Overtraining ?

Gary Sinclair

I think I might of overtrained recently and was wondering what the best form of recovery is?
This year I've done 6200 miles with probably another 500 on the turbo. I'm a carpenter so have a very physical job and a young family. Normally on club rides I'm up the front and able to keep wih guys who are 20 kilos lighter than me but
recently I'm really struggling to keep up, holding on to the back of the group for dear life. I also had cancer earlier on in the year so I've probably lost a month in the year to that. Any ideas?

imposter2.0

Suggest you have a read of the 'overtraining' thread on this page, and also the recent article on the BR news pages.

alihisgreat

I've done about the same mileage this year and the only time I started to feel like I was riding too much was after 8 weeks of fast 80-100 mile club runs on Sundays, hard 35mile chaingangs on Tuesdays, and hard 35 mile races on Thursdays (with recovery rides in between) during the summer.

Why not take a week off and see where you stand after that? (or a few weeks, and only go out when you really want to.. and make sure you stop for coffee and cake)

(also: have you got slower, or are they faster? An important distinction to make!)

dw300

Does nobody here take rest weeks every-so-often?!

ozzzyosborn206

dw300 wrote:

Does nobody here take rest weeks every-so-often?!

i take the whole of october off, for the mental side as much as physical side

cougie

I think you can overtrain on that mileage - just because one person can cope with it - doesnt mean everyone can.

You need to listen to your body - and if you're struggling - take some rest. Now seems the perfect time to catch up with the family. And yes - regular rest and cut back weeks would help you.

dw300

Training is like hitting a nail with a hammer - Tap it to begin with, then when you can take your fingers away you can hit it harder, but you only want to hit it hard enough to drive it in a bit more, not the maximum that you can, as you risk bending the nail.

You build your base, and you only train just hard enough to cause optimum adaption so you can recover and do a little more next workout. You build a feel for this from experience.

A lot of people want to drive the nail in in a single blow. And a workout like that every so often is probably fine, but if you do them too close together and can't recover from the fatigue, it'll build and build till your performance start to go down, or you get sick or injured.

You will almost always build a little more fatigue than you can recover from before next workout in order to hit the optimum training stress. If not, you are probably not getting as much as you could from your body. So when building fatigue you must plan periods of lower volume/intensity or total rest in order to recover. It madness to think you can just keep training hard and never stop.

Think of a bell curve, you want to hit a combo of volume and/or intensity that's near the centre of the curve. The more you push past that the faster you start building cumulative fatigue, meaning you may not perform as well during the next workout. (I know a bell curve wouldn't be quite the right shape, just don't know how to describe the correct one.)

So to sum it up. It's not so much overtraining - your body will adapt to all stresses eventually - there is only under-eating, under-sleeping and training too often far beyond your recovery capability.

dennisn

The fact that you don't even mention rest, nutrition, family pressures, or work. leads me to believe that most likely you MAY have sort of burnt yourself out. Riding is not the only thing that puts stress in your life. Ride lots, work lots, family stresses, lack of sleep, improper nutrition? Nobody stays healthy with all of that. Much more to it than simply riding.

Gary Sinclair

ALIHISGREAT wrote:

I've done about the same mileage this year and the only time I started to feel like I was riding too much was after 8 weeks of fast 80-100 mile club runs on Sundays, hard 35mile chaingangs on Tuesdays, and hard 35 mile races on Thursdays (with recovery rides in between) during the summer.

Why not take a week off and see where you stand after that? (or a few weeks, and only go out when you really want to.. and make sure you stop for coffee and cake)

(also: have you got slower, or are they faster? An important distinction to make!)

Much slower.

Gary Sinclair

Some good advice thank you.

mamba80

Gary Sinclair wrote:

I also had cancer earlier on in the year so I've probably lost a month in the year to that. Any ideas?

Surprised no one has mentioned this small fact? I d start there.

ut_och_cykla

mamba80 wrote:

Gary Sinclair wrote:

I also had cancer earlier on in the year so I've probably lost a month in the year to that. Any ideas?

Surprised no one has mentioned this small fact? I d start there.

+1 for this. You lost training time and probably had some serious treatment for it. And presumably you will need to go for checkups to make sure its still under control.
Otherwise - just take it easy for a few weeks - sleep & eat well, drastically reduce quantity of training and just do some hard stuff now and again. you won't lose much fitness and will quickly regain former fitness....good luck!

city_boy

dw300 wrote:

Training is like hitting a nail with a hammer - Tap it to begin with, then when you can take your fingers away you can hit it harder, but you only want to hit it hard enough to drive it in a bit more, not the maximum that you can, as you risk bending the nail.

You build your base, and you only train just hard enough to cause optimum adaption so you can recover and do a little more next workout. You build a feel for this from experience.

A lot of people want to drive the nail in in a single blow. And a workout like that every so often is probably fine, but if you do them too close together and can't recover from the fatigue, it'll build and build till your performance start to go down, or you get sick or injured.

You will almost always build a little more fatigue than you can recover from before next workout in order to hit the optimum training stress. If not, you are probably not getting as much as you could from your body. So when building fatigue you must plan periods of lower volume/intensity or total rest in order to recover. It madness to think you can just keep training hard and never stop.

Think of a bell curve, you want to hit a combo of volume and/or intensity that's near the centre of the curve. The more you push past that the faster you start building cumulative fatigue, meaning you may not perform as well during the next workout. (I know a bell curve wouldn't be quite the right shape, just don't know how to describe the correct one.)

So to sum it up. It's not so much overtraining - your body will adapt to all stresses eventually - there is only under-eating, under-sleeping and training too often far beyond your recovery capability.

Excellent post.

Gary Sinclair

It was malignant melanoma, so it was two fairly big operations. Probably had a month off the bike.

frisbee

Gary Sinclair wrote:

It was malignant melanoma, so it was two fairly big operations. Probably had a month off the bike.

Would be worth speaking to the doctor about it. The change in level of performance.

iron_duke

Hi Gary,

Not sure what treatments you have had besides the surgery but if you are anaemic (low haemoglobin in blood) can effect your energy levels as well as many other things. As others have said worth checking up with your gp/specialist. Am sure all will be ok but worth it just to reassure yourself.

Good luck in recovering from the cancer and hope your mojo returns ASAP.

Gary Sinclair

I have three monthly checks and recently had a full bone scan, this involves a radioactive trace injected into your arm. It might be a coincidence but it was around then my performe tailed off. Also had blood tests MRI and ct scans. All was clear, so I can safely rule out that my physical condtion is good.

iron_duke

Good to hear all is well on the MM front.

Hope energy levels pick up again soon.

Stick8267

Gary Sinclair wrote:

I have three monthly checks and recently had a full bone scan, this involves a radioactive trace injected into your arm. It might be a coincidence but it was around then my performe tailed off. Also had blood tests MRI and ct scans. All was clear, so I can safely rule out that my physical condtion is good.

Really good to hear things are looking clear.

It is important not to underestimate the effects of your treatment. Surgery is a catabolic insult which means that it switches your body in to a mode where, for want of a better term, it autodigests. So you lose muscle bulk and all those valuable endurance enzymes very quickly and at a much higher rate than can be explained simply by the time away from training. In other words you didn't lose a month's training you lost several months' training and will be starting from a much lower level than you think.

Take some rest, not necessarily off the bike but away from the highest intensity runs, and rebuild.