alexp247365

About three weeks ago, I upgraded my license to Category 4. My thrill and excitement to finally race with my teammates has veered off course as my body is giving me warning signs I'm not sure how to interpret.

In the last 8 days, I've raced 3 races in which my avg HR over the course of these 40 minute races has only been 10 bpm less than my max (179av/189max e.g.) After this first hard effort, I had tightness in my chest for a day or so after the race. Same for the second race. But for the third race this last Tuesday, I had tightness during warm-up before the race. I pushed myself harder than usual during this last race, and by the last lap, was feeling terrible - not in shelled kind of way , but in a 'I better listen to my body and stop pushing NOW' kind of way. The race was followed by a small coughing fit, followed up with an abnormal production of snot-rockets and constant burp-up feeling.

While the snot-rockets subsided, the coughing and burping up feeling continued on to the following day.

I did a fast sixty-miler yesterday - telling myself if I end up hurting here - im done for a bit...

Although I felt ok and took turns pulling, by mile 45 - I was done. Both calves were cramped - which hasn't happened all season, and legs were cooked. My heart was killing me.

The last week, Ive been feeling off, although my volume hasn't gone up. Has this sudden increase in intesnsity pushed me over the limit? If so.. .is this just over-trained, or should I go see a doctor?

Im 34, btw, and this is my first season of riding racing hard (about 2k miles put in so far)

Any insight as to what is going on here would be appreciated... thanks

Carbonfiberboy 

No, not overtrained, over-reached. Don't need the doc. The difference is that overreaching is more a muscular and glycogen problem, while overtraining is glandular. You can recover from overreaching in a few days while recovering from overtraining can take a couple of months.

Insight: you don't get stronger when you ride, you get stronger when you rest. Do more of the latter.

Snot rockets, sore lungs, heart hurts - all normal feelings, just signals that you've pushed hard. I'd ride short rides for the next several days, 1 hour or less, and in zone 1. I'd just spin on my rollers to avoid any HR over zone 1. Then go out for a short ride and try to attack a hill. If your HR doesn't respond normally, try a couple more days of easy riding, then try again. But if you do get a normal response, you're probably good to go. Just remember that overdoing it cost you fitness. If you are going slower, you're doing it wrong. You're supposed to keep getting faster.

kmac27

I have never heard of the term overreaching. I know overtraining is doing more training than your body can handle which would mean he is overtraining. Also there is no definate notification for overtraining according to Joe Friel's Cycling training bible which is why it is so hard for people to identify. If one is overtraining it doesn't take months to recover. More around 20-30 days max depending on how much work is being done in those days.

The Heckler

Joe Friel's book explains this pretty well.
He says there are 3 stages to overtraining. I'll paraphrase

Stage 1: Overload. This is part of normal training. You overload your body with exercise and the result is super compensation, which is the gain. It also says you tend to feel very strong during this period and that people mistake it for being fully recovered.

Stage 2: Overreaching. You keep training at an abnormally high level, and your performance noticeably decreases. You will notice this in workouts first, then races (where motivation pulls you through).

Stage 3: Overtraining. "Fatiguie is now chronic - it stays with you like a shadow." You are tired all the time, yet you can't sleep well at night.

I once overtrained from racing and high intensity work, and it feels a lot like being sick. I had to spend at least a week doing nothing. As you become more experienced in training yourself, you learn to spot the symptoms when they come up.

What you did wrong here is you kept going with the training and ignored the signs your body was giving you. But it's good you stopped before it got worse, now you know where the limit is. I don't think anyone accidentally overtrains more than once. By the way, you can overtrain from both intensity and volume...so a long ride at a slower pace can still send you over the edge.

A very accurate way is to check your morning pulse when you're laying in bed. If it's noticeably higher, that's a sign to cut back.
Another is if your pulse will not go up to where it should be during a workout, like it happened to you. It means you need to rest.
There is a big list of physical and psychological signs in Friel's book, but that's too long to write here.

ericm979

Not everyone gets all of those signs- my RHR barely moves even when I am completely wiped out.

Higher intensity does add stress. If you're doing ok at X hours of riding a week, and then do a week of X hours but many of those hours are races where you're flat out, you'll be significantly more tired.

This sort of thing is where power meters and analysis software come in handy.

Richard Cranium

There is little chance on anyone guessing what your training status is. Even if you had a coach and a detailed training log any diagnoses would still be a guess.

Over training syndrome (OTS) is recognized in some medical organizations as a clinically definable condition by measuring hormonal response to specific exercise sessions applied in specific protocols.

It is possible that an examination would show these results, but it would still be up to a medical professional, probably with the help of your coach to determine a diagnosis.

In any case, your question and your current training status tells us why some cyclists will become professional racers and the rest of us don't.

25hz

People use "overtraining" now like they use the word "love". Everybody talks about overtraining, but fact is, few peopel have the time to put into training or the willpower, to get into "overtraining". It takes months of excessive trianing, with insufficient rest, to hit the chronic fatigue that is "overtraining". So, to clear up some of the confusion, coaches, trainers, or whoever, came up with the term "over reaching". That's just a short term matter of people thinking they're better than they are, and their body quickly shows them they are mistaken. That is easy to recover from. Short term excess, short term recovery - like a few days. Cut back the intensity, get lots of rest, and you bounce back fast.

Overtraining is chronic. The mind pushes the body past what the body is physically able to produce and causes long term fatigue that actually changes the body's metabolism. It goes into survival mode. Long term "abuse" like that, takes a long time to recover from because the body's metabolism has to recover first, THEN the body has to repair itself. That recovery isn't just about days or weeks. It takes months, and I've read that some people had to cut way back for almost a year.

It might be cool and hard core to talk about overtraining, but in the vast majority of cases, it's just that - talk. Overtraining is an extreme and rare example, "over reaching" is quite common. Over reaching might not be the best term, but it's the one used now.

umd

Again you show you have no idea what the F you are talking about. Stick to threads about Tae-bo and cross-fit or whatever and leave the bike riding to people who ride more than 15 minutes at a time.

umd

Just the kind of thing the PMC was developed for...

umd

Look, someone who does know what the F they are talking about