What does overtraining feel like?

[Clydesdale]

After a good winter, I am struggling this summer on the bike and wondering about overtraining. Has it ever happened to you and what did it feel like? Thanks.

[wallymann]

After a good winter, I am struggling this summer on the bike and wondering about overtraining. Has it ever happened to you and what did it feel like? Thanks.

lots of potential symptoms...i've experienced:


cant get out of your own way.
low motivation & irritability.
legs producing lactic acid at the thought of going hard.
high HR for a given power.
paradoxically, unable to produce high HR efforts.
high resting HR.
easily injured/sick.

[unterhausen]

probably a lower FTP, if you measure it regularly

[hobbanero]

HRV is a great way to measure how ready your body is to work. But you have to establish a baseline when you are rested (eg. before a training block), and many HRV measurement options are not accurate enough.

[MattTuck]

overtraining is a myth.

[gasman]

overtraining is a myth.

and not possible with young twins and a full time job. Right Matt ?

[makoti]

lots of potential symptoms...i've experienced:


cant get out of your own way.
low motivation & irritability.
legs producing lactic acid at the thought of going hard.
high HR for a given power.
paradoxically, unable to produce high HR efforts.
high resting HR.
easily injured/sick.


That pretty much covers it

[MattTuck]

and not possible with young twins and a full time job. Right Matt ?

Indeed :) My above post should have a ;) with it.

over training is no joke, but fortunately the solution is pretty pleasant. rest and relaxation.

[54ny77]

More ounces of beer drank than miles ridden per week.

[Bentley]

HRV is a great way to measure how ready your body is to work. But you have to establish a baseline when you are rested (eg. before a training block), and many HRV measurement options are not accurate enough.

HRV is a great indicator, love my Whoop Strap

[Ralph]

How old are you? How fit? (otherwise from cycling fast) Seen a cardiologist lately?

[AngryScientist]

there is real overtraining, and then there is simple burn-out too to be aware of.

sometimes after long blocks of really being on top of things, my body just wants to rest. i dont know if it necessarily NEEDS to rest, but mentally i just get lazy, and we all know that the suffering required to be good at endurance sports like cycling comes a lot from the brain.

[bigbill]

I went through cycles of it when I lived in Hawaii. We had one car so I bike commuted 6 days a week with a fast ride on Sunday. Anywhere I commuted I had issue periodically. It came down to recovery and commuting makes it tough.

Back when I was racing a lot in the 90's, I'd force myself to take easy days so I wasn't burned out from training. I overdid a few times and made myself sick. I also made myself vulnerable to getting sick by wrecking my body's resistance. For me, I used resting HR upon waking. If it was >55, I took an easy day. Probably outdated, but that's what I did.

[unterhausen]

my first year of structured training with trainer road, I saw big gains right off the bat. The problem happened when I started doing randonneuring rides outside and kept up with my training plan the rest of the week. I got slower on every ride, started having trouble with cramping and I have never regained the ftp I lost, which was about 10 percent. Real overtraining causes muscle damage. Which means I really should lose some weight

[Burnette]

After a good winter, I am struggling this summer on the bike and wondering about overtraining. Has it ever happened to you and what did it feel like? Thanks.

I'm a gym rat (when I go), use to run and of course, I bike. Way back, over the years I have over trained in each discipline.

The commonality between them was loss of sleep first. While trying to sleep I would toss and turn all night, have muscle spasms, have a high heart rate. All while trying to sleep.

Higher blood pressure during the day, if I sat still for any length of time I would get tired/sleepy real quick.

In the gym, running or biking, my performance plateaued, I was still strong/fast, but stuck, no progression.

The causes for this? Not sticking to a plan and believing "more is better". It's not, unless it's structured. You methodically progress to longer/harder, don't go overboard before your body can take. You can indeed push yourself too hard. You live, you stay strong, but you don't progress and you burn out.

One if the biggest things I learned a very long time ago was that you get stronger when you rest.

Get your sleep, number one, solid sleep, follow your plan, advance/add to it only when you've truly mastered the trial you're on.

And recovery days are just that.

And eat right, what you put in makes a huge difference if you're chasing real gains.

[oldpotatoe]

More ounces of beer drank than miles ridden per week.

POTA!!!
Post of the Afternoon...I’m just unmotivated after a early spring and early summer of being less motivated...oh well, happy to just pedal around for 90 minutes or so...Cheers!

[Clydesdale]

I have noticed a serious drop in ability lately and was exploring overtraining as an explanation and thought hearing some real world experiences might help. It actually seems preferable to some of the other possibilities, but it doesn't really fit. Time to check in with the doc I suppose. Thanks as always.

[BobO]

Seen a cardiologist lately?

Excellent point.

[marciero]

Indeed :) My above post should have a ;) with it.

over training is no joke, but fortunately the solution is pretty pleasant. rest and relaxation.

Indeed. In fact the only way to confirm the diagnosis may be whether it improves with rest. In "The Cyclists Training Bible" Joe Friel lists 22 symptoms - half behavioral, half physical-including those listed by Wallyman and others above. One looks for preponderance of evidence. If you are following a training program and monitoring your vitals every day-hours sleep, weight, resting HR, etc. Then you have more information to work with-not just data but your intuition is more tuned as well. Here are some other symptoms

Depression
Poor concentration
clumsiness
decreased libido
craving for sugar
diarrhea
swollen lymph glands
Slow healing cuts


I've not followed a training program in a long time and these days I just back off a bit when I feel sluggish on the bike for two consecutive days.

[echappist]

How old are you? How fit? (otherwise from cycling fast) Seen a cardiologist lately?

along that note, an endocrinologist as well. In real over-training, the hormonal balance is completely off kelter

-------------------------------------------------

as for what it feels like, there's over-reaching, and then there's over-training. Technically, the former leads to the latter.

I don't know if i've experienced the latter, but I've definitely experienced the former.

It was characterized by lethargy, unending muscle soreness for days at a time (feels as if someone beat up my quads with meat tenderizers), constant hunger, lack of concentration. My HR was suppressed; it may look nice to be doing 260W (high Z3/low Z4) at 145 bpm (top of Z2), but in reality I experienced soreness (similar to DOMS) with each pedal stroke. I could never actually get to high Z4; legs were too dead to get there.

I knew how I got there: too fast a recovery after a cold in early April, trying to get my form back but couldnt, a bit too much racing (which adds mental stress as well), and finally feeling utterly spent by the end of that month.

I took about ten days off and tried to restart. At first, things actually worked well for about 2 months, but then the wheels finally fell off for good in early July. I basically did jack squat until the following September. Fortunately, it was sufficient to reset things. Some who go through this end up suffering half a year or more.

[duff_duffy]

Can you share more about the swollen lymph glands, wound that won’t heal, and craving for sugar?? I have had these three this past week! Feel great though...

Indeed. In fact the only way to confirm the diagnosis may be whether it improves with rest. In "The Cyclists Training Bible" Joe Friel lists 22 symptoms - half behavioral, half physical-including those listed by Wallyman and others above. One looks for preponderance of evidence. If you are following a training program and monitoring your vitals every day-hours sleep, weight, resting HR, etc. Then you have more information to work with-not just data but your intuition is more tuned as well. Here are some other symptoms

Depression
Poor concentration
clumsiness
decreased libido
craving for sugar
diarrhea
swollen lymph glands
Slow healing cuts


I've not followed a training program in a long time and these days I just back off a bit when I feel sluggish on the bike for two consecutive days.

[marciero]

Can you share more about the swollen lymph glands, wound that won’t heal, and craving for sugar?? I have had these three this past week! Feel great though...

My intent was to list a few that weren't cited by others, to highlight the wide range of possible symptoms. It's important that one looks for a preponderance of evidence-none of the symptoms (nor are subsets of symptoms) necessary, nor are they sufficient. I looked in Friel's book for those, and he does not elaborate on them. BUT-In my totally non-expert opinion, if you feel great it's a pretty sure thing that you are not overtrained!

echappist's remarks show that overtraining is no joke. His remarks about hormones are also consistent with Friel, who lists about 12 blood markers which can give evidence of overtraining. A blood test would be most useful if you had solid baseline values of yourself for comparison.

[FlashUNC]

Overtraining feels like a boat anchor tied to your soul. Overtraining feels like the dread and exhaustion I can only guess that shanghai'd sailors felt at the approach of a foreign flag. Overtraining feels like the very thought of effort is exhausting. Overtraining feels like everything and nothing hurts all at the same time. Overtraining feels like the sun come up but you couldn't come up with it, to quote the Man in Black. Overtraining feels like the ache of longing matched to the weariness of a day of hard labor. Overtraining is all of these things, yet may be none of them too.

[Ronsonic]

overtraining is a myth.

Only if you do as many drugs as Floyd.

[stephenmarklay]

The first sign for me is sleep disruption and the second is loss of motivation. Past that I easy feels hard.

[wildboar]

Have any seasonal allergies? Need a new chain?

[MilanoTom]

overtraining is a myth.

My achilles tendons would beg to differ. Micro tears and enough scar tissue to double the thickness of the tendon are keeping me off the bike (and barely able to walk) this summer while I get shock wave treatments in a last ditch effort to avoid surgery.

Tom

[glepore]

Overtraining feels like a boat anchor tied to your soul. Overtraining feels like the dread and exhaustion I can only guess that shanghai'd sailors felt at the approach of a foreign flag. Overtraining feels like the very thought of effort is exhausting. Overtraining feels like everything and nothing hurts all at the same time. Overtraining feels like the sun come up but you couldn't come up with it, to quote the Man in Black. Overtraining feels like the ache of longing matched to the weariness of a day of hard labor. Overtraining is all of these things, yet may be none of them too.

Great post. For me, it feels like I have a hidden flu. The worst hole that I dug honestly had nothing to do with a "block"-it was a couple years of training harder in the winter than summer due to having a smart trainer and intervals, riding over where my normal head is for a couple summers, and then tossing in the death of a parent and a move out of the area where I had been for over 3 years. It snuck up on me and has taken the better part of 6 months mostly off to desire to ride again.

[pdonk]

Even though I don't ride as much as many of you, the comment about not sleeping and craving sugar has me wondering if maybe I am on the road to "over training". I am about to surpass last years total outdoor mileage (1500KM) and it is only July. At the rate I am riding and depending on weather I should hit 3000km outside before track season starts.

I thought the sleep issue might be work/life related stress and riding helps reduce those bad things, but if it is causing me to lose sleep maybe it has to be toned down, riding approximately 150km a week over 3 rides. Rest of my body and legs feel pretty good though.

[tv_vt]

...wondering about overtraining. Has it ever happened to you and what did it feel like? Thanks.

Yes, it happened to me in a big way decades ago. It left me feeling suicidal and with a divorce.

[Hellgate]

In a word, dead.

Legs feel empty, regardless of how hard you try there is limited power, when resting there a full ache in your legs.

You may want to train, your mind might be there, but your body won't respond.

Time to take two weeks off, get away from cycling, and do something different, then come back and spin base (LSD) for a couple of months to reset.

It ain't pretty...