General Discussion Triathlon Talk » Am I overtrained? Rss Feed  
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2015-06-22 6:45 PM

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Subject: Am I overtrained?
Hi,
I'm not really training for any specific race, but Im doing Master Swimmers class twice a week. I also have been trying go back to running, but this has not been successful. Basically I run when my knees do not hurt.
I had not been swimming for the last 2 months because I was did not have a car. I started swimming again two weeks ago,
Anyway, during the last weekend I did the following:
Saturday
1. an hour Masters Swim class that including sprinting- I think that sprinting killed me
2. immediately after this 45 minute salsa class
3. an hour of of lifting


Sunday
an hour of yoga
and hour of lifting
4 mile run
After this I was so spent and I feel so spent today. I could exercise, I can deal with muscles pain, but I just do not have enough energy.

Sometimes I feel like this also after a long and intense hike . This feeling can last for 5-6 days/ Have u ever experienced it?

Im 42 years old so maybe is an age is doing this to me. Is there any supplement that would speed up recovery ? I would love to go for a run today, but even when I walk I feel I have to put more energy into it then usual.




Edited by slonce5 2015-06-22 6:49 PM


2015-06-22 7:17 PM
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Subject: RE: Am I overtrained?

You're definitely not over trained......but you might think about having a serum ferritin test for Iron deficiency.  The test is cheap and low Iron is more common than most people who exercise think it is,  and can drastically affect your energy level.



Edited by Left Brain 2015-06-22 7:18 PM
2015-06-22 7:19 PM
in reply to: slonce5

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Subject: RE: Am I overtrained?
I think it's a case of ramping things up too quickly after a layoff rather than actual "overtraining", which usually takes longer than two weeks to work yourself into. I find that swimming in particular becomes really taxing if one doesn't keep at it regularly. I just took a week off from swimming (due to a pool closure, travel back to US, and resultant jet lag), and I still don't feel back to normal in the pool after three workouts this past week. I seem to lose some of my feel for the water and become a lot less efficient. Had my a$$ handed to me at Saturday master's practice, which, like yours involved a lot of sprinting. (Maybe those coaches are in collusion?) In general for every week I take off swimming, it takes me two weeks to get back to feeling normal. And I have a swim background as a kid and teen! Also, not sure what your background in lifting is, but if you don't normally lift for an hour at a time or on back to back days, that could be taking a toll as well. Finally, if salsa and yoga aren't part of your normal routine, adding a lot of new movements on top of those that you are used to can lead to soreness and fatigue. The worst run I've had in the last five years was after a 90 minute yoga class! (All that was being offered at my workplace; I was hoping for some gentle stretching and relaxation, but it was WAY too advanced for me).

Age definitely can impact recovery but, having been at it since age 10 (45 now), in my opinion not as much as most people think. If you build up gradually, get decent rest and nutrition, and incorporate recovery into your weekly plan, I don't think there's a huge difference in ability to tolerate training, just in the speed of said training, and in ability to adapt to sudden changes (i.e. a few hours of unfamiliar activity, partying past midnight the night before a workout). If you're tired, I'd take an easy or off day, then look at how you're planning your week's activities. Haven't found that supplements are very useful (though, admittedly, I've never taken any beyond a daily multi-vitamin and calcium) but making sure to stay hydrated during/after the workout and getting in a good recovery meal or snack of protein and carbs after an intense session is useful. I find it takes longer to recover if I don't "refuel" within an hour or two after a long or hard workout.
2015-06-23 5:44 AM
in reply to: slonce5

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Subject: RE: Am I overtrained?
From personal experience...

Overtraining doesn't mean "days" of feeling rough, it is chronic.

Overreaching is possible though. What is your normal week of training like? If I were guessing (which I am) I suspect it's not 3+ hours a day of exercise like your Sat/Sun is. Might be an issue of cramming too much without proper recovery between.

Also, LB is spot on, Serum Ferritin (and Vit D for that matter) are good things to have looked at in blood work if this is recurring. First I'd look at my overall weekly training load though.
2015-06-23 8:33 AM
in reply to: Hot Runner

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Subject: RE: Am I overtrained?

Swimming does not make me so tired usually, except fast swimming. During the last Saturday we were doing many sprints.

Yoga and salsa classes feel easy to me. I’m taking yoga mostly for stretching and salsa for fun.
I do too many things during the weekend because I really like to be active and it is hard to do intense workouts during the week. I get up at 6am and I’m back from work at 6:30 pm, so I’m usually already tired when I come back from work.
I try to not to do more than an hour of exercising on weekdays.
I need to have blood work done. My mom has a severe anemia and this could be genetic.
2015-06-23 8:37 AM
in reply to: Leegoocrap

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Subject: RE: Am I overtrained?
Originally posted by Leegoocrap

From personal experience...

Overtraining doesn't mean "days" of feeling rough, it is chronic.

Overreaching is possible though. What is your normal week of training like? If I were guessing (which I am) I suspect it's not 3+ hours a day of exercise like your Sat/Sun is. Might be an issue of cramming too much without proper recovery between.

Also, LB is spot on, Serum Ferritin (and Vit D for that matter) are good things to have looked at in blood work if this is recurring. First I'd look at my overall weekly training load though.


How do I check if I’m recovered properly. I noticed that sometimes I’m out of breath when I walk 15 stairs. Usually when I’m rested I can walk 20-30 stairs easily.
That’s kind of funny. I can run 4 miles on Sunday and on Monday is hard for me to walk up a flight of stairs.


2015-06-23 8:47 AM
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Subject: RE: Am I overtrained?
looking at your HRV is a pretty good way to keep up with what's going on with your body. I use ithlete to track mine.

After seeing your last post, I highly suspect you're overdoing it sat/sun. Even things like yoga that may not seem overly "high intensity" are adding cumulative stress to your body. 3hr's a day 2x a week and then drastically less the other 5 days is not well organized training. Maybe cut an hour / hour and a half sat and sun, and add that 3 hours back in over the other 5 days (30' each weekday or so) see how you feel then. Or just cut back one day sat/sun and see how you feel monday.

Edited by Leegoocrap 2015-06-23 8:48 AM
2015-06-23 8:59 AM
in reply to: Leegoocrap

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Subject: RE: Am I overtrained?
How do you interpret your HR results? When do you measure your HR to check if you are recovered? I have a running watch with Hr. I could also just test it manually in the morning.
2015-06-23 9:35 AM
in reply to: slonce5

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Subject: RE: Am I overtrained?
HR itself is something you can track, but know that HR doesn't tell the "whole" story, HRV is a much better way to monitor.

If you have to stick with just HR... get a baseline (ideally you do this NOT while working out hard day to day) over a couple of weeks. Take your HR for a minute the same time every day (ideally first thing in the morning before any food/coffee/etc) and record it. Over those few weeks you should see a pattern. Once you are training again, watch for fluctuations greater than 6 or 7 bpm, that is often a good sign you need to back off.
2015-06-23 11:20 AM
in reply to: slonce5

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Subject: RE: Am I overtrained?
Originally posted by slonce5

Originally posted by Leegoocrap

From personal experience...

Overtraining doesn't mean "days" of feeling rough, it is chronic.

Overreaching is possible though. What is your normal week of training like? If I were guessing (which I am) I suspect it's not 3+ hours a day of exercise like your Sat/Sun is. Might be an issue of cramming too much without proper recovery between.

Also, LB is spot on, Serum Ferritin (and Vit D for that matter) are good things to have looked at in blood work if this is recurring. First I'd look at my overall weekly training load though.


How do I check if I’m recovered properly. I noticed that sometimes I’m out of breath when I walk 15 stairs. Usually when I’m rested I can walk 20-30 stairs easily.
That’s kind of funny. I can run 4 miles on Sunday and on Monday is hard for me to walk up a flight of stairs.



It's not possible to overtrain in 2 days, it's a chronic symptom, not acute as said previously.

Lots of ways if you really want to get analytical or spend $$$ to measure recovery.

The best form, sleep. It is legal PED's and if you cannot wake up at a normal time for you without an alarm that is your body saying "Hey I need to rest".

Remember all external stresses play a role on the body that many people fail to figure into the equation. You might not even think something is stressing your body when it is.

Curious to know since I didn't see mentioned, what do you eat after and in-between workouts?

2015-06-23 1:31 PM
in reply to: bcagle25

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Subject: RE: Am I overtrained?


It's not possible to overtrain in 2 days, it's a chronic symptom, not acute as said previously.

Lots of ways if you really want to get analytical or spend $$$ to measure recovery.

The best form, sleep. It is legal PED's and if you cannot wake up at a normal time for you without an alarm that is your body saying "Hey I need to rest".

Remember all external stresses play a role on the body that many people fail to figure into the equation. You might not even think something is stressing your body when it is.

Curious to know since I didn't see mentioned, what do you eat after and in-between workouts?


Unfortunately, I have been dealing with sleeping problems for most of my life. I wake up at 5:30am , but I’m not rested or refreshed.
There is no such thing like waking up refreshed and rested in my dictionary. I get 6 hours of sleep every night which is not enough , but it is a huge improvement and I feel ok after sleeping 6 full hours.
I am trying to be on a relatively low carb diet because I could lose like 10-15 pounds, but I do eat like 25 grams of carbs and some protein after a work out. During a day I try to eat between 100-150 grams of carbs per day, but Im not as strict as I used to be in the past, so Im ending up eating .like 200-250 grams a day sometimes.
I always was trying to maintain a low carb diet even when I was training for tris and half marathons and this was never an issue before.


2015-06-23 1:38 PM
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Subject: RE: Am I overtrained?
Originally posted by Left Brain

You're definitely not over trained......but you might think about having a serum ferritin test for Iron deficiency.  The test is cheap and low Iron is more common than most people who exercise think it is,  and can drastically affect your energy level.




This. Get it checked-- it's a simple blood test, but you need to ask your doctor for it.

Also make sure you are drinking and eating well after workouts. That's all you really need to worry about for recovery (plus sleep); no fancy supplements.

Edited by jennifer_runs 2015-06-23 1:39 PM
2015-06-23 2:57 PM
in reply to: slonce5

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Subject: RE: Am I overtrained?
Originally posted by slonce5



It's not possible to overtrain in 2 days, it's a chronic symptom, not acute as said previously.

Lots of ways if you really want to get analytical or spend $$$ to measure recovery.

The best form, sleep. It is legal PED's and if you cannot wake up at a normal time for you without an alarm that is your body saying "Hey I need to rest".

Remember all external stresses play a role on the body that many people fail to figure into the equation. You might not even think something is stressing your body when it is.

Curious to know since I didn't see mentioned, what do you eat after and in-between workouts?


Unfortunately, I have been dealing with sleeping problems for most of my life. I wake up at 5:30am , but I’m not rested or refreshed.
There is no such thing like waking up refreshed and rested in my dictionary. I get 6 hours of sleep every night which is not enough , but it is a huge improvement and I feel ok after sleeping 6 full hours.
I am trying to be on a relatively low carb diet because I could lose like 10-15 pounds, but I do eat like 25 grams of carbs and some protein after a work out. During a day I try to eat between 100-150 grams of carbs per day, but Im not as strict as I used to be in the past, so Im ending up eating .like 200-250 grams a day sometimes.
I always was trying to maintain a low carb diet even when I was training for tris and half marathons and this was never an issue before.



There's the kind of info we need. First thing...
6 hours isn't enough for non-active people, let alone active ones.
GET MORE SLEEP.

Your "diet" stuff is throwing warning signs off in my head as well, but I wouldn't presume to be anything close to experienced enough to give diet advice.
2015-06-24 10:25 AM
in reply to: Leegoocrap

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Subject: RE: Am I overtrained?
Originally posted by Leegoocrap

Originally posted by slonce5



It's not possible to overtrain in 2 days, it's a chronic symptom, not acute as said previously.

Lots of ways if you really want to get analytical or spend $$$ to measure recovery.

The best form, sleep. It is legal PED's and if you cannot wake up at a normal time for you without an alarm that is your body saying "Hey I need to rest".

Remember all external stresses play a role on the body that many people fail to figure into the equation. You might not even think something is stressing your body when it is.

Curious to know since I didn't see mentioned, what do you eat after and in-between workouts?


Unfortunately, I have been dealing with sleeping problems for most of my life. I wake up at 5:30am , but I’m not rested or refreshed.
There is no such thing like waking up refreshed and rested in my dictionary. I get 6 hours of sleep every night which is not enough , but it is a huge improvement and I feel ok after sleeping 6 full hours.
I am trying to be on a relatively low carb diet because I could lose like 10-15 pounds, but I do eat like 25 grams of carbs and some protein after a work out. During a day I try to eat between 100-150 grams of carbs per day, but Im not as strict as I used to be in the past, so Im ending up eating .like 200-250 grams a day sometimes.
I always was trying to maintain a low carb diet even when I was training for tris and half marathons and this was never an issue before.



There's the kind of info we need. First thing...
6 hours isn't enough for non-active people, let alone active ones.
GET MORE SLEEP.

Your "diet" stuff is throwing warning signs off in my head as well, but I wouldn't presume to be anything close to experienced enough to give diet advice.


6 hours of sleep isn't enough, especially if you are not getting quality sleep, there is a difference between 6 hours of sleep and going through full REM cycles. A good way to measure if you are getting enough sleep is to shut off the alarm once a week and see how much sleep your body needs, it does a great job of waking up when rest has been completed. These are my Sunday mornings and I always back off a little bit if I sleep in more then usual.

I would say you are overreaching yourself, NOT overtraining. Overtraining as mentioned before is a chronic symptom, not acute. But that said, here is some more to think about and ponder with regards to overtraining….

Reading and understanding your nervous system will tell you a lot more. Sympathetic overtraining is the more acute form of overtraining that is usually derived from psychological and emotional stress interacting with your training load. Parasympathetic overstraining usually stems from chronic fatigue with an imbalance of your training and recovering (i.e. too much training, not enough recovery over the long term) which is presented with an increase in vagal activity.

All the recommendations given so far have been good, the most basic measure you can do that is free and not time consuming is to measure your HR and correlate that with your RPE levels, that will help paint more of the picture at the most basic level.

That all said I think overtraining is one of the most misunderstood concepts that has turned into a very inaccurate buzzword. Most people do not reach a state of overtraining, they either just overloaded their body, or are overreaching a bit. Both of which the body can recover from quickly and adapt too, overtraining is a much more lengthy process to recover from.
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