Overtraining is in sight….what to do now?

What does “feeling flat” mean. Does that mean “meh, I don’t really wanna go to the gym I’d rather curl up under the blankets and read a book” or does it mean that you feel wrecked. Like you feel like you’re starting to get sick or sore or like you couldn’t do the work out if you wanted to.

I know when I first started it was hard to get used to getting home from work and turning around out the door every night even when I felt like chilling and reading a book. And it was hard again when I started doing morning runs (lol its still hard). But that is different than feeling like you’re starting to get sick or over worked. One is motivation and one is over training.

Also, you’re supposed to start at 50% of last year, I wouldn’t count lunch time “strolls” as a workout, so I would assume you were at 3-5 hours per week assuming you were running or climbing 3-4 days per week (Because if you think about it, 2 hours at the climbing gym is probably only 30-45 min of actual on the wall climbing). So maybe you should be starting at 2-2.5 hours per week? It seems like a very small amount of training but it basically grows exponentially and by the middle of the base period you’ll be doing huge volumes (comparatively).

And finally, you say you eat healthy, that means a lot of things to different people. One thing that I find helpful is to track food using something like my fitness pal and after getting a baseline of what you eat normally, try tweaking things and keeping track of how I felt vs how much I ate. So get a baseline for 2 weeks and then try upping fat or upping protein or upping carbs. There is a lot of research on what the balance of macros should be for muscle building or fat adapting or recovering.

Anyways, good luck, its more of an art than a science it seems. Its taken me until midway through my max strength period to feel like I really have a handle on everything. 🙂

Leon, Sounds like you are getting things figured out! I have found that in my case there is a lot of trial and error trying to get everything nailed down. Even now in my 2nd year of training I am still experimenting and learning. I feel like a lot of it is learning to understand my body and the difference between tired, wrecked, or sick. During Base phase last year I was tired for like 3 weeks in a row, but my numbers were good and I was getting adequate sleep and nutrition. Then a rest week came and I really focused on getting extra sleep that week. That really helped for me and when I went back into more training the following week I felt much better. I think a lot of it is training your body to handle more work/stress.

One other note I would throw in is to experiment with a Heart Rate monitor. Last year I just guessed a lot at how hard the training was based on how I felt, my breathing etc.. While I think those can be guidelines it really helped me to use a HR monitor. I was pretty shocked that some workouts I thought were Z1 were actually not even high enough (more of a recovery effort). This year I am amazed at how little is in my Z3 even on a bigger day (shows that I have kept a lot from last year’s training). I use an app called 60beat which I really like (just get a HR monitor chest strap that is bluetooth). You can put in your own zone ranges and then at the end of the workout the app will give you a total time and percentage in each zone. This is really helpful to me on those bigger days in the mountains. I don’t use it during the workout, but it is a good check to make sure I was setting the correct pace for my desired output.

Good luck with your training! It is a continual learning process but in my experience from last season it works!!

Hi, reading through the posts I find I don’t have a lot to add. I’ve encountered overtraining before, most significantly in my training cycle last year. Partway through the base period-around week 5 or 6 I went on a trip. I figured my fitness was up to what we were doing, but in retrospect I had a partner who was “going for broke”-and I was actually trying to continue training the week after. Anyhow I ended up climbing four very full days straight-more at the level of output I would want in the Performance phase. I probably did about 10 days of recovery workouts before I was truly recovered. I’ve since adopted some rules-like not committing to trips longer than one or two days, it seems like even if I overexert the effects aren’t so serious that I derail weeks of training. I also really advocate the suggestions around consuming sports drinks during long workouts mentioned in TFTNA-I find the nutrition piece is a big support for my performance and recover.