Just how hard is too hard? - Overtraining

ecoli

We all know the symptoms but how hard do you have to be pushing to get to a state of overtraining?

It's a term that is batted around left, right and centre but I think in recent times and more sedenatary attitudes have set in that have me believing that many of us are just using it as an excuse for a mental barrier

This follows on from a thread in the tri sub (and soon to be seperate:D) forum.

Recently I have found myself starting to make myself hurt a bit more in training and I am wondering whether or not a controlled attitude had set in.

Here is a post from a while back regarding training of female athletes in England and while you have to think some of it was as a result of the presence of the media the general idea behind the training seems to be solid and more and more I see people getting results

http://www.athleticsweekly.com/coaching/aldershots-waterloo/

There are even a few here who come to mind the likes of Timmaay and Tunguska pushing the boundaries in terms of sessions and seeing huge improvements

Obviously there are some risks of course but gets you thinking of the risk/reward weighting

woodchopper

The more aerobic fitness you have the harder it is to overtrain. I guess if you are starting out and do every run at half marathon effort like an OP from another thread was doing then the likelyhood of overtraining is greater. I imagine your bloods would be quite low, anemia, high resting heart rate on easy runs would be signs to back off slighty and I mean slighty not a weeks holiday!

tunney

"There is no such thing as over-training, just under-recovery"

ecoli

tunney wrote: »

"There is no such thing as over-training, just under-recovery"

"Don't race workouts" - Bowerman

woodchopper

tunney wrote: »

"There is no such thing as over-training, just under-recovery"

But one can train to a high level and still recover. Your post is quite vague. Most people realize that recovery is important but there is a fine line Ecoli is trying to discuss. What constitutes recovery?

tunney

woodchopper wrote: »

But one can train to a high level and still recover. Your post is quite vague. Most people realize that recovery is important but there is a fine line Ecoli is trying to discuss. What constitutes recovery?

No most people look at things as training too hard, rather than not resting enough. Its a subtle mind shift but important.

This can all be quantified, plotted and graphed. CTL, ATL, TSS, TSB.

woodchopper

tunney wrote: »

This can all be quantified, plotted and graphed. CTL, ATL, TSS, TSB.

OMG

shels4ever

tunney wrote: »

No most people look at things as training too hard, rather than not resting enough. Its a subtle mind shift but important.

This can all be quantified, plotted and graphed. CTL, ATL, TSS, TSB.

Can this be done for running also, seem to remember that this can be done for cycling but with regular power meter tests?

tunney

shels4ever wrote: »

Can this be done for running also, seem to remember that this can be done for cycling but with regular power meter tests?

Yip, a variant of TSS, rTSS paced on NGP (Normalise Graded Pace), just doesn't cover wind though

ecoli

With regard to my OP I am talking about the quality days (i.e workouts/sessions)

Its more a case of these days having set prescribed paces for everything and fear of going above and beyond and "really making you suffer" the whole hard days hard attitude was what I aimed to explore actually how hard is hard and at what point does it become counter productive

This is all taken under the basis of easy days easy (as easy as needs to be for recovery purposes)

Timmaay

ecoli wrote: »

There are even a few here who come to mind the likes of Timmaay and Tunguska pushing the boundaries in terms of sessions and seeing huge improvements

Funny enough that you mention me now ha, I'm in the middle of a few days break after doing a load of races last week, I missed a very tough session with my clubmates yesterday, I dropped down to watch it anyways, and I was certainly was asking myself while looking at it do I definitely need this break, or am I being over cautious here ha!

I certainly find that one of my clubmates, who is fairly evenly matched to me seems to be able to mentally dig wayyy deeper then me during sessions! It's an area that I have been trying to improve on but admittedly have failed to date. Basically, at the end of reps, when the tough gets going, my clubmate always seems to be able to find that extra bit, he is always on the ground swimming in lactic etc after a session ha, whereas I seem to stroll over the line, wondering why do I never push as hard ha! I'd like to think its an attitude problem of mine where subconsciously I'm fearing overtraining ha, but I generally try approach training and races with the attitude that I should be pushing myself so hard that I can't walk for 2 days afterwards ha!

tunney wrote: »

This can all be quantified, plotted and graphed. CTL, ATL, TSS, TSB.

Hmm that in English please Tunney:p, I don't think I've heard of any of them TLA before ha!

pconn062

Timmaay wrote: »

Hmm that in English please Tunney:p, I don't think I've heard of any of them TLA before ha!

Yeah none of us speak fluent triathlete!

gerard65

Are you told not to leave your best race on the training track?

robinph

Timmaay wrote: »

I certainly find that one of my clubmates, who is fairly evenly matched to me seems to be able to mentally dig wayyy deeper then me during sessions! It's an area that I have been trying to improve on but admittedly have failed to date. Basically, at the end of reps, when the tough gets going, my clubmate always seems to be able to find that extra bit, he is always on the ground swimming in lactic etc after a session ha, whereas I seem to stroll over the line, wondering why do I never push as hard ha! I'd like to think its an attitude problem of mine where subconsciously I'm fearing overtraining ha, but I generally try approach training and races with the attitude that I should be pushing myself so hard that I can't walk for 2 days afterwards ha!

Does that not mean that you are doing it right and he is doing it wrong then.

You could possibly go faster than him then if you were to destroy yourself in the training sessions, but you could equally end up going slower than him in races if you leave it all in training. At the moment you are getting the same final result, the race times, from not killing yourself in training.

ecoli

gerard65 wrote: »

Are you told not to leave your best race on the training track?

Yes this is the mentality I have been brought up with and in fairness I know some people who I have trained with and have seen them leaving people in there wake in training but cant get within 20 seconds in a race (being in the perspective of say a 1500m)

On the other side of the coin I have seen people absolutely kill themselves in training and as a result attain a whole other level simply because come race time they are able to mentally push through the pain (ala Percy Cerutty methodology)

My point is to get away from the science of "oh you have this Vdot you have to run these paces" or Mcmillan stating your paces for each session and exactly where do you draw the line regarding pushing through to new levels and pushing too hard you actually are being counter productive?

Have our advances in understanding the human body overshadowed the mental aspect to the sport? Very few people discuss or entertain any sort of mental training and could this be one of the reasons for overall declining standards (at a sub elite level)

Again all of this is just basically thoughts that have been fleeting for the last while in my head

myflipflops

ecoli wrote: »

I think in recent times and more sedenatary attitudes have set in that have me believing that many of us are just using it as an excuse for a mental barrier

I think this is true. I think it has led to the curse of the 'recovery run' when people have nothing to recover from.

At the end of the day, you need to hurt in your training. You will find very few really good athletes who have not literally crawled off the track before. I saw a picture posted somewhere recently of Ailish McSweeney lying on the track after a session. As Tunney said, recovery is the key is these situations.

One of the things i see quoted around the forums a lot is "Train smarter, not harder". It's a fine statement but people need to realise you actually have to be training hard in the first place. Running is pretty simple sport: train damn hard, recovery/rest/eat properly and you see big results.

pgmcpq

It is very difficult to judge the fine line between trained and overtrained.

I did recently watch a presentation by a sports medicine hospital department which was pretty interesting.

Couple of highlights :
1) They said that runners typically run too much.
2) Beyond 40 miles a week :eek: - the risk of injury rises.
3) They recommended cross training for cardio work. They said that triathletes had a lower rate of injury because of the variation in training required compared to the repetitive nature of running
4) They recommeded strength training - particularly exercises that isolated each leg like single legged squats - and suprised me by being less keen about stretching.

Discuss !

Can it really be quantified ?

Timmaay

robinph wrote: »

Does that not mean that you are doing it right and he is doing it wrong then.

You could possibly go faster than him then if you were to destroy yourself in the training sessions, but you could equally end up going slower than him in races if you leave it all in training. At the moment you are getting the same final result, the race times, from not killing yourself in training.

Yep I see your point, however I find myself not leaving it all in races also!! Well not enough, I find that I can only string together what I would call a good race at best 1 out of 3 races, where I feel as if I a), stayed focused at the goal in hand in the early/mid parts of the race, which are to run within your comfort zone and stick to your pace or stick to the competitors around you, and then b), mentally dig as deep as you can in the closing stages of a race when it really counts!

Training is obviously import to get your body in as good a shape as it can be, however certainly for me its also about training myself to withstand the mental pain and get myself use of hurting myself, which is an area that I have not succeeded with as good as I wanted to this year, and it reflexes directly in my results, I have made decent gains in the 1500m, however not in the 800 which was my target for the year, running a good 800 means being willing to hurt yourself, no two ways about that, and I have yet to string together a decent 800 this year, or come anywhere close to my 800 pb!

RacoonQueen

pgmcpq wrote: »

4) and suprised me by being less keen about stretching.

Stretching is still quite controversial. Plenty of studies to suggest that it's not better than active recovery/a proper warm down/massage etc and with that there's a risk of injury with overstreching and doing it incorrectly.

More beneficial as a way to fix a problem for me than to prevent one.

tunguska

Thats funny I was just reading an interview with Simon Lawson where he talks about his training philosophy which is very much going against the percieved wisdom (Where the bloody hell has he gone though?).

http://www.runnerslife.co.uk/guest-runners/simon-lawson

Timmaay

Wow, some of his training sounds insane, 200miles/wk, 2 sessions a day!

Clearlier

tunguska wrote: »

Thats funny I was just reading an interview with Simon Lawson where he talks about his training philosophy which is very much going against the percieved wisdom (Where the bloody hell has he gone though?).

http://www.runnerslife.co.uk/guest-runners/simon-lawson

IIRC he slipped on ice and both broke his ankles. He was also upset about the lack of support from UKA so he said he was stopping.

I like Tunney's idea of not recovering enough. It fits in with my experience where I wasn't getting much sleep and was ramping up my training. My body just broke after a few months. Flu was the final straw but it took me 3 months to recover enough to run again. I would have been far better off training a bit less all the time than what I actually did but if you don't push it you'll never know where your limits are.

Pisco Sour

I think if we knew how hard is too hard, then we'd be millionaires and you'd never see elite athletes getting injured. In the end of the day, top athletes will push their bodies right to that fine line that separates peak physical condition (which is needed to compete to your best in big races) and injury. Look at Derval for example. How many injuries has she had now? She pushes herself right to very max, and sometimes you can creep over this line and do too much. Top athletes regularly get this sort of thing wrong, and get injured. Not that I have any experience of this but I'd imagine it's a very hard thing to judge.

Donelson

I think I train too hard! I am too fat to be trying to run as fast as I am. I actually need to train more so I can loose some weight! Is this over training?

pconn062

Donelson wrote: »

I think I train too hard! I am too fat to be trying to run as fast as I am. I actually need to train more so I can loose some weight! Is this over training?

Maybe it's more of a diet issue than a training one? The old phrase "you can't outrun a bad diet" is a good one. You can do more runs and miles but if you're diet is bad you're weight will just plateau or possibly increase. I'm not saying this is the case with you, just something to consider!