if you are bascially not really ill. i.e. not diabetic, don't have a heart problem and don't have cancer. They are primarily interested in treating disease and are not much use when it comes to people who are, compared to the general populartion fit and healthy. Please go and see your GP if you are worried but be prepared that they may just tell you to go away and rest for as long as it takes until you feel better. In my case after 18 months of being unwell I decided that something really was the matter and sorted it out privately after several unsucessful visits to the GP, but that's another story.... and it's taken nearly two years to recover - not a few days, so if you feel you are ill, or overtarined, do something about it now, as the time it takes to recover will depend on how early you catch it.

dennisn

Blonde wrote:

As Alex Simmons says - other sourses of stress massively effect your recovery; Stresses such as problems in personal life, a death or a birth in the family, moving house, changing jobs, stress at work, financial worries, lack of sleep, illness etc.

+1 on that. Everything you do adds stress to your life. Even if work only involves sitting at a desk, it all ads up. Most of us aren't able to live the PRO lifestyle, i.e. ride, eat, get a massage, sleep, repeat. There are other things that must be done first and all of them are stress producing.

Dennis Noward