Sometimes the problem isn't people putting too little work in, but in the case of some athletes, putting far too much. Over-training is a elusive state that some will argue is pure myth, and others will cite as a major factor in diminishing returns over time. What is agreed upon, is without proper recovery, you will feel sluggish, sore, be more prone to injury, among a myriad of other similar symptoms. Whether you think you are simply being soft, or feel these symptoms are hindering what you want to do, the answer is proper recovery.
I'm a firm believer that there is no such thing as overtraining, but only under-recovery. These sound the same, but the distinguishing factor is, you can put in just as much overall total work, but if you have the tools available to you, how you feel, will greatly vary. There are all sorts of factors that go into recovery including, age, sex, genetics, diet, compensations, type of weight lifted, frequency of workouts, proper nutrients, ability for body to assimilate nutrients, total systemic stress, and experience with the activity. The last one is my favorite one. Recovery can be grow just like a muscle can. You wouldn't try to instantly deadlift 500 pounds, nor should you expect your recovery to come up to be able handle that work in a reasonable amount of time without training it too.
Lots of goal oriented people run into the "too much, too soon" type of overtraining. For example, if i'm an 30 year old with no significant exercise experience, i decide i want to start running to try and lose weight. I start off alternating between running and walking, after a few days to a week, i decide i want to step it up to running 15-20 minutes with out stopping. I'm a little bit sore and achey, but i'm making good progress. I can see the time i can run going up and up with each training session i'm doing. I see i'm losing a pound or two a week, but i decide that progress is too slow for me. I think like most american adults and fall into the "more is better" mindset. My theory is if i run 2-3x's as much, i'll drop the weight 2-3x as fast. Over the course of the next 2-3 months this turns to running twice a day, 6-7 days a week. I love the high running gives me. No matter how i feel, i just have to get my run in. Ran or shine. Until after 2-3 weeks of this twice a day training, i start feeling winded. My shin splints have almost got unbearable, and every step i take turns to agony. It takes more and more for me to get going every morning. I measure my resting heart rate and see it creep up a few beats per minute with every consecutive run i take. I no longer feel good afterwards. I don't know whats happening, things were going so great. I'm eating 2000 calories a day, i know i've measured. If i want to cheat, i can still get the Big Mac as long as my total is under 2000, because a calorie is a calorie. I've also not been getting great sleep, as i'm constantly stressed out from work. I don't have time to do specific warm-ups or cool-downs before and after my run. The more i try and continue, the worse it gets. The great results i was seeing now stop completely. That's overtraining.
The "more is better" mindset is a cultural norm for us. Its not enough to have a smart phone that sees to my every will, i need the IPhone 5. Would i like to make it large for a dollar more? You beat your french frying ass i do. Buy one get one free?! Why get one when i can have two of something.
The best example i've heard is this, If i have a headache, and can take two aspirin, and the headache will go away, or i can take 10 aspirin, have my headache go away, but get the runs, a upset stomach, and stress on my liver, which is the better option? Well thats a common sense answer, you take the two. Why are you going to do more when two is the right dose for you? So why do we train the opposite? We see benefits stacking up very early on, so we decide if thats working so well, i could do much more and get that much more benefit. Athletes would benefit to think in this "minimal effective dose" mindset. Don't do more than you need at any one time. Do something that challenges you, and forces you to adapt. Force too much and that time for adaptation goes up too. If i'm doing a heavy dead lift workout where i hit a 1RM, i should know to take a couple days recovery because of the excessive demand on my body.
This can especially turn into a detriment if you are putting so much more into working out, at the expense of sport skill practice. Athletes will seem to gravitate to the concrete, and quantifiable progress of strength and conditioning. It offers an allure that you get to see your progress, rather than simply feel your progress, like if you are in a sport that is skill based.
I've been on both sides of that issue. I've done too much, and too little, and i've payed for it. It's not simply enough to train harder, but to train smarter. What you choose to do should be a compliment to your main priority rather than hold it back. It takes a lot of sensitivity and time to get an accurate feel for this, and to know your recovery. So when we are novice athletes, and we try to start something if we don't have the intuitive gauge to differentiate whats good, and whats bad, we run right back into the "too much, too soon" mindset.
Our bodies are not designed for exponential growth, we are designed for slow, steady progress. I have to ease into anything i do, because i'm not sure the effect it will have on me.
So while the body's over-all ability to recover from exponential stress is slow, there are things we have control that effect recovery. With the knowledge of time being the biggest factor in our ability to recover, we have to utilize all the tools we have at our exposal to ensure that we do what we can to recover.
This can especially turn into a detriment if you are putting so much more into working out, at the expense of sport skill practice. Athletes will seem to gravitate to the concrete, and quantifiable progress of strength and conditioning. It offers an allure that you get to see your progress, rather than simply feel your progress, like if you are in a sport that is skill based.
I've been on both sides of that issue. I've done too much, and too little, and i've payed for it. It's not simply enough to train harder, but to train smarter. What you choose to do should be a compliment to your main priority rather than hold it back. It takes a lot of sensitivity and time to get an accurate feel for this, and to know your recovery. So when we are novice athletes, and we try to start something if we don't have the intuitive gauge to differentiate whats good, and whats bad, we run right back into the "too much, too soon" mindset.
Our bodies are not designed for exponential growth, we are designed for slow, steady progress. I have to ease into anything i do, because i'm not sure the effect it will have on me.
So while the body's over-all ability to recover from exponential stress is slow, there are things we have control that effect recovery. With the knowledge of time being the biggest factor in our ability to recover, we have to utilize all the tools we have at our exposal to ensure that we do what we can to recover.
Here's your toolbox:
Journal- Keep a detailed training log. Include mood, energy level, aches, pains, and soreness. Try to quantify how what you're doing is effecting you. This is your most important tool. Make any connections you see, and highlight any patterns that come out. Play around with what your doing to see if your suspected effect is truly being caused by what you think. With proper journaling, all the other tools presented will be self-evident.
Sleep- Sleep is not expendable. 8-9 hours a night is mandatory if you want to keep doing what your doing. Hormone regulation, muscle growth and repair, among a mountain of other benefits means you cannot sacrifice this. Don't believe me? Journal and find out.
Diet- A whole article itself can be written on this, and perhaps it will be. Diet has a big effect on inflamation. Inflammation= slow recovery. Everything I eat should be real. If it comes from a factory, it most likely won't help you. The processing of food leads to an excess of Omega-6 fatty acids in our diet, leaving the ratio compared to Omega-3 far off. Take a fish or krill oil supplement, and avoid all foods with processing and ingredients you can't pronounce. Also, water is the number one anabolic supplement you can take. Half your body weight in ounces of water a day should be consumed. Think about taking an antioxidant supplement as well, or just drinking your fair share of green tea. Use your common sense on this one. It also might be beneficial for you to experiment with cutting grains out all together, to see if you have a gluten intolerance, which can lead to more inflammation. Get a good consumption of your green vegetables, and limited consumption of fruit. No processed sugars.
Stress- When we exercise, we stress our body. A hormone by the name of cortisol is released. When we worry, the same hormone is released. Cortisol is essential for recovery and to be alive, but too much of it, and the negative side effects stack up. It's essential to manage emotional stress, because this has a side effect on total systemic stress, in turn effecting, and even limiting our recovery. Emotional stress manifests itself in physical stress. Simple meditation, and breathing techniques can go a long way in management of stress. So can avoiding assholes.
Mobility/ active recovery- We recover faster when we move. Nutrition is only sent to the joints through movement. Increased blood flow is also able to remove toxins and waste products from muscular break down. Search for "Intu-flow" on youtube, and follow the program religiously.
Myofacsial release- Some of you might be friends with the good old foam roller. For those of you who are not, they are available for purchase here. Proper usage of the foam roller includes hitting every major muscle group, and once you find a spot of tension, hold pressure for about 10 seconds. This is best done before a workout. Massage is essentially the same thing. If you feel like your being overtrained, massage is a great thing to splurge on to help you recover.
Other techniques are better suited for individuals. Do a little experimentation. Different workouts require different recovery. For example a heavy strength workout requires a few days of recovery. If i'm going to muscular failure in workouts, that also takes extended recovery. Only you know how much work you put in when doing sport skill practice, so tailor any conditioning program you have around that. Conditioning cannot live separate from skill practice, one will always affect the other. Use the minimum effect dose, and work up from where you're comfortable.
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