Training limit?

How do you know when you are doing too much training? I had a day off on Sunday and I was wrecked

Comments

  • Rich158
    Rich158 Posts: 2,348
    I use resting heart rate as a guide. When you're not feeling so wrecked take your pulse before you get out of bed for about a week and find the average resting HR. Anything over a 10% variation on this and I know I'm heading for over training and it's time to rest. It does take a fair degree of discipline though. I also keep an eye on how quickly my HR responds to big efforts, when it's a bit sluggish I know I've been doing too much and it's time to rest or at least take it easy for a bit
    pain is temporary, the glory of beating your mates to the top of the hill lasts forever.....................

    Revised FCN - 2
  • ShutUpLegs
    ShutUpLegs Posts: 3,522
    When your missus/ kids don't recognise you :?:
  • amaferanga
    amaferanga Posts: 6,789
    In the same way that you know when you're tired and you need to sleep - listen to your body. If you're performing at a level below normal over a number of days/rides then it may be time to ease up a bit. Resting HR should only really confirm what you already know....
    More problems but still living....
  • Cheers ill try the resting heart rate and see how that goes
  • Rich158
    Rich158 Posts: 2,348
    amaferanga wrote:
    In the same way that you know when you're tired and you need to sleep - listen to your body. If you're performing at a level below normal over a number of days/rides then it may be time to ease up a bit. Resting HR should only really confirm what you already know....

    I find if I wait until I feel knackered I've usually gone too far and it takes me a week or so to recover. RHR seems to give me a far earlier indication of over training and allows me to get back on track far quicker
    pain is temporary, the glory of beating your mates to the top of the hill lasts forever.....................

    Revised FCN - 2
  • ShutUpLegs wrote:
    When your missus/ kids don't recognise you :?:


    Or when others think you have cancer
    Racing is life - everything else is just waiting
  • ric/rstsport
    ric/rstsport Posts: 681
    coupla things

    1) overtraining is a serious condition, that requires you to continually push yourself to exhaustion on a daily or near daily basis for many, many, many months. it is highly unlikely that anyone here is heading towards overtraining

    2) Resting heart rate (which can go up or down when you're overtrained) is not an indicator/marker of overtraining. The only real marker of overtraining, is that your fitness (power output in cycling) is continually depressed with no other explanation (hence, the name unexplained under performance syndrome)

    The area of overtraining/UUPS is still fairly new

    Overreaching is the short term accumulation of fatigue bought on by doing too much. This may (or may not be planned). After some sort of taper/recovery period fitness is often increased after over reaching. (how long that taper or recovery period is will be dependent upon how far over reached you are).

    Ric
    Coach to Michael Freiberg - Track World Champion (Omnium) 2011
    Coach to James Hayden - Transcontinental Race winner 2017, and 2018
    Coach to Jeff Jones - 2011 BBAR winner and 12-hour record
    Check out our new website https://www.cyclecoach.com
  • Chrissylaa
    Chrissylaa Posts: 19
    Overtraining=under-resting.
  • Rich158
    Rich158 Posts: 2,348
    coupla things

    1) overtraining is a serious condition, that requires you to continually push yourself to exhaustion on a daily or near daily basis for many, many, many months. it is highly unlikely that anyone here is heading towards overtraining

    2) Resting heart rate (which can go up or down when you're overtrained) is not an indicator/marker of overtraining. The only real marker of overtraining, is that your fitness (power output in cycling) is continually depressed with no other explanation (hence, the name unexplained under performance syndrome)

    The area of overtraining/UUPS is still fairly new

    Overreaching is the short term accumulation of fatigue bought on by doing too much. This may (or may not be planned). After some sort of taper/recovery period fitness is often increased after over reaching. (how long that taper or recovery period is will be dependent upon how far over reached you are).

    Ric

    Ah, I always used the term over training which it seems is incorrect. In that case what I mean is overreaching. The information I've always had from coaches is that an elevated RHR is an indication of short term fatigue. My own experience has shown that this appears to be true, much above 45bpm and my performance suffers, 40-45 and I'm fine.
    pain is temporary, the glory of beating your mates to the top of the hill lasts forever.....................

    Revised FCN - 2
  • ric/rstsport
    ric/rstsport Posts: 681
    all heart rate tells you is how fast your heart is beating. It isn't an indication of much else, and shouldn't be used to evaluate whether you have an illness. While, at one point it was suggested that resting HR being, up or down was indicative of something, this was a recommendation about 20 years ago, which has now been discredited as being useful.

    Sure, resting HR does tend to increase when you're ill. I think my resting HR is about 45 b/min. At least it used to be about 15 years ago when i last bothered to check it. The last time i had flu my rest HR was about 90. But i'm not certain what that told me that wasn't obvious from the symptoms i actually had (e.g. barely unable to get out of bed, fever, extreme fatigue, sneezing, wheezing, etc). In other words it was obvious i was ill, no need to check HR (i wasn't dead it was still beating).

    I think those coaches need to update their knowledge/info.

    Additionally, over reaching is an important part of increased fitness. you need to become fatigued/stressed to improve.

    I recall some early (?) research into overtraining. They used a group of racing who did something like 10 to 12 hrs training per week. They got them to instantly double their training volume for a few weeks (can't recall the exact period), and then they wanted to see what markers changed with overtraining.

    The issue was that no one became overtrained, and everyone improved...
    Coach to Michael Freiberg - Track World Champion (Omnium) 2011
    Coach to James Hayden - Transcontinental Race winner 2017, and 2018
    Coach to Jeff Jones - 2011 BBAR winner and 12-hour record
    Check out our new website https://www.cyclecoach.com
  • bahzob
    bahzob Posts: 2,195
    I second comments above.

    I think too much emphasis is put on rest and recovery wrt advice given to the folks posting here, who will rarely have enough time to be able to do enough training to get overtrained as opposed to tired.

    One of the best forms of training is to do a multi-day stage race where you have to push yourself to the limit every day then repeat again and again. This makes you very tired but still its surprising how well you can perform when pushed by competition. At the end you will be exhausted, but it's amazing how little rest is needed to feel ready to go again, often much better than before.
    Martin S. Newbury RC
  • Chrissylaa
    Chrissylaa Posts: 19
    bahzob wrote:
    I second comments above.

    I think too much emphasis is put on rest and recovery wrt advice given to the folks posting here, who will rarely have enough time to be able to do enough training to get overtrained as opposed to tired.

    One of the best forms of training is to do a multi-day stage race where you have to push yourself to the limit every day then repeat again and again. This makes you very tired but still its surprising how well you can perform when pushed by competition. At the end you will be exhausted, but it's amazing how little rest is needed to feel ready to go again, often much better than before.


    And of course you don't need to rest after you've done this. :roll:
  • bahzob
    bahzob Posts: 2,195
    Chrissylaa wrote:
    bahzob wrote:
    I second comments above.

    I think too much emphasis is put on rest and recovery wrt advice given to the folks posting here, who will rarely have enough time to be able to do enough training to get overtrained as opposed to tired.

    One of the best forms of training is to do a multi-day stage race where you have to push yourself to the limit every day then repeat again and again. This makes you very tired but still its surprising how well you can perform when pushed by competition. At the end you will be exhausted, but it's amazing how little rest is needed to feel ready to go again, often much better than before.


    And of course you don't need to rest after you've done this. :roll:

    Yes, as I said you will need a little rest but its amazing how little this can be, maybe just a couple of days. Often this will be enforced anyway due to the logistics of getting back from the event.

    Indeed timed correctly a really tough stage race can be a spring board to a great one day effort a week or so later. It's worked great for me but don't just take my word for it. Laurent Fignon describes how he used an extreme version of this approach for the Milan-San Remo here
    http://velorunner.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/laurent-fignon-and-super-compensation.html

    The point relevant to this topic is just how tough it is to actually become overtrained (which is bad) as opposed to just feeling rough (which is good) because you have been riding hard.

    Most everyone posting here will not have enough time available to become seriously overtrained. They would be advised not to worry about this nor waste valuable time (that would otherwise be spent training) on recovery.
    Martin S. Newbury RC
  • poynedexter
    poynedexter Posts: 283
    does it depend how hard the training is?

    i did 2 hrs on the mtb off road on sat with an av hr of 171, peak 185. on monday i did an hour spin with a peak of 192 av 170.

    on wed eve i did a race and felt like nothing on the bike, no power and my hr felt lower than normal. i had no other reason to feel like that. this morning my chest feels tight.

    is this good practice to train at high hr before an event. maybe lower intensity would give better results? dunno?
  • Rich158
    Rich158 Posts: 2,348
    bahzob wrote:
    Chrissylaa wrote:
    bahzob wrote:
    I second comments above.

    I think too much emphasis is put on rest and recovery wrt advice given to the folks posting here, who will rarely have enough time to be able to do enough training to get overtrained as opposed to tired.

    One of the best forms of training is to do a multi-day stage race where you have to push yourself to the limit every day then repeat again and again. This makes you very tired but still its surprising how well you can perform when pushed by competition. At the end you will be exhausted, but it's amazing how little rest is needed to feel ready to go again, often much better than before.


    And of course you don't need to rest after you've done this. :roll:

    Yes, as I said you will need a little rest but its amazing how little this can be, maybe just a couple of days. Often this will be enforced anyway due to the logistics of getting back from the event.

    Indeed timed correctly a really tough stage race can be a spring board to a great one day effort a week or so later. It's worked great for me but don't just take my word for it. Laurent Fignon describes how he used an extreme version of this approach for the Milan-San Remo here
    http://velorunner.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/laurent-fignon-and-super-compensation.html

    The point relevant to this topic is just how tough it is to actually become overtrained (which is bad) as opposed to just feeling rough (which is good) because you have been riding hard.

    Most everyone posting here will not have enough time available to become seriously overtrained. They would be advised not to worry about this nor waste valuable time (that would otherwise be spent training) on recovery.

    Correct me if I'm wrong but my understanding was that recovery is an integral part of training not to be ignored. My understanding of the training cycle is something like you prescribe a dose of intense training and then spend a period of time recovering during which the body overcompensates to take into account the increased demands being placed upon it, and repeat. How long it takes to recover depends upon the session but I never rest for more than a day after a hard race of say 100-150km and in fact feel far better if I have an easy ride rather than no ride at all.

    Personally I find if I'm trying to fit training around a hectic lifestyle then I don't worry overly about resting as life generally gets in the way of being on the bike and takes care of my recovery periods. Generally speaking I try to have three intense days, followed by an easy day and then race. This seems to work for me
    pain is temporary, the glory of beating your mates to the top of the hill lasts forever.....................

    Revised FCN - 2
  • dw300
    dw300 Posts: 1,642
    This is all balls .. overtraining is a combination of cardiovascular, muscular and central nervous system fatigue. It builds up fairly slowly, so you can feel it come on over a week or two, and you performance will degrade. It's not to do with a one off big ride .. that might account for 1 or 2 of the aspects of it. It's only gona happen if you are constantly on the limit of your own performance for days or weeks.

    Do a loop once a week and if you get slower 2 or more weeks in a row then you could well be over training. You can avoid it be doing a 'rest' week every so often where you reduce intensity and volume. The regularity of rest week and the percentage by which you reduce intensity will be individual to you.
    All the above is just advice .. you can do whatever the f*ck you wana do!
    Bike Radar Strava Club
    The Northern Ireland Thread
  • bahzob
    bahzob Posts: 2,195
    Rich158 wrote:
    bahzob wrote:
    Chrissylaa wrote:
    Correct me if I'm wrong but my understanding was that recovery is an integral part of training not to be ignored. My understanding of the training cycle is something like you prescribe a dose of intense training and then spend a period of time recovering during which the body overcompensates to take into account the increased demands being placed upon it, and repeat. How long it takes to recover depends upon the session but I never rest for more than a day after a hard race of say 100-150km and in fact feel far better if I have an easy ride rather than no ride at all.

    Personally I find if I'm trying to fit training around a hectic lifestyle then I don't worry overly about resting as life generally gets in the way of being on the bike and takes care of my recovery periods. Generally speaking I try to have three intense days, followed by an easy day and then race. This seems to work for me

    Yes absolutely right, recovery is an integral part of training. However you are pretty typical in that having to fit training into real life means you are pretty much forced to recover anyway and it not worth wasting valuable bike time dedicated to recovery.

    The topic here though is overtraining. As I and others have said this is actually very hard to provoke unless you are pretty much spending your entire time training.

    Bottom line is that there is no point anyone who posts here fretting about overtraining. You are worrying about nothing and it will be very counterproductive if it stops you training because you feel a bit tired as a result of previous workouts, since you should feel tired if the workouts are effective.
    Martin S. Newbury RC
  • SBezza
    SBezza Posts: 2,173
    Lets not forget other stresses in life, they will impact on you as well, your body hasn't really got a clue where the stresses in life come from.

    You might train fairly lightly compared to some, but if you have a very stressful job and family life, you might end up worse than someone that trains very heavily and yet has minimal outside stresses.

    I know guys that have suffered quite bad from overtraining, and it wasn't just the amount of training they were doing, they had other stresses in life and hence recovery was very poor, and in the end all of these stresses caused the body problems.

    Ric's post pretty much sums everything up IMO.