Overtraining

The American swim coach, Mark Schubert, said that the greatest athletes are the ones who can train 'the farthest, the fastest, for the longest'.

This may seen to go against everything that we have said elsewhere. Trying to run as fast as possible? How far can you push an athlete's training before a breakdown occurs?

Your body will not be able to adapt to the training needs if it is continuously exposed to extremely high training intensity. Symptoms of overtraining or even injuries will be the inevitable consequence!

It is very important to realize that even elite athletes do train most of their time at low intensity relative to their abilities.

Signs of Overtraining

Unfortunately, no one reliable sign of overtraining exists.

  • Elevated heartrate in the morning;
  • persistent fatigue;
  • disturbed sleep pattern;
  • feeling miserable;
  • being irritable;
  • noticably longer recovery periods after workouts;
  • several bad training sessions in a row.

Avoiding Overtraining

Following a proven training schedule helps to minimize the risk of overtraining. A good training schedule will balance hard workouts, easy days and rest days and

  • increase the weekly mileage by only about 10% per week and
  • not allow for more the 10-15% of the weekly training in race like conditions, e.g. hard interval or hill workouts.

Everybody adapts differently to the training. If signs of overtraining appear

  • reduce your weekly mileage or
  • add extra rest
which might resolve the symptoms and in the long run benefit your training more than trying to push on.

The training should be guided by the correct training intensity not a fixed arbitrarily chosen pace. The sections on Heart Rate based Training Intensities and Training Intensities - the Scientific Way help making educated choices for training intensitites.



Copyright © 2009-2011 Carsten Rathsack - All rights reserved.