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2015-11-11 6:00 AM

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Subject: My experience with Overtraining
Some of you know (or have heard me whining about it a bit at least) I was diagnosed with OTS at the end of last year. I wrote about my experience with it (so far, it is unfortunately not so simple as had it now it's gone) and thought I'd share.

Questions, comments, etc I'll try to answer to the best of my knowledge

http://leegoocrap.blogspot.com/2015/11/overtraining-syndrome-ots-my...


2015-11-11 6:51 AM
in reply to: Leegoocrap

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Subject: RE: My experience with Overtraining

Thanks for sharing, Chris.

Something we see said in the forums here and on ST frequently is that AGer's aren't at risk for OTS.  I've suspected for a while that this simply isn't true, because even though most aren't doing the volume or intensity that pros do, they don't have the same genetic gifts for supercompensation, and they have other priorities in their lives that can inhibit recovery and adaptation too.  A hard driving amateur athlete who has the ability to put their head down and grind it out like you describe in your blog can be at risk.  I have a female athlete who I believe may be flirting with OTS right now.  We think we caught it in time, and I sent her to her doctor earlier this week, but I'm waiting to hear back.  It's not something to take lightly, because as your experience demonstrates, the road back is measured in months, not days or weeks.

I wish you well with your continued recovery.

 

2015-11-11 7:17 AM
in reply to: TriMyBest

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Subject: RE: My experience with Overtraining
Thanks Don,

A key misconception (my own for sure) is to think of training stress as what causes OTS. Certainly it is/can be a big contributor (Overtraining is in the name after all) but it's short sighted and plain wrong to think of the body separating stressors. Sleep, inflammation, diet, day to day life (work, family, etc) are all big contributors to daily, weekly and longer term stress. I would suspect many sedentary people could suffer from what is basically OTS and never run a day of their life. Something to consider at least.
2015-11-11 7:29 AM
in reply to: Leegoocrap

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Subject: RE: My experience with Overtraining

Chris, you and I have replied in the same OTS threads over on ST.  I too struggled with this, and like you never saw it coming.  I haven't raced since Ironman Canada in July 2014 (DNF) and have not completed a triathlon since Ironman Florida 2013.  I took a full year off from training and have been back at it the past few months.

2015-11-11 7:31 AM
in reply to: GMAN 19030

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Subject: RE: My experience with Overtraining
Originally posted by GMAN 19030

Chris, you and I have replied in the same OTS threads over on ST.  I too struggled with this, and like you never saw it coming.  I haven't raced since Ironman Canada in July 2014 (DNF) and have not completed a triathlon since Ironman Florida 2013.  I took a full year off from training and have been back at it the past few months.




It's easy to look back and say "yeah, should have seen that coming" but at the time I was blindsided too. Glad you are back at it... I can't imagine having to take double the time I took off!
2015-11-11 7:41 AM
in reply to: Leegoocrap

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Subject: RE: My experience with Overtraining
Originally posted by Leegoocrap

Originally posted by GMAN 19030

Chris, you and I have replied in the same OTS threads over on ST.  I too struggled with this, and like you never saw it coming.  I haven't raced since Ironman Canada in July 2014 (DNF) and have not completed a triathlon since Ironman Florida 2013.  I took a full year off from training and have been back at it the past few months.




It's easy to look back and say "yeah, should have seen that coming" but at the time I was blindsided too. Glad you are back at it... I can't imagine having to take double the time I took off!


Chris, you are a smart guy. Take a good look at HRV and form an opinion of whether it can be used to monitor the stress your body is under from training, diet, work and all the other factors that lead to OTS.


2015-11-11 7:47 AM
in reply to: Leegoocrap

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Subject: RE: My experience with Overtraining

Originally posted by Leegoocrap
Originally posted by GMAN 19030

Chris, you and I have replied in the same OTS threads over on ST.  I too struggled with this, and like you never saw it coming.  I haven't raced since Ironman Canada in July 2014 (DNF) and have not completed a triathlon since Ironman Florida 2013.  I took a full year off from training and have been back at it the past few months.

It's easy to look back and say "yeah, should have seen that coming" but at the time I was blindsided too. Glad you are back at it... I can't imagine having to take double the time I took off!

Hindsight is 20-20,  

Try to find the positive in the experience - The knowledge gained from it can make you a better athlete in the long run.

Something else I tell athletes, and personal training clients who are hard driving, is that more isn't always more when it comes to training and fitness.  At a certain point, we begin to apply more stress to our body than it can handle.  Once that happens, at best we're achieving smaller gains than we're capable of, and at worst we're doing the type of damage associated with OTS.  The objective should be to find the balance between stress and recovery that maximizes adaptations.

 

2015-11-11 7:51 AM
in reply to: TriMyBest

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Subject: RE: My experience with Overtraining
Agreed, more is more is a motto I've used in the past.

Looking at any other form of training, that makes no sense... you want to do enough to stimulate a positive adaption, then recover and reap the benefits... repeat.

what a lot of us do is stimulate, then keep going until we grind it away.

And I believe HRV is the future of my training.
2015-11-11 7:54 AM
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Subject: RE: My experience with Overtraining

Originally posted by marcag
Originally posted by Leegoocrap
Originally posted by GMAN 19030

Chris, you and I have replied in the same OTS threads over on ST.  I too struggled with this, and like you never saw it coming.  I haven't raced since Ironman Canada in July 2014 (DNF) and have not completed a triathlon since Ironman Florida 2013.  I took a full year off from training and have been back at it the past few months.

It's easy to look back and say "yeah, should have seen that coming" but at the time I was blindsided too. Glad you are back at it... I can't imagine having to take double the time I took off!
Chris, you are a smart guy. Take a good look at HRV and form an opinion of whether it can be used to monitor the stress your body is under from training, diet, work and all the other factors that lead to OTS.

Marc, do you use HRV to monitor stress/recovery?  I understand the principle fairly well, from sessions at personal training conferences, but haven't employed it.  Instead, we just keep an eye on subjective symptoms such as mood and fatigue as well as objective symptoms like RHR and menstrual cycles in females.

If you're using it, what technology do you use, and what's your general experience been with it?

 



Edited by TriMyBest 2015-11-11 7:58 AM
2015-11-11 8:00 AM
in reply to: TriMyBest

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Subject: RE: My experience with Overtraining

My ex ran into an OTS issue a few years ago, had doctors trying to diagnose her as diabetic.  Good news, after she rested and let her body get back to normal, she became an even better athlete having earned the lesson of rest and recovery.  Hang in there and take care of yourself!

and nice skinsuit

2015-11-11 8:15 AM
in reply to: TriMyBest

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Subject: RE: My experience with Overtraining

Originally posted by TriMyBest

Originally posted by Leegoocrap
Originally posted by GMAN 19030

Chris, you and I have replied in the same OTS threads over on ST.  I too struggled with this, and like you never saw it coming.  I haven't raced since Ironman Canada in July 2014 (DNF) and have not completed a triathlon since Ironman Florida 2013.  I took a full year off from training and have been back at it the past few months.

It's easy to look back and say "yeah, should have seen that coming" but at the time I was blindsided too. Glad you are back at it... I can't imagine having to take double the time I took off!

Hindsight is 20-20,  

Try to find the positive in the experience - The knowledge gained from it can make you a better athlete in the long run.

Something else I tell athletes, and personal training clients who are hard driving, is that more isn't always more when it comes to training and fitness.  At a certain point, we begin to apply more stress to our body than it can handle.  Once that happens, at best we're achieving smaller gains than we're capable of, and at worst we're doing the type of damage associated with OTS.  The objective should be to find the balance between stress and recovery that maximizes adaptations.

That's what got me.  I had taken a somewhat minimalistic approach to training my first few years of doing IM or 70.3 racing.  Almost qualified for 70.3 WC in 2012 on about 8 hours per week doing a typical 3x SBR per week.  I went to 4-5x SBR per week for 2013-2014, and double the training hours.  15-16 hours isn't a tremendous amount compared to some but taking into account that all my training is done in the blistering heat and humidity of Houston, TX and you can imagine the toll that it takes.  2013 went pretty well.  I trained for three IM's (Texas, Whistler, and Florida), so I was at it from Jan-Nov.  By the time I did FL my body was trashed.  So like an idiot, I basically signed up to do something similar in 2014.  It was a disaster.  My body revolted.  I went to the doctors about 30 times in 2014 (I'm not kidding).  Some of that wasn't due to OTS.  I had two bouts with epididymitis early in the year and I had open inguinal hernia surgery in November, but the other 20 doc visits related to figuring out what was wrong with me.  The initial thought was OTS but I think I talked my docs out of that one.  Like Chris said, there's no exact diagnosis of OTS.  It's sort of a nebulous and undefined problem.  My blood work was normal.  So the focus shifted to my heart.  My heart vital signs were all over the place at times so I spent about three months getting every heart test imaginable... to thankfully find out my heart was more than fine and functioning perfectly.  Focus shifted back to OTS.  Docs just told me to rest and my body would tell me when it felt better.  That took about a year.



2015-11-11 8:24 AM
in reply to: TriMyBest

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Subject: RE: My experience with Overtraining
Originally posted by TriMyBest

Originally posted by marcag
Originally posted by Leegoocrap
Originally posted by GMAN 19030

Chris, you and I have replied in the same OTS threads over on ST.  I too struggled with this, and like you never saw it coming.  I haven't raced since Ironman Canada in July 2014 (DNF) and have not completed a triathlon since Ironman Florida 2013.  I took a full year off from training and have been back at it the past few months.

It's easy to look back and say "yeah, should have seen that coming" but at the time I was blindsided too. Glad you are back at it... I can't imagine having to take double the time I took off!
Chris, you are a smart guy. Take a good look at HRV and form an opinion of whether it can be used to monitor the stress your body is under from training, diet, work and all the other factors that lead to OTS.

Marc, do you use HRV to monitor stress/recovery?  I understand the principle fairly well, from sessions at personal training conferences, but haven't employed it.  Instead, we just keep an eye on subjective symptoms such as mood and fatigue as well as objective symptoms like RHR and menstrual cycles in females.

If you're using it, what technology do you use, and what's your general experience been with it?

 




yes, I have been using iThlete since June 2014 to gather the data. I played a lot with overlaying the data with training stress metrics, good workouts, bad workouts, good sleep, hangovers, travel.....and I do believe it is a very good indicator of when your body is under stress and when it's well recovered. I know what rate of drop of TSB or CTl ramp or number of consecutive days of load will do to me.

What I don't like is the every day indication of "Green", "Amber", "Red". It can give you a false sense of being OK or can panic you. "OMG I am red and I have a 2x20 on the schedule". You can easily become myopic, But when you are in a hole, it does not lie. And if you know you're starting to get in the hole, you avoid getting in too deep. It is very much an early warning system.

I have 3 friends that I got into it and there is a correlation between performance/poor performance training load...on them as well.

So yes I do believe in it.
2015-11-11 8:32 AM
in reply to: marcag

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Subject: RE: My experience with Overtraining
Marc,

Have you tried ELITE HRV (or Sweetwater for iphones)

I had pretty poor accuracy with ithlete
2015-11-11 9:00 AM
in reply to: Leegoocrap

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Subject: RE: My experience with Overtraining

Lee - out of curiousity, and more than a casual worry about my continiously driven kid, who moves from triathlon to xc to swimming to track to triathlon season with hundreds of races, what were some of the blood markers that were used to diagnose OTS for you.  I get twice yearly Ferritin tests for him, but it's a constant vigil for me because I have seen times when he sleeps a crazy inordinant amount, or is especially crabby and edgy.  I'm constantly trying to balance what I see with his training, and what his coaches have him doing, with what I see at home......and the boogyman in his case is that he is also still growing, so that also takes a toll.

Now I have to go back in this thread and figure out what HRV is........you guys are ruthless with the information overload.

2015-11-11 9:09 AM
in reply to: Left Brain

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Subject: RE: My experience with Overtraining
The things that I would look at closely (or at least... that I DO look at now)
Ferritin and Iron
Magnesium
Vit D
Horomones (Test, specifically free test... Insulin, a full suite of Thyroid including testing T3, not just the estimation most panels do)

Of course that's not nearly exhaustive, but that's a good start (and you'll get a lot of other things to look at in a test that's looking at those things)
2015-11-11 9:10 AM
in reply to: Left Brain

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Subject: RE: My experience with Overtraining

Originally posted by Left Brain

Lee - out of curiousity, and more than a casual worry about my continiously driven kid, who moves from triathlon to xc to swimming to track to triathlon season with hundreds of races, what were some of the blood markers that were used to diagnose OTS for you.  I get twice yearly Ferritin tests for him, but it's a constant vigil for me because I have seen times when he sleeps a crazy inordinant amount, or is especially crabby and edgy.  I'm constantly trying to balance what I see with his training, and what his coaches have him doing, with what I see at home......and the boogyman in his case is that he is also still growing, so that also takes a toll.

Now I have to go back in this thread and figure out what HRV is........you guys are ruthless with the information overload.

Heart Rate Variability.  In very simple terms, when we're healthy and well rested, there is more variability in our heart rhythms.  When we're tired, sick, stressed, there is less variability between contractions.

 



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