Originally Posted by
Wattsup
And from what I understand, your body gives you -numerous- warnings along the way that you'd have to entirely ignore in order to overtrain yourself. I think older cyclists are much more likely to injure themselves from not allowing enough recovery time, and injuring oneself is not the same as overtraining. I use TrainingPeaks and their PMC (Performance Management Chart) to judge my training status. The first step I notice when when my ATL (Acute Training Load) is getting a little high is that I'll wake up one morning and just not be very enthusiastic about riding that day.
Yeah, sure. Weight gain, restless sleep, unresponsive heart rate, general malaise. All sorts of stuff.
I don't put much stock in the PMC. I use it only as conversation points and comparisons because lots of other people use it, but it doesn't influence my training much at all. In fact, I podiumed a crit last month with a +36 TSB and a CTL 40 points lower than it's ever been during race season.
Just so much more to training than those numbers (which can also be easily manipulated through specific workouts if one were inclined).