Overtraining

Overtraining is something that happens in endurance sports. Ideally it wouldn't and it can be avoided. To improve alot you need to over-reach. Over-reaching is over-training but you pull it back just in time before it becomes over training.

Basically you have over-reaching, then sympathetic overtraining, then parasympathetic overtraining. In the last state most of the indicators do not suggestion overtraining but when you get here the road home is long and lonesome.

Other nice OT related issues lurking out there are endocrine system overload. This one cost me an entire season, well June/July/August. Training, racing, diet and lifestyle all combined to leave me effectively burnt out and requiring a long long lay off, significant diet changes. This episode meant I was getting frequent injuries as it resulted in my body being too quick to become inflammed and too slow to recover. Thankfully I knew a few people who are well versed in all things overtraining, injury and illness related and I was able to get back in time for a solid off season. Sharing and discussion of information on this was invaluable. (None of it happened here although its all relevant)

I've found that overtraining is caused, for me, more by periods of too frequent racing coupled with frequent high intensity workouts, however I know of others that huge and sustained increases in low-medium intenisty work outs have left them in a bad state.

I've found over the years that there are many classical signs and identifing these while in the over reaching stage can stop them becoming overtraining. The endocrine one required lab tests for hormone levels so you do often need to get solid medical advice but more often than not discussion about how you are feeling and what the body is felling and asking others for advice can help, they don't even have to be that knowledgable, sometimes the act of just articulating your questions allows you to see the answer.

For me the signs of overtraining are:
* Reduced sex drive, if 30 minute after a ride you don't think you'd be up for the other kind of ride, thats a sign.
* Rest heart rate up
* Unable to get heart rate up when training
* Heart rate, PE, and power/pace out of whack
* Cravings for sugary foods
* Heart rate variablity drops and stays dropped
* Performances don't match expectations
* Lack of motivation
* Mood swings
* Crankiness
* Inability to sleep
* Constantly sore muscles
* Regular injuries

Some of the signs mean nothing in isolation, some mean you are fvcked. Learning to recognise them in advance and flag recognise where you are in the over-reaching/over-training areas is key.

For classical overtraining I've gone too hard, too long and without sufficient recovery. I raced too often, trained too hard and didn't let myself recover. That was the ethos and approach of the club I was in.

I never went to a doctor when I was over trained and the hormone tests and similar for endocrine systems were done without a doctors input. Unfortunately unless you have a quality sports doctor, and these are few and far between, your wasting your time going to a medical practitioner for advice on diagnosising this and dealing with it. (Although why you would even consider going to a doctor for this I do not know). For all the inflamation problems I never went to a doctor (for the above reasons), and thankfully at this stage I had realised the waste of money that are physios, the people I went to were highly skilled and experienced but not medical practioners. (In fact one of these people treated me after I was hit by a bus. When I returned to the orthopedic surgeon for a check up some weeks after the accident I was asked "was i sent to a physio?" I replied "No, but I went to someone who specialises in sports injuries" The surgeon laughed, dismissed them, and then said he'd "investigate the damage". After a detailed examination I witnessed something I've never seen before. A complete u-turn and total and complete apology and "whatever that person is doing keep going to them, you could't even tell that the bus had hit you. amazing".) So in short medical advice and physios is really unlikely to help you here I've found. So who did I turn to? Who would I recommend turning too? If you did yourself into a hole I've always found the advice of more experienced athletes, and my coach, invaluable. That being said the frequency of digging myself into a hole is much much less since working with a quality coach.

An injury, or more likely a cluster of injuries and illness may have a very simple cause - overtraining. Diagnosis of this does not require dropping 60 yoyos on a trip to the doctor or physio. Previously for me a bad diet, poor lifestyle and dropping too much weight too quickly meant inflammation issues were frequent and drugs didn't help (not that drugs were the cause, anti-inflamations didn't address the inflamation). Overtraining, or under recovery, was the problem.

What I found helps me when I think I am starting to cross the line between over reaching and over training :
* Backing off, sounds obvious but trickier to do
* Sleeping more
* Diet - whacking fruit and veg into me, good sources of protein
* Cut back on alcohol, refined foods and coffee
* Massage
* Talk to someone you trust, and getting advice, help to recognise that the injury(s) and illness(es) are probably all link
* Switching off mentally and doing something different. This helps me destress with regards training and less stress means less inflamation
* If needs be going for hormone tests and seeing do you need to address something more, at this stage you probably will need to enlist the help of a paid professional but its unlikely to be a doctor or physio (part of my problems with refering all injuries and illnesses to a doctor/physio)

I've always found that recovering from overtraining very difficult but preventing it not as bad. A stitch in time and all that.
That being said at the moment I would love to be borderline overtrained and having to pull it back rather than completlely under trained.

Anyways probably a less than coherent rambling brought about by production issues at two am and waiting for log files and the fact quite a few posters have asked about over training recently - mainly in email as they didn't feel that the threads would be left open.