Training & Nutrition - Fast approaching the concept of overtraining

I'm somewhat new to cycling. Definitely new to group rides and have made huge progress over the course of the summer. I find cycling to be one of the great loves of my life and regret not having stumbled on it sooner.

I'm at the point where I can really go nuts training. Three hours hammering on a bike is hardly ever out of the question and I'm looking to implement some high intensity sessions throughout the week.

I've recently come across some articles about how overtraining (specifically long duration endurance sports such as cycling) can have a very detrimental effect on health (decreased immunity, greater susceptibility to infections).

Some research out there goes as far as to imply that any intense workout over an hour can impair your disease fighting system substantially.

How pervasive is this problem and what can I do to avoid a situation like this?

Firstly, what do you mean by 'three hours hammering?' Are you implying that you're actively working the ENTIRE three hours? If so, you should REALLY re-evaluate the methods you're using to train (explained below).

Secondly, overtraining is a pretty common problem amongst beginner athletes. The mindset is that one wouldn't think they are exerting themselves hard enough, so they train more to reach that echelon. It's a vicious cycle, as the athlete will continue to think that he or she needs to train more to get better, while forgetting other important factors such as diet management and recovery. The result is decreased performance and a lot of physical changes you don't want to go through.

The best way to avoid overtraining is to create a structured program for yourself. Set up some days where you will ride easy, and others where you will do structured blocks of hard cycling. Recover, recover, recover. There is nothing greater than the power of recovery. Also, ensure that you're eating and drinking right. I can attest to this, as I was very close to overtraining. You don't want to go there.

Make sure that you take a rest day of just very easy spinning. I mean, easy spinning. It sucks because you'll be going slow (14 mph or so), but it's essential for your legs to get back up to speed.

In my opinion, the best place to ask about this is in the Road Bike Racing forum. There are some guys in there that are very seasoned and know of this problem very well. They can help you further, as I just started riding a little over a year ago, and am mostly a novice to racing. I recommend talking to waterrockets or carpediemracing about this, but many of the people that frequent that area are knowledgeable about it; we have to be!

Good luck!

I've never noticed impairment in my immune system, even when definitely overtrained.

Here's an easy way to tell: you're either getting stronger or you're getting weaker. There is no steady-state. If you notice you are slowly starting to use smaller cogs (higher gear) or a higher cadence on a test hill, you're getting stronger. If you find yourself grabbing a bigger cog, you're getting weaker. Assuming some consistent training program, if you're getting weaker, you need to rest, not train harder.

That's a generality, as there are more accurate ways to tell one's training state, such a heart rate monitoring, both morning resting and exercise HRs.

I've heard that the most effective measurement of overtraining is morning RHR (resting heart rate). If it's higher than normal, you're overtrained and need rest. If it's at or lower than normal, you're fine.

thanks guys, I'm sure there's a lot of well-tread material out there to source from and get 'best practices' methods for training.

I made a pact with myself to lose weight (I was 186) in January and ended up getting to 170 by July. I accomplished most of it by running but decided that cycling was a better way to enjoy the outdoors (and a nagging joint issue prevented me to go much faster/farther than my 'fitness' pace.)

So maybe I got a little overzealous and started riding way too fast or far for a newbie. In June I was avg. 15mph on a moderately hilly course (1700ft total ascent) and have since progressed to 19mph today.

I figured I'd have the winter to get into a more controlled program and just go out there to have fun for now... But after riding 100+ miles last weekend I got concerned I was stretching it a bit. You could say I was getting a little bit obsessive with riding and dreaming up of ways I could compete in the near future.

Long, sudden rides like that tend to make your body experience things it never did before and so I got a little anxious about whether I was hurting or helping myself.

Ultimately, I wanted to know how easily can one fall into 'overtraining' or are there several 'definitive' warning signs along the way that should warrant a change in course?

Case in point, last Friday I went on three consecutive HARD rides (with a group which tends to get competitive). Each morning I felt awful--if I listened to my body, I would have spun easy on the trainer or taken the whole day off altogether--but somehow convinced myself to go out. I not only ended up feeling better after the ride, but logged my fastest times... So I hear a lot about monitoring how you feel and using measures like RHR to determine appropriate training load, but so far I'm not seeing the consistency to be able to trust that methodology.

p.s. I've monitored my HR before both before and after what I thought to be really tough training days and I almost never see a difference +/- 3bpm.

How pervasive is this problem and what can I do to avoid a situation like this?Hard to say. I doubt very many people are so ignorant so as to not notice when they are making themselves sick. Off hand, I'd guess that if continue to sleep well, work out as much as you want.

<snip> So I hear a lot about monitoring how you feel and using measures like RHR to determine appropriate training load, but so far I'm not seeing the consistency to be able to trust that methodology. <snip>That's right. It takes years of observation to become a good self-coach. Sort of like training to coach someone else, but harder.

You may recover faster than most folks. Young people can often recover in 24 hours. Geezers like me take 72. But it's like I said above: if you're getting faster, good for you. Don't worry about it. A friend of mine rode 32,000 miles last year. If he was overtrained, I didn't notice it. He thinks he might have been, a little bit.

Signs: getting slower or weaker or higher morning resting heart rate (MRHR). Take it regularly every morning after you get up and leak or whatever, but before you do anything. Take it for 5 minutes while lying down and record the finishing steady-state number. Do not think about bicycling or your gf. If it jumps by 5-6 beats or more, that's a major warning of over-reaching, which can turn into overtraining if ignored. And as Richard said, not sleeping well is another warning sign. Not wanting to ride is another.

Look up "periodization." Working in some periods of recovery will allow your body to adapt. Your body doesn't build during workouts, it builds during the resting periods after.


Also, a rule of thumb is not to increase mileage or time by more than 10%/week.

Ultimately, I wanted to know how easily can one fall into 'overtraining' or are there several 'definitive' warning signs along the way that should warrant a change in course?



"overtraining" is a very specific syndrome, where the athlete sees their performance go down significantly. Overtrained athletes can take months to recover.

Far more common is unfocused training. You aren't terribly likely to get lowered immune response and that sort of thing, but you will quickly plateau.

Your performance improves when you stress your body and then give it time to recover. When you first start cycling, practically anything you do will provide the stress, and you don't ride that much, so you recover and get stronger.

If you keep doing this, you will eventually reach a point where your body has adapted to your workouts, and you'll stop improving. Many many people get into this state, and they think that they just need to work harder, but that can't work hard enough to impose sufficient training stress to improve.

The first is specificity. It's often said that most cyclists ride too hard for most of the time and not hard enough the rest of the time. Specificity involves sufficient rest so that you are capable of doing really hard workouts, and then very targetted workouts. You might have one hard interval workout during a week, but because you are well rested and the workout is short, you can get a lot of training stress out of it.

The second is periodicalization. Over a cycle of perhaps 4 weeks, you start with a moderate workout level and increase it the second and the third week, to a point where you wouldn't be able to sustain the third week workout. You then back off for a week to allow your body to recover and start the cycle again, this time at a slightly higher initial level.