Training & Nutrition - overtraining-how to recover?

hey everybody, im in need of some clarification. in anticipation for my first race coming up, i have trained super hard. until recently, i was oblivious to recovery periods and all that, and i read a page about overtraining and im starting to notice some of its symptoms with me. can anyone give me some more information on what it is, how to avoid it and how to recover from it? thanks
Todd

Overtraining ... pushing your body too hard for too long of a time without adiquate rest periods inbetween.

Basically in english putting in too many hard workouts without giving your body time to recover. This could be doing too many intervals to close tougher, riding too hard to many days in a row, etc.

Symptoms, vary amoung people but can include weakness, elivated HR (resting or doing workout), tiredness, inability to sleep, moodiness, etc. Basically your body tells you that it can not do any more and needs to rest. It can also mean getting sick.

Recovery: simple rest. Take a day or two off the bike. Listen to your body, when it says you are ready you are ready to get going again. If you are severly overtrained it can be many days to weeks before you are normal.

To prevent it, follow an hard day with an easier day, take at least 1 day completly off per week or do active recovery (spin an your lowest gear (double) with no resistance for 30 minutes or more) on that day. Listen to your body, if it says take time off do it.

You will learn as you train to see the signs...

A few weeks back I was training hard for my first race. I have riden 6 days a week for the last 3 months but that week I pushed it to 8 days in a row. I went on a 60 mile areobic ride (about 20 MPH) on a single speed. On the way home in the car I fell asleep and wound up in a big pile of sand off the side of the road stuck. For me my body gets really tired and shuts down when I overtrain. I have learned to listen to my body, and if I do not feel right I modify my training. It is something that you learn with time...

Good luck and get some rest.

To overcome overtraining: rest

To overcome overtraining: rest


its been said before but dont do ANYTHING GASP! :eek: :D

My body kinda wigged out recently because of this. I considered a 30 minute all out effort a rest day, I was putting in about 24-27 hours a week worth of training, just absolutely every second of my free time. I noticed I was constantly tired, had no sex drive whatsoever, never got a deep sleep (no dreams). This week I've taken a rest week, and have eaten like a mad-man to actually try and raise my BF%, even then my body was so stressed I've only gained like 1-2 lbs. eating around 5K calories a day.

30 minutes all out an easy day... and I thought I was doing too much intensity. You have to have time to let your body rebuild, for me that is saturday.

It helps to listen to your body. I usually take what my body will give me. If I feel good and the body is reved up, I ride hard. If I go out and everything feels sluggish, I go easy. But I am not training for any competition.

I think that you could ride if you just rode very easily with the notion of just limbering things up and not pushing hard enough to even breathe hard. But many people are so fixated on "no pain no gain" and pushing their limits that they seem totally unable to slow down and smell the roses. Is this because our society puts a premium on competiton, winning, sacrifice and instant gratification? Those people need to stay off the bike and rest.

Pat

redlemondrsx: Recovery is every bit as important as the build process, if not more so. In my triathlon training I have recovery weeks. During recovery weeks I cut all of my workouts by 50%. I plan my workouts in 4 week blocks with 3 weeks building and the 4th week recovery. A typical block would look something like this:

Week 1 - Bike 60 minutes
Week 2 - Bike 70 minutes
Week 3 - Bike 80 minutes
Week 4 - Bike 40 minutes (recovery week)
Week 1 - Bike 90 minutes (first week of next build period)

Good luck with your training.

Something else just as important as non-bike days: sleep. Make the effort to get lots of nice uninterrupted sleep: it massively boosts recovery.