I have a tendency to overtrain
I know a lot of highly motived people who do. Hard training can be very addictive. I have had three distinct times in my life where I have physically overtrained. The first was when I was 19. Back in the fall of 1975 I went to the Netherlands to train for the upcoming Olympic trials. I did know anything about tapering before a competition. I ran myself into the ground by working overly hard, right up to the competition. My race times were actually slowing down as I approached the trials. I retired from the sport right after the trials and did not put on skates or return to the ice and skating, even for fun, for over 20 years. I was burned out and overtrained. My legs ached every day for about 18 months after.
I did the same thing to a lesser degree just two years ago and had to take 5 weeks off from the middle of October to the end of November. In this instance I did a lot of weight work and not enough recovery work in between. I did not have a coach at the time of each occurrence. Coincidence? Maybe not.
Last fall I had another bout with overtraining. I have a coach this time. We are being very aggressive about facilitating my recovery. I tend to go to extremes. It is in my nature, I know that. I have surrounded myself with people who can help me avoid this. I still need to be as honest as I can with myself.
Soreness, fatigue & overtraining
Being sore is part of the landscape; being tired is also part of my training life. Deep down fatigue is not. When I lose the pop, when I lose my gratitude for the ability to do what I love, that is the difference. Then I must recognize a fundamental change has and strive to fix it and move on, all the while evaluating why I let this happen again, so I can see it coming next time.
I will only be able to see this issue accurately by looking backwards. I can tell you the circumstances and what I feel went wrong and why I did this to myself. This is different every time. The common denominator is me of course. I did this; I am responsible for what I have done. Having time to look back, I can analyze and make changes for the future.
Preventative measures
In the past, I used a number of resources to gauge my training load. The first is my own body feedback. Probably the most important question I can ask myself is how am I feeling? Sometimes that is a complex question. Unfortunately my own denial gets in the way. My coach asks a very important question when I talk to her. “How are you?” It is a question I have to answer honestly. If I am honest, then I can make good decisions about adjusting my training to get the most out of what I put into this work. Another method of physical feedback is taking my pulse right after I wake up and before I get out of bed. I now have added ithlete to my feedback loop. I am using this device in place of taking my first morning pulse. The ithlete measures my state of rest, recovery, and fitness, and gives me a numerical value. It deals with the relationship of breathing and heart rate. It can help validate how I am feeling and give me some better direction for the decision to train hard, train normally, take it easy, or just rest. When I feel fatigued, I know it. Sometimes I have to hit the wall. My ego gets in the way of my own vision.
Smart training decisions
The most important part of recovery is to know when to adjust my training. First, I must stop all intense work. For me, that means anything that creates more fatigue. What works, is a number of things that I can rotate. Stationary bike at low intensity (so low I may not break a sweat), walking, rolling my legs with a roller, saunas and ice baths, getting my feet up as much as possible, sleep, getting a massage, etc. I must work very hard at recovery. I am taking this day by day and adjusting as I go. That is the physical side. I also need to look at my mental, emotional and spiritual sides. I need to tend to those aspects of my life that are out of balance. I need to look at my stress levels and how I am handling them. Am I using all the tools available to me? I get wrapped up in the results and forget about the journey. I just got a great big reminder to stop, sit down (literally) and look around. Hopefully I can recover in a few days. We are not in charge of the results of this process. I trust that if I do what I can today then the answers will come in time. That is true for me in all aspects of my life not just skating and training.
I am also reminded to be grateful for what I have and where I am. This attitude changes my perspective as well as my possible solutions going forward.
Bruce, have a seat, we need to talk.
After this bout of overtraining I recovered. Skating faster than ever, I qualified for the upcoming 2014 Olympic Trials at age 57, World Masters Sprint Champion, and three masters world records.
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Hi, I have over-trained for about 8-9 years consistently (no joke). I am now 30, and since I was about 21 I would train hard almost every day. For a couple years I was training hard 6x/week and one light day. Then I added in one rest day. I would take off 2 or 3 days here and there and a rest week maybe once per year. I did cardio almost every training day for about 45 minutes, which I now realize was way to much; and a lot of it was moderate to high intensity cardio. In the past 2 months my body has completely broken down. I have many nagging muscle injuries and pain. My knees are in great pain as well, one of my major concerns. I recently obtained medical insurance for he first time in about 10 years so I am only now able to get bloodwork/mri’s, ect. My blood work came back very good with the only issue being my T was low (this is weird because my energy level, physique, aggression is that of something with High T). It came in at 279. I feel this may be from overtraining. I am going this week to my GP to see the recent test results and if T is still low he is going to prescribe me a Test-supplement such as androgel.
Besides good genetics, my diet is nearly perfect; I take every important vitamin, natural anti-inflammatories, and use supplements to help recovery and protein synthesis. I am 5’8″ about 160-165 lbs, very lean, and have a well built physique.
Recently I injured my right Sartorius leg muscle. I took off a week, then resumed exercise but it wouldn’t heal. I started PT a few weeks ago and it has helped only a little. I am very disconcerted in general but especially with this injury because I will warm it up, stretch it, and then later the muscle will be very sore and tender. It’s like if you don’t stretch it, it re-pulls, and if you do-stretch it, it re-pulls.
Last week I threw down my cards and decided to take 2 full weeks off to try and reset my CNS and heal my injuries. Today starts week 2. To be honest my injuries are still prevalent and I feel like doing the most harmless action triggers a pain response from some of muscle injuries. Simply stretching my shoulders the other day triggered a small re-strain on my right pec. Then this morning, doing nothing out of the ordinary my right tricep strained slightly(and this was one of the injuries I thought had healed up by now). is 2 weeks enough? too long?
I would really appreciate your advice as to how to go about recovering my body from years of punishment and lack of time to recover. I assume that my body adjusted to not recovering for so long that this is actually a shock to it and it takes a little time for the body to equal itself out again. I’ve been going to acupuncture, I go to PT, use a foam roller, roller stick; Anything that can help me.
When I come back I am changing my whole regiment: weight training 5x/week, and cardio 3-4x/week. Less volume of weights as well. I have/had very long workout sessions.
I feel that my scenario is very specific and not so common especially how long and hard I have over-trained. Its amazing I haven’t broken down already. I think that at 30 my body cant recover as fast and allow me to keep training without injury. I’m not old by any means but we all surely recover faster at 21 than we do at 30.
I may have not supplied enough pertinent info for you to properly advise me so please let me know if you need more info.
THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR HELP.
Michael